The Testing Chat III: The Time of Great Chatting

[evilsoup]

Just for my education, as you never know when those things might be useful...

You should have went with 'I'm writing a book'
I'm not going to become an accessory to murder, mang

[Oxymoron]

I've just seen Threads, dude.

[Oxymoron]

In unrelated new, I'm now craving for a kebab.

[adr]

bbc thing about nuclear armageddon?

i've heard of it but never seen it

[Aaron]

In unrelated new, I'm now craving for a kebab.

Fucking A

[Oxymoron]

bbc thing about nuclear armageddon?

i've heard of it but never seen it

Watch at your own risk : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MCbTvoNrAg

[Jung]

This kind of angry atheist usually strikes me as something akin to the atheist caricature that shows up in movies where a character's beliefs are relevant to the plot. Their stance is not necessarily due to genuine disbelief, but because they are angry at the (usually Judeo-Christian) god that they claim to disbelieve.

I think it's usually more anger at religious institutions and people than anger at God, though it does often seem to come with a side of "if the God these people believe in did exist, I wouldn't like Him either!"

It makes sense to me that the worst smug/evangelical atheists would often be the ones for whom atheism is a repudiation of things they previously believed. They bought into some kind of toxic religion that wasn't doing good things for them, or they had negative experiences with religious people, and for them atheism was a salvation from that or a repudiation of their abusers.

Just speaking from personal experience, I think a lot of the negativity I have/had toward religion comes from having once bought into a pretty toxic version of conservative Christianity and remembering how it made me a both unhappier and worse person.

[Civil War Man]

I think it's usually more anger at religious institutions and people than anger at God, though it does often seem to come with a side of "if the God these people believe in did exist, I wouldn't like Him either!"

I can see this. My grandmother was kind of like this. Religion caused her nothing but misery, to the point where for a while she could have been more accurately described as anti-theist. It wasn't about the existence or non-existence of God at all. She had a special kind of hate for Catholicism in particular, which not coincidentally was the religion she was raised in.

It makes sense to me that the worst smug/evangelical atheists would often be the ones for whom atheism is a repudiation of things they previously believed. They bought into some kind of toxic religion that wasn't doing good things for them, or they had negative experiences with religious people, and for them atheism was a salvation from that or a repudiation of their abusers.

Just speaking from personal experience, I think a lot of the negativity I have/had toward religion comes from having once bought into a pretty toxic version of conservative Christianity and remembering how it made me a both unhappier and worse person.

I can also see this. Even at my smuggest, I wasn't as bad as most. But I was raised in a place where a lot of people identify as religious, but tend to have more of a live-and-let-live theology than fire-and-brimstone. I mean, in the lead up to the recent same sex marriage bill, I saw a commercial that had a local Presbyterian priest talking about how good it would be for the state.

[Djinnkitty83]

I would think most angry athiests have had very few actual experiences with religions, and most of their "stupid fundie" stories stem from youtube comment battles (of course in the old days they would stem from forum excursions or newsgroups). Their anger, while surely not faked as such, is a way to ensure group cohesion, like in all other hilariously macho groups.

I'd have to agree with this. Even the most angry among those who were formerly part of another religion temper it with some understanding, because no matter how much they look down on it, they remember that they were once a part of it and have some understanding of how other people can be a part of it too. The extreme end of smugtheists, on the other hand, give off a strong vibe of a complete lack of understanding and empathy about religious fervor of almost any level.

[Oxymoron]

Even if my grandmother tried to make me a Christian, I never had any kind of firm religious belief, so I'm kind of a stranger to the whole religion thing.

Sister Three-of-Three is a practicing Catholic who chose to be baptized, and I have no problem with her. But, heh, it's my sister after all. Who would I be if I turned my back on her just because of that ?

[adr]

Watch at your own risk : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MCbTvoNrAg

thx i'll totes check it out prolly over the weekend

[Oxymoron]

Don't blame me for any nightmares.

Oh, and we're at page 103, now.

What are you waiting for, Christmas ? *crack knuckles*

[The Spartan]

In unrelated new, I'm now craving for a kebab.

Fucking A

See, now I want to be back in Munich. When I was there the nearest kebab shop was 100 meters from my hotel.

Here, it's a 30 minute drive *IF* traffic doesn't fuck me.

[Oxymoron]

They are aplenty here, but less so than in Germany I have to admit.

[Questor]

In unrelated new, I'm now craving for a kebab.

Oh, god, I would pay some serious money for good kebabs right now. The nearest good place I know of is about 45 minutes away this time of day though.

[RogueIce]

Time until Batman goes all "lol no ST loses" in Duchess' thread in 5, 4, 3...

[Gands]

Doesn't Bats usually only go after those lower on the social ladder than he?

[magic princess]

I hope someone does. I mean, I've only waited like 10 years since Attack of the Clones: ICS was published to point out the obvious fact that the Emperor has no clothes and that versus debating is boring if there isn't some kind of comparative ability between the two sides, so I kind of want to put those people in their place.

[RogueIce]

Doesn't Bats usually only go after those lower on the social ladder than he?

If that were true, he'd never go after anyone.

[Stofsk]

Doesn't Bats usually only go after those lower on the social ladder than he?

He goes after anyone he thinks he can win against.

EDIT: Marina, I read your post and one thing I'd like to add is that ST ships have displayed some high acceleration as well, which may be suitable for consideration by you. In TMP the Enterprise goes to full impulse from earth orbit and is seen in the next scene flying past Jupiter and we're told something like an hour or two has passed. In 'Best of Both Worlds' the figures are even higher, the Borg Cube was spotted by an outpost on Jupiter and Riker asked Wesley how long it would take them to reach earth at their current speed, and he said 27 mins. Extraordinarily, when the Enterprise-D drops out of warp its seen flying past Saturn and Crusher gave an ETA for their interception at 23 mins.

Also, proving itself the episode that keeps on giving, The Die Is Cast also shows high acceleration figures from the Defiant and one of the few examples of BVR combat we see in TNG era Star Trek. The Defiant covers a distance of over 50,000km in just a few seconds, and in that whole time they're being fired upon by a couple of Jem'hadar fighters.

[Ralin]

I know I'm a little late here, but speaking as someone who is both an atheist and who's generally SD.net-style anti-religion, the thing that really seals it for me is that religion, or at least most religion in our society, boils down to faith, or at least the idea that it's okay to believe things without or even in the face of evidence. And once you decide that's okay you've set yourself in a place where you could believe damn near anything and reject any argument or proof that you're wrong. That may not be so bad if you settle on believing in harmless rituals that make you more confident or relaxed or that encourage you to socialize and help the needy or whatever, but what if you just ~feel~ that Jim Jones or Scientology has the right idea? What if your family name is Phelps?

Religion isn’t always the worst thing in the world, and there are plenty of good people who do good things despite or even because of their religion, but as long as that’s the sort of thinking that it’s built on I feel justified in saying that it’s a Bad Thing overall and that it deserves to be mocked and criticized when possible. I recognize that means coming off as a dick sometimes or even a lot of the time, but some things are worth being a dick over, and I think this is one of them.

[magic princess]

Doesn't Bats usually only go after those lower on the social ladder than he?

He goes after anyone he thinks he can win against.

EDIT: Marina, I read your post and one thing I'd like to add is that ST ships have displayed some high acceleration as well, which may be suitable for consideration by you. In TMP the Enterprise goes to full impulse from earth orbit and is seen in the next scene flying past Jupiter and we're told something like an hour or two has passed. In 'Best of Both Worlds' the figures are even higher, the Borg Cube was spotted by an outpost on Jupiter and Riker asked Wesley how long it would take them to reach earth at their current speed, and he said 27 mins. Extraordinarily, when the Enterprise-D drops out of warp its seen flying past Saturn and Crusher gave an ETA for their interception at 23 mins.

Also, proving itself the episode that keeps on giving, The Die Is Cast also shows high acceleration figures from the Defiant and one of the few examples of BVR combat we see in TNG era Star Trek. The Defiant covers a distance of over 50,000km in just a few seconds, and in that whole time they're being fired upon by a couple of Jem'hadar fighters.

That's a good point. Unless you really bend the subspace rationalizations your way as hard as you can, that pushes a firepower comparison as being more favourable. OTOH if we assume roughly equal missile weapon expenditures (flak bursts + heavy warheads for Star Wars vs. Quantum torpedoes for Star Trek), the typical ISD has 1.5 times the firepower per-tonne of the typical Alpha/Beta quadrant ship even so, so a 1:1.58 ratio in favour of Wars versus a 1.26:1 ratio in favour of Trek if you were to pretend an ISD has no projectile weaponry.

Now, the Trek figure could technically be lower because of the nuclear disruption field effect, but I don't think so. Also the Star Wars figure could also be lower because my ISD energy output calculations assume Ion cannon of equal power and effect to the equivalently sized turbolasers: This may not be the case. If we accept both of those are essentially washes (ion cannon may also take MORE power but still be valued for their ability to disable rather than destroy) then we're left with the idea that, say, three ISD-IIs could defeat the Tal Shiar/Obsidion Order fleet in TDIC, but two ISD-IIs could be overwhelmed by it.

And that's pretty fun odds to write a story around.

[Oxymoron]

Watched Army of Darkness.

I see why it has "cult movie" status.

Ash can only speak in hollywoodian one liners

[adr]

god that's a great film

[Civil War Man]

I hear that the idea behind it was that after the first two Evil Deads failed so hard at being serious Raimi just said "Fuck it" and embraced the camp.