January 2011
109 posts
1 tag
“This guy at my old church, at my old uhm, Korean church, he was, he was SO FAT,...”
– little 6 yr old girl at my Korean church
Some people are attractive, but everyone is...
“‘I’m sure that if you put any two random strangers in a room together and got...”
– Nick Hornby, Juliet, Naked (via ellask)
“Fools”, said I, “You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words...”
– Simon & Garfunkel (via emiwolfe)
“If Sarah Palin were black, her daughter’s out of wedlock, “baby daddy drama”...”
– If Sarah Palin Were Black (via azspot)
Just goes to show how far Palin’s whiteness can take her. Zero intellect, two high school drop-outs, an unwed teen mother, a quitter of the one major job she had. Master of hateful coded language targeting opponents as not “real Americans”. Belongs to a church...
This girl really is serious. PLEASE DON'T JUST...
laurenlikesairplanes-:
http://kissmeonthe-sidewalk.tumblr.com/
http://kissmeonthe-sidewalk.tumblr.com/
http://kissmeonthe-sidewalk.tumblr.com/
http://kissmeonthe-sidewalk.tumblr.com/
PLEASE REBLOG. IT CAN SAVE A LIFE.
DON’T JUST SCROLL PAST THIS.
IT’S NOT TOO LATE TO HELP.
TUMBLR HAS DONE THIS BEFORE, PLEASE REBLOG.
3 tags
“Lauren… this Calculus BC class… it makes me not feel Asian anymore!”
– a devastated Henry Lee
Lice.
Mom: take that hat off. It's annoying me.
*I take it off and start messing with my hair to stop the hat-hair*
Mom: That's because of the hat. You should wash that thing.
Me: It's Johnathan's.
*long pause*
Mom: ~THE LOOK~
(the look of shock and near-disappointment and more shock)
Mom: How can you trust him?
Me: What?
Mom: Come here.
Me: What?? No, stop!
Mom: *immediately checking my hair* WHAT IF HE HAS LICE?
Senioritis.
An Atheist Professor of Philosophy was speaking to...
Professor: You are a Christian, aren’t you, son?
Student: Yes, sir.
Professor: So, you believe in God?
Student: Absolutely, sir.
Professor: Is God good?
Student: Sure.
Professor: My brother died of cancer, even though he prayed to God to heal him. Most of us would attempt to help others who are ill. But God didn’t. How is God good, then? Hmm?
(Student was silent)
Professor: You can’t answer, can you? Let’s start again, young fella. Is God good?
Student: Yes.
Professor: Is Satan good?
Student: No.
Professor: Where does Satan come from?
Student: From.. God.
Professor: That’s right. Tell me son, is there evil in this world?
Student: Yes.
Professor: Evil is everywhere, isn’t it? And God did make everything. Correct?
Student: Yes.
Professor: So who created evil?
(Student didn’t answer)
Professor: Is there sickness? Immortality? Hatred? Ugliness? All these terrible things exist in the world, don’t they?
Student: Yes, sir.
Professor: So, who created them?
(Student had no answer)
Professor: Science says you have 5 senses you use to identify and observe the world around you. Tell me, son.. have you ever seen God?
Student: No, sir.
Professor: Tell us if you have ever heard your God.
Student: No, sir.
Professor: Have you ever felt your God, tasted your God, smelt your God? Have you ever had any sensory perception of God, for that matter?
Student: No, sir. I’m afraid I haven’t.
Professor: Yet you still believe in Him?
Student: Yes.
Professor: According to empirical, testable, demonstrable protocol, Science says your God doesn’t exist. What do you say to that, son?
Student: Nothing. I only have my Faith.
Professor: Yes, Faith. And that is the problem Science has.
Student: Professor, is there such a thing as Heat?
Professor: Yes.
Student: And is there such a thing as Cold?
Professor: Yes.
Student: No, sir, there isn’t.
(The Lecture Theatre became very quiet with this turn of events)
Student: Sir, you can have lots of heat, even more heat, superheat, mega heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat. But we don’t have anything called cold. We can hit 458 Degrees below Zero which is no heat, but we can’t go any further after that. There is no such thing as cold. Cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of Heat. We cannot measure cold. Heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it.
(There was a pon-drop silence in the Lecture Theatre)
Student: What about darkness, Professor? Is there such a thing as darkness?
Professor: Yes. What is night if there isn’t darkness?
Student: You’re wrong again, sir. Darkness is the absence of something. You can have Low Light, Normal Light, Bright Light, Flashing Light… But if you have No Light constantly, you have nothing and it’s called Darkness, isn’t it? In reality, darkness isn’t. If it is, You would be able to make darkness darker, wouldn’t you?
Professor: So what is the point you are making, young man?
Student: Sir, my point is, your Philosophical Premise is flawed.
Professor: Flawed? Can you explain how?
Student: Sir, you are working on the Premise of Duality. You argue there is Life and then there is Death, a good God and a bad God. You are viewing the concept of God as something finite, something we can measure. Sir, Science can’t even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully understood either one. To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing. Death is not the opposite of life, just the absence of it. Now tell me, Professor, do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?
Professor: If you are referring to the Natural Evolutionary Process, yes of course, I do.
Student: Have you ever observed Evolution with your own eyes, sir?
(The professor shook his head with a smile, beginning to realize where the argument was going)
Student: Since no one has ever observed the Process of Evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavor, are you not teaching your opinion, sir? Are you not a Scientist but a Preacher?
(The class was in uproar)
Student: Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the Professor’s brain?
(The class broke out into laughter)
Student: Is there anyone here who has ever heard the Professor’s brain, felt it, touched or smelt it? .. No one appears to have done so. So, according to the established Rules of Empirical, Stable and Demonstrable Protocol, Science says that you have no brain, sir. With all due respect, sir, how do we then trust your lectures?
(The room was silent. The Professor stared at the student, his face unfathomable)
Professor: I guess you’ll have to take them on Faith, son.
Student: That is it, sir.. exactly! The link between man and God is Faith. That is all that keeps things alive and moving!
That student was Albert Einstein.
I've seen this story many times, and I feel that it is my responsibility to speak out against it. First off, this is obviously false, because the arguments the projfessor makes are the most easily torn down ones. Second, the professor doesn't respond to the student, so it's obvious that he's a straw-man. Third, some of the arguments are just blatantly wrong.
In fact, there IS a such thing as cold. It's defined as the sensation you feel when an object that is lower than your temperature comes into contact with you. THAT is cold. It is not defined by the absence of heat, merely a distinction between the levels of heat.
Darkness is the perception you have when there is insufficient light striking your retinas in order to create a visual image, not the absence of light completely.
Now, defining these two terms provides a very important idea; that we can define absence IF AND ONLY IF we have concretely defined existence. To put it simply, we have proven and accepted that heat and light exists. Cold and darkness only exist because we have conclusively proven them to exist. On the other hand, you cannot prove that anything is due to the workings of a deity or God or whatever supernatural being you wish, and thus, cannot base his existence on the absence of seeing his actions.
The argument on God's duality is inherently contradictory. If this God isn't good, then there is no reason for us to follow him blindly. If he IS good, then we must follow him blindly, although the existnece of such misery in human life is very proof that he is not. This is a totally different argument, and I invite someone to challenge it if they don't understand, but I'll assume we accept it for now.
As to the argument about evolution: actually, we've observed evolution many many many times. Bacteria cultures are the most readily seen examples of bacteria. When most of a petri dish of E. Coli dies due to the introduction of an antibiotic, but then a few cells survive due to genetic mutations and continue to divide and survive in a medium with the aformentioned antibiotic, it is called evolution. It is in fact empirically proven millions of times, and any argument that it's not conclusively proven is outdated and completely false. Also, in order to head off anybody that pulls out the "It's only a theory" card does not understand the concept of theories and theorems in science. In science, theory is defined as "an explanation of reality that has been thoroughly tested so that most scientists agree on it." Now, evolution is a theory that has NEVER (read that NEVER) been disproven. There is absolutely no evidence of intelligent design, aside from "OH MY GOD THAT'S COMPLICATED SOMEBODY SMART MUST HAVE MADE IT." -__- Explanations like that make me sad.
Now, as for the argument about the brain. Under inductive reasoning, every human body has a brain. Through experiments, we have found that every time someone is missing their brain (through injury, birth defect, or something like that) dies. Now, since the professor is human, and because he is obviously alive, the natural conclusion is that he has a brain. This is valid reasoning that is non-dependent on empirical evidence. It's also how we make conclusions FROM experiments. To say that we need to empirically view everything we say is true means that we would be incapable of making inferences from experiment. All we would be able to say is "In this instance at this time with these conditions, this happened." And that would be it. However, science and logic is obviously not bound by this constraint, and is free to make statements and conclusions about a general set of conditions because of their validity.
Now, the difference between faith and logic, is that there is no premise upon which we can base the existence of a supernatural deity or being. According to our knowledge, there has never been an instance where the laws of the universe have been VIOLATED. Perhaps, they have defied our ABILITY TO EXPLAIN, but NEVER, NEVER has it ever violated our understanding of the universe. Matter has never been created or destroyed, and neither has energy. Opposites charges always attract each other, and similar charges always repel each other. There is no evidence of intelligent design, because 1- animals, plants, and humans do not remain exactly the way they were from whenever we think God existed and 2- evolution has been observed and is a viable explanation.
I foresee this argument too, and am going to head it off early. Those who say that evolution could explain change, but that God must have created the first cell to advance evolution, clearly underestimates the power of time and statistical probability. First, recognize that evolution has happened for BILLIONS of years. To put this in perspective, remember what you did yesterday (every single detail). Remember the last week. The last month. The last year. The last decade. At which point where you incapable of remembering every detail? And at which point did you feel that the times you were trying to remember weren't THAT long, even though they were exponentially longer than the previous one? The human brain has difficulty COMPREHENDING a period of time that lasts for billions of years. And in those billions of years, every atom, molecule, or compound (each of which is in constant, perpetual motion) had the ability to rearrange themselves into different structures. Eventually, it makes sense that the first, most primitive of self propogating life was merely a result of a random arrangement of molecules and atoms.
Now, this isn't a tirade against religion. I think that religion is great for people that need it, as it provides a reason for them to live their lives better. But it does not disprove science. And it should have no effect on laws, science, education, or anything besides personal religion. Religion was the reason why Galileo was killed for his absolutely-correct hypothesis that the Earth revolved around the sun. Religion is not how we progress as a species- SCIENCE is.
For Realization.: I want to know what goes through... →
blurrypicturesandunclearsounds:
Well, it’s pretty simple.
First, he sees her. Obviously, this is where it all starts. Sometimes, he’s struck by her, and how she catches his eye and seems to light up the entire room. How she’s easily the most beautiful girl there. Sometimes, it’s slow. He doesn’t realize it at first, but it…
““People where you live,” the little prince said. “grow five thousand roses in...”
– The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery (via thechocolatebrigade)