NBVegita

Actually I would have to say Ail is right on the religion front, at least in a basic manner, concerning atheists and agnostics. Religion: 1. a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs. 2. a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects: the Christian religion; the Buddhist religion. 3. the body of persons adhering to a particular set of beliefs and practices: a world council of religions. So both do fall into the second and third definitions and fall into the first part of the first definition.

Well useful is a very vague interpretation. First let me disclaim that you all know that I'm about as religious as Sever and nearly always agree with his ideas concerning religion. Now, for your concept that only the weak follow religion, I disagree. On many levels. First, the majority of the most powerful people in history were stoutly religious, or appeared to be so. Kings, Presidents, Pharaoh's, Generals, Prime Ministers, ect. The would inject religion into many aspects of their lives and kingdoms. One idea behind this is that if you can instill the "fear of God" into a man, that is more effective at preventing crime/immoral behavior (as you mentioned above) than trying to instill the fear of fellow man into a person. Is this a requirement? Could they live without the fear of a mythical all powerful being? Sure, but if you can convince them of one, it is a great deterrent. Keeping with the concept of powerful people, keep the above list and add in priests, bishops, cardinals and the Pope (I'll focus on Christianity for now). These men used religion to control not only the masses but each other. The crusades are one example where the powerful religious controlled the powerful rulers. Manipulating religion could allow you to go to war, where it might otherwise not be acceptable, along with many other things. Now that isn't useful for the masses, in fact the masses usually catch the short end of the stick there, but it is useful for the powerful. Now as for religion being useful to the masses I would have to say it is. Religion gives those who lack faith in themselves a way, or outlet, to gain faith. For example, AA is a program that to stop alcohol addiction infuses religion into their lives. These are people that cannot, or believe they cannot, stop drinking on their own means. For those who "find religion", they end up with the faith that God will give them the strength to beat alcoholism. Faith is a powerful tool. Look at Alexander the Great, he accomplished things, that by a generous account were unrealistic against the Persians. He was very charismatic, religious and garnered the unwavering faith of his soldiers (as a whole). His campaign ended when his soldiers started doubting him. Erie coincidence, which it might well just be. Faith is a powerful tool. It is much easier for a person, who has no faith in themselves, to find faith in an all powerful being that will provide them with strength, courage, compassion, ect. than it is to try to find those very same things in yourself. It gives people an outlet to cope with death, now when you think of losing a loved one, you can think that they're going to "heaven", a utopia of bliss. If something terrible happens to you, fear not, for God works in mysterious ways. Ultimately anything that people can have faith in, that can help them in a time of need is more than useful.

Your post above does not prove anything. This author, besides being a radical religious man, which thus makes his philosophical views bias, only provides his belief that philosophically god exists. In basic logic, a statement is false if it is possible to have true premises with a false conclusion. There is no way you can argue that this argument cannot have, under any circumstances, a false conclusion. Second, his entire, paper thin, argument is based wholly on the concept that if you cannot prove that something exists does that mean it doesn't exist? By that very same argument I could philosophically validate the Greek and or roman gods and thus invalidate all of Christianity. I state again, he is stating if you believe something, then it is conditionally philosophically true, which is a complete fallacy. A perfect example of this would be a child stumbling upon a couple having sex. The child does not quite understand the actions and thinks the man is attacking the woman. The child tells authorities that the man was attacking the woman. In reality the man was not attacking the woman, but in her heart, based on her knowledge the child believed that he was. Simply because you believe something does not, scientifically or philosophically, make it true/prove your belief.

Not even tackling the if kids would be prepared to make it in the real world at 15 and 16, you want to make kids have 6 years of college instead of 4? Most parents and kids struggle with considerable debt, or can even make it through 4 years of college because of the money, now they have to do 6? If they want a masters now they have to pay for 8+? We must come from different educational systems because where I went to HS what the rest of the class did, didn't really effect your education. I would say that they problem with that is that the overwhelming majority of kids would much rather spend all day sitting around playing video games, or doing any other activity that they term "fun" instead of learning. You would have an overwhelming rate of children taking minimum wage jobs and in 4-5 years when they're tired of working awful jobs for little money, they don't have the resources or the skill sets to get better jobs.

You never did provide an example where that is false. I ask a third time. If you cannot present me with a false conclusion then I now challenge you to hold up your part of the bargain. Just in case you forgot, here is my definition(s). Spoiler! --Click here to view--In a basic Asymptote you are assuming if you take the limit of X->inf for F(x)=A that F(x), no matter how large you make the number, or small inversely, can never possibly be equal to the number A. On a basic level if you start counting from 1, you never find a number you cannot count to. Thus the concept of an indefinitely large number, or quantity, or simply infinity.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10154383/ Part of the problem was that I had started programming at 12 and when I entered college they had me learning basic programming in C. They customized the courses for students who had never programmed before ever, very similar to the way Ducky thinks it should be. I got so bored, well this should say enough; In my entire time in HS I never fell asleep in class once, not once. In college I spent more time sleeping in my computer science classes than being awake. As a joke one of my friends always used to bring a pillow into class for me. It was so sad that in my Comp Sci 201 class, attendance wasn't manditory. I showed up for the first day, 1st test, mid term, 2nd test and final. Got an A+. In every 3 hour lab I took the longest it took me to program the lab was 23 minutes. Most of that was because I was talking to other people. That is when I changed majors to the most difficult major my school had to offer. After that, programming has never been the same for me. I still do it when I have to, or when I find it useful. Also just an FYI, I didn't go to some crappy college, I went to Syracuse University.

My answer to that is college is supposed to prepare you for an advanced degree. High school is supposed to teach you basics. For example say I were to be a math major in college. Instead of a 4 year degree program I'd be in college a minimum of 6, at a very minimum of 2 years to make up for what I've missed in college, just to stay competitive with other countries who make their kids learn this stuff in school. Another answer is the majority of college students will change their major at least once before they graduate. Teaching them a good base in ALL areas allow for them to be more diversified in their backgrounds, thus giving them more options in their future. Myself for example, from the time I was 12 I was positive I was going to be a programmer. I went to college as a comp sci major. I ended up graduating in 5 years instead of 4 as a physics engineering student. The only reason I even graduated in 5 years was because of the classes I took in hs. Our education system is already failing beyond belief because we tell kids they don't need to be smart, more so even try, and that's ok. Well everyone needs someone to park their car and flip their burgers, but we can't cater a whole system to under achievers.

As a construction worker, you simply build the building, an architect designs the building. (Not meaning to belittle building the building, but the building doesn't require heavy geometry, the desining does. Let's just say that I would not want an architect who is weak on his geometry. I do agree that for most untrained jobs, which is what they are called, you don't need 90% of what you learn in school. School is there to prepare you for it you want to go further. Again we're not talking about everyday simple things, the engineers who construct bridges, airplanes, cars...ect need that information.

Lol thats been going on for a decade

I very implicitly posted the absolute mathematical proof of infinity. Ok, if you challenge my response, similar to those who have challenged yours, I give you the condition to prove that my mathematical definition is not absolute. Its basic logic, all you have to do is show me one case where my definition has a false conclusion. Actually in order for that to be true, he would have to state with/after each characteristic that those characteristic are that of a lamp, narrowing further you have to list characteristics that are singularly associated with a lamp (i.e. "All lamps have light bulbs). To do that honestly is illogical. It is much easier to simply present one case invalidating than dozens, or hundreds trying to validate. In a logic proof if you were to simply state, the quotes being my statements: This device is not a squirrel. This device has a light bulb. "My generator has a light bulb" This device plugs into a wall. "My generator plugs into a wall" This device emits light. "My generator emits light" Therefore: This device is my generator It doesn't prove that you have a lamp. In fact it was quite simply to invalidate. I mean you can keep going with your "ect." part and listing dozens of quantifiers until you can pretty much narrow it down, assuming nothing is that singularly similar to a lamp as we know it, but that is painful. To disprove it being a squirrel simply state: This device has a light bulb. No squirrels have light bulbs. Therefore: This device is not a squirrel. That is impossible to invalidate and much more simplistic. And logically it is not impossible to prove a negative.

Well I staffed in the 17th for...6 years? Somewhere in that range. Somewhere around 05-06 I retired my sysop position because I simply did not have time in my life with work, family and my now fiance. After staffing in a zone for that long it was hard to be just a regular player, plus with how busy I was I simply stopped playing continuum. Shortly after that the 17th, which was already on pace to do so because of complex, fully collapsed after having what 4 different Hsysops in a year? From there it's kinda hard to get back into the game because I helped build the 17th. I used to spend hours with Dire Wolf recruiting new population and all that. As stated with Luco I don't really find a lot of zones entertaining like I did the 17th. I can play TW, DSB, MG, ect. for a little while but then I just lose interest. SS is all about the community and the wonderful community, with all of the characters, that 17th had is either no longer there or scattered all over. Back when I started I could dedicate 8+ hours a day if I wasn't going out ect. to playing ss. That left plenty of time for hosting, dev, coding, staffing and playing. Now I'll stop in every now and then to say hi to some peeps I still know but the only realistic way I can see me spending anytime back on SS is if the 17th made a miraculous comeback.

Exactly.

First off, It's not really a move for "the good ole days" it's a simple educational concept that is sorely useful. We expect to be on the forefront of technology and engineering yet we keep pushing the fundamentals of this proficiencies away from our children labeling them either too difficult or unnecessary. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/6589301.stm is a fair example. Math proofs are only nonsensical if you either don't understand them or may never use them. The problem is how can you tell a young teenager, I took this at 13 in 9th grade, that they won't need this in their lives, or that the basics don't impact us, when you have no idea what a 13 year old kid wants to do with their lives? Logic proofs work exactly the same way as do "First order logic", as Bak put it, does. It's just showing different applications of using it, which is very important. Math tends to be the easy subject to beat up on because most people find it difficult, but it is ESSENTIAL, not just basic math, for students. I know schools like to pad their grade books and all, but sometimes you have to think about what will help the students in the long term not just what is good for the teachers and schools. Deductive geometry sets the foundation for so many things it would be a travesty to take it away. 99% of "real world" situations can be solved with the proper application of logic.

And to go along with that, you should prepare kids for any profession, not just for a select few so they have to waste time in college learning what we consider basics now.

I would say teach them both. I mean unless you're an engineer how often do you use calculus in real life? I think the lessons are better shown in multiple ways than simply one.

First, on the 8 to 25 the exact quote is: "An estimated eight to 25 attempted suicides occur per every suicide death." Thus meaning you actually have to attempt suicide. It is not attempting suicide to tie a noose hang it from the ceiling and then think maybe not. Nor is it attempted suicide to load a gun put the barrel in your mouth and then decide you don't want to pull the trigger. Now you're saying a system works simply because it's in place? I suppose that a system in place is working in the crudest sense of the word, but that doesn't mean it is working efficiently/fairly/any other way you can think of. You can't use direct statistics for this "system" because whether the outcome is positive or negative depends on your beliefs. Some people might believe that less assisted suicides is a positive while another may think the opposite. Again I would aslo state that in your opinion the system works because you believe that other should be able to dictate if we can have euthanasia or not. I would say that it should be up to each individual person, not a small group of people who may or may not have their own agenda with the situation. Thus looking at the system as it is, it does not work for my beliefs and if the system does not work for my beliefs, the system does not work to me. I believe I should have the right to euthanasia and if I wanted that right now, in my state I could not get it, thus the system has failed me. The overwhelming leading cause of suicide death is gun shot. Kinda hard to back out of that...and fail. Also could you please cite a source for this? Also I find it nearly impossible to indicate if the person "tried to back out" and failed due to the fact that the majority of suicides are committed alone. If they commit suicide and succede, you will never hear from them. In fact I would venture to say that in the majoriy of suicides it would be nearly impossible to determine after they shot/hung/poisoned/jumped from a building, if they tried to back out.

Please cite that as from: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publication...ion/index.shtml "Firearms, suffocation, and poison are by far the most common methods of suicide, overall." Hanging falls under suffocation just for clarification. So I guess it's extreme for me to mention 2 of the three largest causes of suicide? I mean it's hard to suffocate yourself without rope, short of drowning, which isn't an easy task to do alone and I'd like to see the firearm suicide that didn't involve a great mess. It's actually much less frequent that people will jump to commit suicide because A) it's more intimidating to jump off a large building/bridge/cliff than it is to kick a chair out from under your feet or pull a trigger. Unless you jump from an absurd height, you have a much better chance of survival supposed to having the rope break or the bullet somehow misses your brain. C) It's much more difficult and time consuming, to get access to an absurdly high height than it is to buy a shot gun or 5 yards of rope. That is an opinion statement. To you the system obviously works as it is in line with your beliefs. To someone who would like the option of assisted suicide the system obviously doesn't work. All systems work in this manner. The system either works or doesn't simply based on which side of the fence you're on. (For the most part.)

I agree that deductive reasoning and/or deductive geometry is sorely needed.

I would 100% agree with this stance...if they didn't suck up the welfare system. I would 100% agree with this stance if I didn't have to take any of my money and give it to them. Hell where I grew up people deliberately had kids to abuse the system. So it's not really that I would be concerned for them or their children, I'm just mad that I have to pay for their actions.

Btw...there is only so much the electric company can do to prepare for such an instance. In most cases your problem is 100% hardware related. You have transformers (and all sorts of other things I won't bore you with) in place to handle a certain load. Normally this load is configured to be a bit higher than what they plan they maximum load for your area to be. Yet again it is not significantly higher (within reason) because equipment that can support a higher load = more $. So in reality the only thing the power company could do to "prepare" for an influx of load is to change out the hardware. Good luck getting them to do that. Of course something as small as a light coming on at 9:30 on a Saturday night will be supportable. You have to figure that they handle the influx of power at 8 AM M-F and again the influx of power between 5-6 PM M-F.

No, Lynx will look like every other person in the world.

I ask you, if chronic depression isn't enough to get you realeased from a crime, so thus legally you know right from wrong, how would that stop you from being able to make a decision as to live or die? Yes depression effects you, but no more than anger or happiness does. Also I don't see why we as a people should dictate if people can take their lives or not. I just view it as a personal choice. I personally feel its better for these people to do it peacefully, than to do it painfully. Again, I do not support any involuntary euthanasia, short of someone having power of attourney over the patient. As the person with power of attourney could take them off like support and thus end their life, or do it a more humane way. Obviously with regulations. To you, maybe not. To someone else? Maybe. It is my ultimate stance that regardless of if you feel it is a good reason or not, you shouldn't have a say in the matter. The only person whom you should have a say over who lives or dies is yourself (or the situation above). Simply by taking away a peaceful method for a person to do it, because you don't believe in it, is in itself the definition of selfish. First off I didn't imply all three. the / was one or the other. Second why is that selfish? Is it not selfish that you wish her to go through months of brutal therapy, being drugged near incoherency, wracked in pain simply to spend another few months or years with her? I would say that committing suicide is the opposite of being weak. Most people will grasp on to every thread of their lives for absolute fear of death. They will do what ever possible at the inconvenience of everyone in their lives to drag out a hopeless situation longer and longer. Where as this person has simply come to terms with the fact that they will die, maybe tomorrow, maybe 3 years from now and are not afraid to die. Thats great for your friend. It is his choice. But again there is a huge difference between inoperable, and operable. There are dozens of examples to go one way or another. You seem to think that I believe anyone ill should kill themselves. I absolutely do not. I am simply stating if they want to, give them a human avenue to do it. First off why does euthanasia mean you're looking for pity? In fact I would say that it is the opposite. Also medical advances are great, but not many people can afford cutting edge technology. As for your two years, great you have blood pumping through your body for another two years...but that doesn't mean you are alive. Again my whole argument is that a person who is willing to commit suicide should have a humane way to do it. Am I saying to not have councelling set up or any of that? No. Yet if someone is determined to do it, they should have a humane and peaceful means to do it.

First, the oath you quoted is outdated, the modern oath is: Spoiler! --Click here to view--I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant: I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow. I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism. I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug. I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery. I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God. I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick. I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure. I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm. If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help. Second, what I was quoting is that I interpreted what you posted as insinuating that simply because it there were oaths against it, it meant it wasn't widely practiced. Also note that an apothecary wasn't required to take such an oath. I was simply stating that just because there are posted statements against it, does not mean it is not very wide spread. No, it should not be disregarded, but when you quote a source that contains religion, it must also be stated that most religions are stoutly against both abortion and euthanasia, thus you are not producing a neutral source. That would be tantamount to the republican party quoting Rush Limbaugh to support one of their stances. Is his opinion irrelevant? No. Is it bias? Yes. Now you are changing my position. Never have I stated that I support involuntary euthanasia, simply that I support voluntary euthanasia. If you are happy being sick/ill/disable/insert item here, so be it. My argument is that if you are unhappy with the aforementioned you should be able to have a humane and peaceful way of ending your life. You just contradicted yourself. The idea of "right and wrong" are solely based on opinion. In this case I simply stated that abortion has become more accepted, in which by legal and social standards it has. If the majority of people still believed it to be wrong, then it would be less accepted and certainly less legal. Being right and wrong are relative, it may still not be right to you, but that does not mean as a whole abortion is any less right or wrong. Maybe to you, maybe to millions of people, but there are a lot of people who don't look at it that way. I for one, have always been an active person, I love working, doing sports and being outdoors. If I could do none of that, my life would effectively end. Yes I would still have family, for which I would be a constant burden upon. Would they still love me? Sure, they're my family. Would I ever enjoy my life? Never like I used to. I wouldn't want to live never being able to hug my fiance (well eventually wife), never holding her hand. Even if we got insemination to have kids, I would grow up never being able to hold my child, play ball with my son, dance with my daughter. I mean I could go on and on and on. For some people that kind of diminished quality of life isn't worth living for. I for one, would feel that way. I'm simply stating that if you feel that your quality of life is that poor, you should have an efficient peaceful way to end your life. First off that is not how your original sentence came off. Second if they are constantly scrutinizing it, then they are not simply going by the don't fix it method. If they are constantly evaluating it, society, and those environmental factors will change it one day. Maybe to make it more strict, maybe to lessen the regulations, but it will change as we as a people change. How so? I find it hard to miscomprehend the concept of someone wanting to live or die. Personally, I may (depending on the circumstances) try to talk with them about why they want to commit suicide. Yet I do understand that some circumstances result where you really don't have much reason left to live. My Aunt recently go laid off and one of the gentlemen who got laid with her off would have, in my opinion a valid reason to commit suicide. Less than a week ago his house burned down, he lost all possessions his two dogs and his wife. Now he just lost his job, his retirement was destroyed by the economy and he has no children and only one living relative. If he was on the ledge and told me that story, I'd pat him on the back and walk away. I don't feel that as a person I have the right to dictate what another person should do with their life and that includes whether or not to live or die. Again, there are levels of pain and it's a personal choice. You are arguing this like I'm trying to legalize involuntary euthanasia. Also you can't compare arthritis to the pain that the majority of terminally ill cancer patients go through. If you can tolerate the pain and feel you have plenty to live for by all means do what you are doing. If you are in such pain that you feel it's not worth living through I support having a peaceful means of resolving the situation. Nice to know we have an MD on the forums. As stated prior there are a ton of reasons to want to kill yourself. I support it if you have a severe disability or illness. I don't support euthanizing a patient simply because they're willing to pay you. Also there is a difference from being chronically depressed and being depressed. Simply having chronic depression doesn't limit your mental capacity anymore than feeling any other emotion. You wouldn't win a court case saying the only reason I killed that man was because I was depressed. Or I shouldn't be responsible for this credit card bill because I'm clinically depressed and shopping makes me feel better. I'd much rather see someone with an illness or disability have their life ended clinically in the hospital than hear about their brains being splattered all over the sidewalk because they jumped off a building. Also from a family point of view, if my fiance had say an inoperable brain tumor and decided to commit suicide to end the pain, I'd rather see her pass away peacefully in a hospital surrounded by friends and family than come home on day to her wrist slit/her hanging from the ceiling/her brains scattered against the wall.