Grigory

It is not a debate if you come with a closed mind. A brawl, maybe, but not a debate. I have seen some angry atheists before, but very few of them were actually aggressive, and I have never, ever seen atheists that were as aggressive as their militant religious counterparts. Did you see the news story about a Muslim demonstration in Bangladesh the other day? "Atheist must be hanged" For all the crying and whining about those evil, evil atheists, the lack of atheist lynch mobs is rather surprising, don't you think?

I did some googling... All the top search results are from tinfoil conspiracy sites. Of course, that means only one thing - that Google is covering it up!!!1!!!one!!!eleventy!!! Those pictures resemble an American stealth plane, nothing more, nothing less.

You're dodging the question. How many women (or girls, if you will) have you approached?

Heh... I can relate to you on that one. Serious question: how many women have you approached? 10? 100? 1,000? Because there are roughly 3,500,000,000 of them on this planet, and chances are you've approached less than 0.01% of them. (I'll also go out on a limb and assume you've seen less than 10% of this planet.) True. But is it the kind of something that will let you reincarnate? Or will your body become fertilizer and your brain's electric charge simply dissipate, never to be reassembled into anything coherent again?

Nice thread... I won't flood it by posting all of my favorites, but here's a select few: "Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying." Arthur C. Clarke "Money is neither my god nor my devil. It is a form of energy that tends to make us more of who we already are, whether it's greedy or loving." Dan Millman "Silence is not only golden, it is seldom misquoted." Bob Monkhouse

What makes you think there is the truth - of religion or anything? How would you know if you found it? I can give you a truth in exchange for a cold beer, but so can anybody. Heh...

Because as with most things in life, reincarnation is not guaranteed. There is no 100% proof that it exists. For all we know, once your brain stops functioning, the spark disappears forever, never to be reignited again. I'm not going to give you the cliche "but you have so much to live for" speech, but hey, the world is a huge place, filled with some amazing people and places that are more beautiful than you can ever imagine. Give it a shot - you just might like it. You're going to die within the next ~70 years anyway, so why rush it? (Sorry if somebody else has already said this - I didn't feel like reading through every post in the thread.)

Was that a reference to the Oatmeal cartoon?

I wouldn't mind being a platypus. Those little guys are the living proof that Mother Nature has a sense of humor. Half-duck, half-beaver, a mammal without nipples that lays eggs and has a venomous spur (which has no antidote!) and locates its prey through electrolocation... That would be a fun ride.

Do people actually take achievements seriously? Does anybody? I'm a hermit when it comes to video games: my Internet usually sucks, so I always play in single player (with the exception of Diablo-3, which can only be played online) and don't care about this whole achievement business. Besides, I heard it had gotten pretty ridiculous, with newer games giving out achievements for the most mundane tasks... Aaaaanyway, my strategy is to just wait it out. Whenever I buy a video game, I usually play it for weeks/months until I find every Easter Egg, complete every mission, unlock every ending, etc... (Took me ~3 months to get through Fallout-3 in its entirety hahaha) There are so many good games out there that they'll last me for years - definitely long enough for the next next generation of consoles to come out.

Personally, I'm a big fan of Warren Buffett's investment strategy. It's very Taoist, in its own way: find a good company that has an affordable price, a "moat" and good management. Then invest in it and keep the money there for as long as possible. His other advice for people who don't want to bother with stock-picking is pretty good, too: just put the money into an index fund that would grow with the economy and let it be. There have always been and always will be giant recessions, market corrections, etc. The opposite is also true. Instead of trying to time the market or spending your precious time trying to become one of the world's greatest experts on investing ("I would be spending at least 1-3 hours a day on reading about investments" - for how long???), just find a good spot to park your money and let others worry about it.

Great thread! I loved the picture of posing Chinese water dragons. Here are some of my favorites:

I said it's chilly - not cold. I had been under the impression that it had perfect bikini weather 24/7/365... *cue sad violin music* Er... Well, there's Russian, of course, and very (very) basic German, Japanese and Spanish, though none of those are really local haha. When it comes to traveling, languages and luck in general, I'm a lot like Rincewind from Terry Pratchett's books Not really, but I have a pretty elaborate plan on creating an online hub and go-to center for Taoism. It just might work! Stay tuned for details... *finishes typing his 5th post and runs off to explore the rest of the forums whilst laughing maniacally*

Yup, just saw that. Odd rule. :^/ The only options appear to be: a) "necropost" in old Lounge threads that seem interesting; be a phony, organize a one-man welcoming committee and "welcome" other users by posting in their intro threads; c) wait for peeps to reply to my thread and engage them in a witty banter that would allow me to leave the kiddie table and hang out with adults.

If she's anything like me, she's probably had enough snow to last her a lifetime, too. ) I'm still in Vegas but will probably get a work transfer to Texas in a couple of months. I'm still a bit bummed out that Vegas gets chilly (not cold, mind you - just chilly) in the winter. TV lied to me! O_o

Every "first world" nation has foreign embassies, provides aid to other, less fortunate countries and has some sort of effect on the world around them. There is a lot more to international affairs than the fake duality of "let's attack them so they don't attack us" and "if we don't get involved, we'll regress forever." I don't seem to recall any calls for jihad against New Zealand, Belgium, Mongolia, etc. Actions have consequences. If you decide to be the big kid on the block and manipulate smaller, weaker nations like pawns in the global game of chess, you sow seeds that just might sprout years or decades down the road... People tend to forget history rather quickly, but almost everything you see on the news today can be traced back to some key event only 50-70 years ago.