ENOUGH IS ENOUGH, I HAVE HAD IT WITH THESE MOTHERFUCKING SNAKES ON THIS MOTHERFUCKING PLANE.

that movie is gay. Gremlins >>

that movie is our god.

same old journals on ESR

Yeah, what's that old adage, "teenages think they've seen it all".

I sympathise with what you're saying though, I sometimes feel like there aren't really any new people out there to meet; When people are talking I just zone out because what they're saying is, to all extents and purposes, exactly what I've heard before. No one really wants to discuss anything important, beyond their current ideas for clothes purchasea or weekend plans, it's all repetitive.

But I think it's the internet which ruined things; when you're talking to someone on the internet, they don't seem real, they don't even seem like a person, it's a reciprocal for thoughts and ideas, that sometimes replies with a questions or insight that, ultimately, you would have come up with on your own.

Anyway, yeah, life is quite boring. Maybe i'll tie a rope around my waist and climb a large rock to liven things up a bit.

BLAME THE INTERNET FUCK

Among other things, the internet does tend to remove you from reality.

OH, thanks for enlightening me about that, now i understand what you mean, thanks for that fruitful reply.

nah, really, i don't know what you are saying, help me out here..

I mean, you become dissassociated to people. When you're on the internet, the other person doesn't seem to matter; you can't see their reaction, you can't see whether they're hurt or happy: from your refference frame they don't exist as a person, that changes a bit if you meet them though. But I thin the danger is that some of that apathy towards humanity transfers over into real life, and you become more detatched from what's really going on, you begin to forget that other people think just like you. I mean, this might just be my person experience, but that's what I meant.

that's your experience aye, i become more detached from reality irl than i do online.. if you never meet peope that WANT to challange what you yourself think you become .. elevated from the ground, you just float around in the air thinking about stuff you imagien you are the only one thinking about -- quick tour on the internet reveals quite the opposite.. no biggie to turn that personal experience of yours on its head in my case at least.

i guess some people are more social than others.. that was my imidiate thought, some people seem to relie more on others.. I know this is not very scientific, but do you know your myers briggs personality type? would be interesting to see if there is any connection there :]

I've never heard of that no.

I think you're right to some extent, thinking about it more deeply. The conversations I have online always seem to be about more interesting issues, people in real life seem content to discuss boring aspects of their own lives, and that doesn't really interest me. It's possibly to do with the medium more than actualy people, you can cherry pick your conversations and choose to ignore innane chatter; you have more time to think and comprehend and forumulate an opinion; and words appear to acquire more value when they're written down: it's like you have to say something that could atleast be considered as meaningful.

I guess I'm not a social animal, atleast in a normal setting; when I'm out drinking I can normally hold an interesting conversation, or atleast what I consider intresting ;oP, for extended periods of time; but when I'm sitting in school I prefer to just stick to myself. I'm probably just sociopathic or something, perhaps i'll become a unibomber or axe-murderer - It'd be an interesting career atleast.

Yup, i didn't think you were too social either, you just spoke like it! if that makes sense..

anyways, take this test http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes1.htm

it's quite "fruitful" ... I'm guessing you are an INTP!

Your Type is
INTP
Introverted Intuitive Thinking Perceiving
Strength of the preferences %
67 38 1 11

Yee.. I'm an INTP myself, i think it's quite easy to recognize us, at least between ourselfs ;D

I've seen stats that there are only about 2% of the population with that type, so there you go, hooray for the internet ^.^

there you have it .. no "sociopath", just intp :D

btw, jabb0r and primax are as well, so look out for them - *hihi*

INTP

78 25 12 56

hehe ofc, only an intp would read through all that shit ;D

http://jerome013.free.fr/files/Tsu.jpg

i'd plus you if i were logged in

1800-SUICIDE

Endi: Kind of the quip!

Reality is like that. That's why weak people who can't stand it are easily brainwashed to believe in religion and all things idiotic.

It isn't weak to follow religion, to not question it is the true weakness. Religious people can be some of the friendliest and well balanced people you'll ever meet, but they got that way by questioning their faith, not following it blindly.

how can you question your faith and still believe it? LOLSTUPID - OR - LOLILIVEBLIND

You question it, find a problem, then attempt to rationalise the problem. Aren't you supposed to be studying philosophy? Or are you trying the new "Act as stupid as I feel" technique, if so, I think it's working.

Nono, this is me beeing serious, i usually understand people in even the most stupid ideas but i guess you just have to be brainwashed from birth to be able to understand how to believe in these religions floating around. I laughed my ass of in kindergarden when people said to me there was a man living in the sky watching me and that there was this guy named jesus, JESUS. I really can't understand it.. Help me out here if you wanna say something more than i just commented on.

It's like.. If someone told you someone else believed in a flying teapot the size of .. earths core orbiting earth and there was no evidence except this book this one dude wrote, would you still respect him if he "questioned his faith" and "rationalized it" ? I don't think so.. and that's the way i cannot help but see the situation..

and no, this is not talk about DEISM, this is belief in these religions peple supposedly believe in... and all that entails.

Yeah, I've heard the t-pot analogy before, Dawkins used it on some chat show or something. Guess someone else had written it first.

I don't understand religion either, but to me the idea of a God does make sense; the idea of a God who judges, cares, watches or who is moral, however, I can not even begin to comprehend. Sometimes I think about everything being made up of subatomic particles, and I get so caught up in the why that an underlying intelligence seems to be the only option.

Religious people have something that you and me, and every non-believer, by definition, will never have: faith. They can't explain what it is, but the can expain how it makes them feel; ostensibly it gives them the confidence to claim, outright, that there is a God. I think to properly understand religion, you need to have some form of faith, to understand it at it's core. Equally, for a religious person to understand your position, they would need to relinquish their faith. The reason you can't get to God through evidence is unclear, but it's obvious that you can't; he is transcendant, without time, eternal, he cannot be "experienced" in scientific terms: but faith, to the religious believer, is the experience, it is the proof. WIthout faith, you can no more prove God exists to yourself than you could prove gravity without things attracting each other.

Yeah, Religion is complex, but my point in the previous post was that the weak people, the people that we seem to hate, are those who never question their faith or teaching: they accept it blindly. The lights of the religious world do quesitons their faith, they ask "How can a perfectly good God exist, when evil exists in the world", "How can we be free, and yet maintain God's omniscience". By asking these questions, by being a philosopher, you can begin to comprehend both sides of the argument.

Yes, we agree on many points only i think the t-pot analogy which has been used all over the place is quite good refering to belief in an, as you said impossible to comprehend, personal god with respect to questioning faith. I don't see where you get your respect from.. what's to respect about an opinion rooted in nothing.. and what's more to respect about an opinion rooted in nothing but subject to questioning? do they not ammount to the same thing?

it's almost like the difference between those who do not understand and those who do not want to understand. it's difficult .. :\

There are some scientific theories that people had belief in; that the earth was flat for instance. Now this belief was strong, and even in the face of evidence some people still refuse to believe that the theory is not correct (there is still a flat earth society), these are the people who are dangerous: those who will not question. I do not neccessarily respect the idea of a personal God, but I do respect the people who, faced with a strong well rooted belief, are still willing to question themselves and the belief.

Religious zealots, who do not question, are the people who do not deserve respect; but religion, in so far as it is practised with the critical eye, is hardly a bad thing. I do not understand how someone can believe in a personal God, but I can respect the process of accepting and questioning that belief.

Well i think in true questioning you as best as possible try to avoid these cognitive biases at least,

Confirmation bias - the tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions.

Disconfirmation bias - the tendency for people to extend critical scrutiny to information which contradicts their prior beliefs and accept uncritically information that is congruent with their prior beliefs.

Myside bias - the tendency for people to fail to look for or to ignore evidence against what they already favor

Self-fulfilling prophecy - the tendency to engage in behaviors that elicit results which will (consciously or subconsciously) confirm our beliefs.

Which rarly holds for any person in some regular faith, even if questioning.

I think those hold for almost everyone, to eliminate all bias would be quite an achievement. You are biased towards a position of non-belief, so an ontological or cosmological argument would do nothing to convince you firmly that God exist. To someone with faith, who already believes in God, those arguments would serve to affirm what they already believed.

Who is in the right? The believer of the non-believer? I believe we're back to our original question about the existence of God.

Wrong. Remember the flying teapot? Exactly. Lets keep the discussion apart here.. You have those believing in a personal god that changes the world around you twisting science and you have the people who are..

Deists:
1.belief in the existence of a God on the evidence of reason and nature only, with rejection of supernatural revelation (distinguished from theism).
2.belief in a God who created the world but has since remained indifferent to it.


Besides you are wrong in TWO-siding the issue. Believer can account for the infinite number of beliefs while non-belief is simply rejecting all that you don't think has a basis in reality. It's like i can say i'm 99.9% muslim because i reject 999 of the 1000 religions he rejects only i also reject the last one.

I confused Deism with Theism, sorry.

But the Personal relationship with God is simply an extention of the idea of God. If God is the creator of us, the universe, earth, then it seems difficult to seperate him from us, and thus we must have some form of relationship with him. What that relationship is, can not be found in science, it is religions realm.

If that's what you can't accept, that there's no scientific evidence for formulating a theory about our relationship with a God, then I can fully understand: there isn't supposed to be. As for twisting science etc, yes, some type of religious folk do that, most try to encorporate a scientific view into their beliefs. It's difficult to accept, that someone could believe something that appears to be removed from fact, but it does happen; and I wouldn't call them idiots.

Ofcourse, you can think of religious people as idiots, that they lack reason and critical thought: I've said that to my teacher many times; but they will always retort with something whymsical description of faith.

I think philosophy gave up trying to prove the existence of a personal God a long time ago, it seems to be beyond the scope of language and thought; the main focus seems to be on justifying current believes, making them make sense: perhaps that what you were reffering to, and I agree, from a scientific view, it seems idiotic, but we have to remember that we do not have "faith".

Deism as you described it seems to be a red herring, I don't believe it's truely possible to prove without a doubt that a God exists, I don't think it's within the realms of science.

looks like the both of you agree on the journal topic :P

"Ok" Mr.RAGNAROK .. the only thing boring around here is you. HEHE!

I think i misunderstood deism, what i meant was basically this:

Now lets take the clock example for reference. Lets say we live inside a clock that works, now some may say that it's random and that it's just the way reality is, while others could claim that this has been made by someone or something; both these are just ways of looking at the same thing.. You can belive in one or the other and still achknowledge either way that you are not sure of either view or if there is some other option. Now these are the views i find reasonable, the others seem as, as you say, puny atempts to reconcile reality with their prejudices about how the world is.. I know i'm victim of this myself in some sense, but degrees of sillyness :P

nah, just forget it .. it's silly to even think that someone or something has made it or designed it.. it's just going one step out to explain something unexplainable with adding another unexplainable part :\

i give up on this discussion, was fruitful thus far i think but now i'm too tired :\

I agree, people get religious because life is so repeatitive, nice work einstein :)

uh, like what?

like physical laws that just do their thang and shit.. reductionism ftw!

Boring bullshit with no meaning whatsoever.

1. We're born
2. We go to school *
3. We get a full time job *
4. We get married *
5. We get children *
6. We retire *
7. We die

* some people don't experience this

A cycle of absolute bullshit indeed.

aha, a religion argument, thought it had been at least 2 days since the last one, was getting worried guys! i dont want you all slacking

Some of us can't get our thrills from kicking dird!

let's ask Sujoy to make a "kick/ban dird - option" available to every user

More relaxing than 8 shots of dird's favourite heroin.

heroin or heroine? :P

Whichever floats your boat more!

Bohemia nou!

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=suicide

if there's something strange, in the neighborhood, who ya gonna call? emobusters!

if you're gonna kill yourself i've heard DMT is something to try before you die.

besides, how about beeing creative, pushing yourself to your limit.. maybe you won't "make" something original or new but if you exert yourself to the fullest you have no brainpower left to think about how conventional it is!!

it's kinda hard to evaluate your situation w0rtel, without knowing what your average day consists of, or what music you listen to etc.

sure everything gets boring after a while, but if you wait long enough, it will seem interesting again. take pizza for instance, some weeks i feel like it and it satisfies me greatly, other weeks i don't feel like it at all. just give things time, it may even take a couple of years for things to come around again.

you should take up something like skateboarding or bmx, something creative that still has a constantly flowing input of innovation.

the things you complain about don't really apply to me though...i haven't watched a movie in years, i don't meet new people, don't enjoy new games (anticipating Wii though), never tried drugs, haven't drank in 2 years. the other two things you mention are probably what keeps me going the most, new and brilliant music is always out there, it's just a hassle having to sift through the shit to find something you like. www.last.fm is a pretty good help, and usually on DC++ if i download an album from someone, i queue up something else that i've never heard of before. the new places issue comes back to bmx/skateboarding for me, i've been riding in my suburb for about 10 years now, and no matter how boring and familiar the place looks, the progression of yourself will make it interesting again. the rails i used to see as impossible are now useful.

and there's always the undying urge to find a soulmate, who would make even the most boring of boring things seem ok.

I agree with you on the music part. I was also bored with it all, when Riders on the storm and whiskey bar reach 500 listens you know you need something new(<3 Jim Morrison). Thanks to my irc buddy ive discovered quite an array of new mucis, chillout, blues, celtic, so much so that I tried getting something ive never even tried listening before, Ladysmtih Black Mambazo Chillout Sessions, which is awesome imo.

But ya when you get bored in Stellenboch, I think you have just overdone everything imo. I am also bored of the same old campus and clubs. I suggest maybe a wine tour or a bakkie braai. Then thankfully summer is starting == girls in short skirts \:D/ and Stellies is not to far from the sea(beach whateva).

So hopefully summer will bring change.

A few photos of our town/campus:
The streets next to the uni buildings:
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f92/Dafari/DSCI00733.jpg

A few of the center of campus and the underground library:
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f92/Dafari/jsgbib1.jpg

The NeelsieL where we eat and watch sport/music vids on big screen also a few shops and bank branches and a small cinema in here:
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f92/Dafari/neelsie1.jpg

airial shot of the campus and resses;
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f92/Dafari/res7.jpg

A view of town: uni buildings right hand corner:
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f92/Dafari/s5.jpg

then start of each year we have what we call Jool, basically carnival that last from one week till the next year depending on how serious you are on ure studies :P :
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f92/Dafari/...r20020.jpg

Maybe you need to try something new? I mean, something you would never normally do. Go wrestle crocs, walk across Asia or meet a girl who likes kinky things.

Listen to Tool.

Come to india theres always something fresh here :)
you can wrestle crocs,walk across asia,try shitloads of religion and mysticisim,listen to indian bands play covers of tool and have drugs named after your anal orifice[crack]

life is as interesting and exciting as you make it.

mine is rather dull and I am to blame.

sounds like you have a more interesting life than me.... we can swap if you want :P (washing,ironing,dusting,hoovering,making beds) same old routine every day ... geez life is what you make it... it COULD be worse ;)

no sex?

no :P

Everytime you call it hoovering James Dyson dies a little inside!

Quit smoking pot can be a good start you lazy hippy.

yeah, start working for that heroin already.

mushrooms should take you on a nice trip also.

go to see a movie, no matter what I've seen it 100 times before (same predictable plot every time), actors and setting is just different

That's because you're going to the cinema to watch your movies. Try a couple of these and maybe they'll convince you to seek out some less mainstream films:

Primer (2004)
Waking Life (2001)
Bernie (1996)
Following (1998)

Even if you've seen every Western film you could care to name there are always gems out there in the foreign cinema field which you won't have gotten to yet. The French and Asian cinema markets in particular have some fantastic films which never see the light of day over here.

go back packing around the world, sure you might have to work shitty jobs and be around people that stink of shit, but I would imagine it's one of the best experiences you can have in the long run.

kill yourself.