If they aren't reading my e-mails I'd be greatly depressed. Help a fellow tf2'er out :p

came for the bball stayed for the Moh:AA video frags lol.

http://www.postersandprintsblog.com/storage/tom%20burns%20communist%20party.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1389383297440

There's a pretty solid chance that he may be worried that it *will* be legal.

So take the money and run. Those green pipes that appear periodically may drawn a certain company's attention pretty quickly lol.

Coalplant or metalworks either would make me happy.

I use ~a 5 inch 360 - pretty much have for the last 1 1/2 years.

@pine in #90 (yes I hate using quote functions because in just creates more shit to read).

See philosophically speaking there are essentially two basic approaches. One, the materialist conception of reality, posits that there is absolutely no unknowable truth - truth exists objectively. The way one comes to know the truth is by perceiving it directly or at least having the capability to perceive it directly utilizing the senses - for example I personally have never observed a neutron but I can believe, reasonably, that they exist because of the overwhelming evidence that they do in fact exist and could be observed directly. That's not to say there are things which are unknown - but something being unknown is quite different from something being unknowable.

Alternatively, in an idealistic approach to reality, there are unknowable truths and mystical forces at work in the world - or at least things beyond human perception and are thus unknowable. Which is frankly farcical because you then resign to living purely in your own mind where your perceptions of reality are based on primarily self-admitted illusion as such or are the product of some other being's fancy.

While I personally have absolutely no faith in religions to explain the natural world in any way shape or form, I respect that certain individuals find a degree of solace or pleasure living within its ideological constructs, communities, and illusions and sometimes wish I could do the same. It's not a question of being angry or seeing myself as being superior to someone who regards their senses and minds as being incapable of understanding their surroundings. The fact of the matter is, is that there must be objective truth or we live purely in an illusion - which, based on the fact that reality seems quite real to me and I've never been given a reason to think otherwise (unlike some Cartesians and their affinity for assuming everything is a dream) truth must exist and if it exists it is unknowable.

The reason this debate was so comical is because Nye was easily able to attack Ham on his misuse or outright ignorance of objective truth - which in my earlier postings I said Ham ought to have taken care to avoid at all costs (he did not) which calls into question his entire ideological system.

Do I want to change peoples way of thinking? Yes. That's the entire point of ideology - to change your reality and to understand how and why things/events occur.

So.... There's no objective truth? That's a pretty profound opinion you've got there :p

@shocka

Interestingly enough I've been an atheist pretty much my whole life - I think I've been physically in a religious building less than 10 times - and almost all of them were for the sake of somebody I was dating encouraging me to "try it" (and I totally gave in because I tend to like women folk enough to suppress some of my convinctions) lol. I started dabbling in theology in college because I would get bored so you may as well do some fun thinking, and also because the head of the theology department was a bad ass.

While I understand perfectly well that atheism is simply a rejection of theistic systems generally, I generalized by saying that, generally, these atheist vs. theist debates, typically boil down to the atheist presenting an ideological system which is, in form, theism, although its substance is different. If a person is to reasonably reject thousands of years of human history and cultural tradition, they will generally justify that rejection by formulating or adopting an ideological system which, in many cases, simply replaces theism with some other sort of system which creates a God-like apparatus in lieu of God.

This theistic atheism is the whole reason "intelligent design" is being pushed by some theists because, in many cases, especially with the way evolution is taught to young people, it is presented as a pervasive and quasi-positive force which exists, for all intents and purposes, beyond time and life. So it is indeed quite simple to substitute a pervasive quasi-benevolent evolutionary force for a divine intelligence because they're, in form, the same thing. I could extrapolate further as to why this is the case (because the desire for God and a "unique place in the universe" or whatever other cliche you like come from the same source ideologically), but I rather not write a small book lol.

Luckily for Bill, most of Ham's arguments were so silly he didn't even have to get into presenting a nontheist viewpoint beyond Kant's "cannot prove or disprove" thesis.

stilll lookin'

I went into this expecting it to be pretty shit. But was pleasantly surprised.

I got kind of a laugh that Ham kept resorting to an elementary debate tactic that you'd get out of page one of the "idiots guide to debate." That is, 'control the definition of terms' so much throughout the debate.

His few theological justifications were pretty weak - especially given that a major conception within the book of Genesis is the "second" genesis which comes immediately after the opening bit upon which the creation museum is invariably founded upon. He also could've gotten burned pretty badly by his delving into literal vs. contextual interpretation which is one of the most thorny bits of theology.

If Ham had simply chosen not to talk about creation as an absolute truth, and rather, kept the debate as it was in the first five minutes, that is to say, pointing out the contributions that persons who believed in a divine creation to science, who were fully capable of being successful scientists, he'd have had a much better showing. But he chose to try and construct an entire ideology from a bronze age text and made a fool of himself in the eyes of just about anybody with rudimentary amounts of education - and that was something Bill was able to stay on the whole time.

My absolute favorite moment of the whole debate was when Ham attempted to use verse 30 of Genesis literally and say that every single animal was a vegetarian lol.

Most of these things are incredibly boring because the Theist type is usually not particularly well educated in theology so they can't even present nuanced arguments beyond "god did it yo the bible said so" nor do they ever really get deep into theological texts because their grasp of theology is usually quite poor.

The atheist is usually also pretty crap because, in general, most atheists just substitute theism in form. Generally, most posit that while there isn't some big other figure with unlimited power, there's still a cosmic order of sorts, evolution or chaos theory, and so on blah blah, that provides them with some sort of unique place in the universe - which still utilizes the existence of an, albeit less conscious, "other" which is beyond life and in control. Nor are they ever particularly well versed in theology which makes things even more boring, because there's nothing like a nonbeliever asking theological questions that can't be answered.

Wonderful :D If you have any specific questions feel free to add me - I'd also happily do demo reviews.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GShqIv-tZ2I&list=PL757vsS-wvM4kwvSGBJ00yEOo5A2G7_Al

There you go :p you now will be the most knowledgeable type in steel :p

If you have any additional questions let me know ;)

You can add me if you like but I'd suggest my youtube channel as a primer.

https://www.youtube.com/medimarx

I've tried to organize everything so that it'd be easy to learn from since you're on the newer side.

I'll also review any demo you have so long as you're actually on a team - pug demos are generally a waste of time, especially low level ones I'm sorry to say.

The most important thing you can do right now is get on a team. It doesn't matter what kind of team, just a team. Find some broskies and make a team, or try and get some tryouts with lower level teams (maybe UGC forums if you aren't feeling very confident). If you're already on a team then you're 1/2 way to anywhere :p