Debate Thread

I think it shouldn't matter, really, they should try to stick to realistic imagery.
Except, wait, it's a god.
If there's a clear description anywhere in Norse mythology then stick with that, I guess.


My response to all equality debates:
People place too much emphasis on equality for equality to ever actually happen.
A buncha people here loved Obama during the elections, because fuck yeah first black President of America.
A buncha other people here hated him because fuck no, how dare he run against the possibly first female President of America in the primary?!

How does this kind of thing hold back equality?
Because noone cared about anyone's policies or political experience or qualifications or anything except OMGWOMENVSBLACKPEOPLE!!!11

It should be the person most suitable.

So yeah, white norsemen I guess. Although "Aryan superhero" kinda has a few negative connotations, in the sense of "blonde white male superhero" it would probably be right.
(Is Thor meant to be blonde?)

I've always gotten the impression he is, myself.

I've had this theory for a while, and I can't remember reading about this anywhere else, so it makes me feel really smart when I bring it up.

In Nineteen Eighty-Four, Can't it be said that, from the Party's way of thinking, the ministries did live up to their names?

Ministry of Truth: Can be justified with doublethink.

Ministry of Plenty: Can be justified in a similar way as the Ministry of Truth. We don't read much about the Ministry of Plenty in the novel, but we know it rations out the food. But it can be assumed that people simply take the things that they get and call it "plenty." Anyone who doesn't gets taken to the Minstry of Love.

Ministry of Peace: "WAR IS PEACE."

Ministry of Love: That's where they take you to make sure you love Big Brother.

I saw this statement on a different forum and I was a bit surprised by most of the reactions.

Some guy wrote:There's this guy in my DnD group who is a bit older than me (I'm 19 he's almost 20), his girlfriend just turned 16, which to me is really creepy.

Most of the reactions agreed with this guy, saying that this is indeed very creepy. Maybe I'm just weird, but I'm 20 and I'd date a 16-17 year old if I wanted to without much of a second thought about it actually.

What are your thoughts on this?

His girlfriend just turned 16?
That's bad; my interpretation is that it implies they've been dating for a while longer than that, probably a month or two.

I'd go out with a 17 year old; that's legal here and, until November, it's only a two year gap.
However, this seems to me that there's almost a four year gap.

Just turned 16 to almost 20.
So, it was 15 to 19 not so long ago.

That sounds kinda bad to me.


Then again 16 is legal about ten miles north of me and I could be interpreting this wrong.

I'd be all over a 20 year old chick, but I'm just a slave to hormones.

Stem Cell research. Opinions?
I believe that, even if it totally goes against your moral code, we can still use it to make breakthroughs that have the same effect without being as controversial.

I see hardly anything wrong with it and get annoyed by people who do, but maybe that's the effect of studying in that field (biotechnology)

Same here, I don't see what all the fuss is about.

I'd like to have the ability to be continually waking up in hospitals every couple of weeks engineered out, thanks.

Philisophical question a-coming. What's the worst afterlife? Firey pit? Absolute nothingness?

Discuss!

Fire, you suffer enternaly, while with the other you're absoulty bored. I'd that be bored then be suffering.

Well, by absolute nothingness, I mean that not even you exist as a consciousness. You can't sense anything, nor can you even think, because none of you exists, physically, mentally, or spiritually.

And those aren't the only options. If you can come up with an afterlife that is more horrifying, then I'd like to hear it.

Here is my idea of absolute punishment:

You are stuck in a deep ravine made of ice. It's dark, but the ice seems to glow blue. The sides are tall and steep, and when you try to climb them, you find you can get a grip. You climb up higher and higher until you are about 5 stories up. Then, your grips melt in your hand and give way from under your feet. you slide down despite any of your efforts, faster and faster, until you slam into the ground, feeling bones break and joints dislocate. You can't die or pass out, no matter how hard you try. You sit there until you've healed, bones misaligned and joints still dislocated.

When you try to walk along the flat part of the ravine, it stretches on and on and on, into the black nothingness. You can walk forever, but nothing ever changes.

The worst part is the ice itself. Inside it, you can see people laughing, people crying, people living. Friends, family, acquaintances, celebrities, anyone you have ever cared about. You're separated from them by just centimeters, but you can't do anything. Shouting, signaling, beating on the ice with your fists, nothing works. At first you're glad, you think they are company for you. But you come to realize that they are just taunting you. They're living, and you're not. They don't even care. You're envious at first, then you just get angry. You hate them for what they are doing to you. You try to look away, but they're always right there, separated by just a thin layer of ice. Your only choice is to either look into the blank sky or at them. You go mad, all alone but right next to everyone.

And that is hell.

@Sarcasmic Oh, and don't forget frostbite. Frostbite sucks.

My verson of Hell.
First you find yourself falling, and from a hole above you can see what your eyes would see if you're still alive, if they were open when you died. Your ears are already bleeding from all of the screams resounding around you. You reach for the hole, hoping futaly that you could save yourself.
After hours of falling the light you can't see the hole anymore, and few more you hit the ground with completely unimaginable speeds. On Earth, the speeds would distroy even your atoms. But here all you fell is pain greater then any that everbody on Earth has and will suffer combined. But you know that the pain will only get worse. You can't see anything and you are crying so hard from the pain that blood is mixed with your tears. You can't see anything, but you know that everything is on fire. You still hear the screams of all the other poor souls who suffered the same fate as you.
You also hear laughter from an entity and a wip scores your back, and it hurts more then the fall.
More laugher joins that comes from beasts that are salivating so much that any mortal beast would drown in their own silva. They pounce on you, the wip still scoring you. They bite and and claw you, each bite and claw hurting even more then the wip.
Worms begin crawling in and out of your skin, and beond your sight the holes cloes back up after the worms leave it and begin a new one.
Anoughter creature comes and begins to molest you.
This lasts for entinity, and as much as you want to die you can't. Ever.
Hell is probibly worse then this, I strongly belive that Hell's suffering is unimaginable for any mortal mind.

If you don't exist, you can't be suffering.

I've just remembered hearing about someone who had a near death experience.

They were lying a pitch black box, barely big enough for them. They weren't able to move at all. They hear constant screams and shrieks, with no rhytm, so they could never get used to the sounds. There were also whispers and mutterings of words, but they weren't able to make out what was being said. They felt like their whole body was on fire, the pain unrelenting, but they still couldn't move.

I'm pretty sure any description of ultimate hell will involve vague and unimaginable descriptions of Lovecraftian proportions. And possibly some Old Gods.

Also, @Dewmann: How did they know it was a box if it was pitch black and they couldn't move? I call bullshit on near death experiences. You can obviously experience certain things when you're close to death, but not in the whole "I saw heaven/hell and I came back!" sort of way. But that's probably a different debate all together.

As Rare suggested, all talk of evolution is being moved here. Katls, when you see this, please tell us the flaws you or others have found in evolution.

I'm a Christian myself, so I believe God created life and all. However, the theory of evolution has always interested me

Sarcasmic wrote:As Rare suggested, all talk of evolution is being moved here. Katls, when you see this, please tell us the flaws you or others have found in evolution.

And why the alternative of magic is implicitly considered not/less flawed.

It's 2am here though so I'm going to sleep now, but when I come back, I'm going to be all up in this debate, and all will probably hate me. (That's usually the impression I get when I engage in this type of discussion since I can be more crude in my statements than I usually am in debates and the people who agree aren't as loud as the ones who don't.)

To be honest, though, I don't think we should talk about this stuff here, since it will always lead to religion, and we might end up hating one another

That's why I'm not going to partisipate in this. I don't like doing dussions about ethics and belifs because people walk away being angery at eachother.

I put on my moderator hat.

Listen; debate thread is for polite discussion of things.
Perfectly fine to discuss topics such as evolution and politics.
Not fine to discuss topics such as "niggers are all gay lol"

I'm not saying you have to continue with any particular debate if you don't want to, but you all see my point, I'm sure.

Debates are impersonal.
You can take up any side in a debate, or even play devil's advocate if you want. It's for fun.

I take off my moderator hat.

Evolution? Accepting the existence of (the Judaeo-Christian) God*, I have no problem with the idea that both God created the world and that evolution continued creating animals and plants.
God is omnicscient and omnipotent, he would know exactly how any plans or sets of rules would pan out.

*(Not something I personally do believe just at the moment, however I do believe there is a spiritual element to the world and maybe there's a God; doesn't matter to me all that much for several reasons.)

Well, if the debate keeps going, I'll take part of it, just saying