Is there anything you wish you knew at 16 as you made decisions that shaped the rest of your life?
reddit.com
reddit.com
For example, #1 on the highest rated comment is horrible advice. It has screwed up the lives of many, many people and will adversely affect all the future relationships of anyone lucky enough to get away with it.
Shouldn't we have a DRY life?
I'm not supporting the grandparent, just putting my 2 cents hoping that this branch dies a graceful, quick death.
I don't have the inclination to address this seriously now, but I have scheduled, for less busy times, some serious rolling-in-my-grave over this.
Anyways, I'm not trying to be a troll. People keep misunderstanding or needing elaboration, so I explain and elaborate. If people ignored what I said I wouldn't see a need to keep posting.
Plus, STDs, unwanted pregnancies, and single parent homes are horribly epidemic. Safe sex is not safe. And, the relational impact is not to be ignored. Sex functions as an important element in preserving a couple's relationship, and flagrantly misusing it undermines yet one more of the few effective bonds between a couple. With all the broken homes in our country, this is not something we want. Finally, restricting sex is an essential part of focusing energy in a society in a useful manner, and today's 'free love' has very much dissipated our cohesiveness and diminished what we can accomplish. Make no mistake, the sexual 'revolution' has messed up our society.
You had a reasonable amount of logic until this point.
On the contrary, from a biological/evolutionary perspective, it is the only reason we exist (i.e. to make more of ourselves).
Since you seem to be involved in the Creationism / "Intelligent" Design movement, could you explain why fundamentalist Christians are hell-bent (pun intended) on dragging civilization back to the dark ages, where scripture and Church doctrine are more important than science?
It seems like a giant leap backwards.
Still, though, I think there is something to be said for virginity. For some reason it was even an ideal in the Greek world before Christianity, e.g. Plato. But it wasn't an ideal in the sense that sex was considered bad, just virginity, voluntarily taken, was a nobler thing. That's another discussion, though.
First of all, I'm pretty sure it's commonly accepted that the notion of the 'dark ages' is a product of bad scholarship, though I don't have a good cite for you, so you can ignore that point. As for religion and science, I'm against any attempt to undermine reason, but this means we have to be open to the truth no matter where it lies, whether in today's 'science' (which is very philosophically narrow) or theology. However, this doesn't mean contradiction between the two is resolved by ignoring science. If people really believe theology is supported by the evidence, then they cannot believe there are any real contradictions between science and theology. That's the position of the sophisticated element of the ID movement. Also, keep in mind that the ID movement is not essentially Christian or fundamentalist. For example, Christopher Langan is an ID theorist who is a pantheist, which is pretty interesting.
Daniel Dennett's talk at TED http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/94
I'm glad to hear that, as we can certainly agree there.
However, I don't see many creationists with such an intelligent and nuanced approach.
As for bad scholarship during the middle ages, remember that scholars were under threat of torture or death if they gave the "wrong" answer (Galileo is a prime example, but not the only one).
When I hear people claim the world is only a few thousand years old (despite evidence to the contrary), I cannot help but think they want to push us back, and put us under that kind of scholarly intimidation again.
Yes, I agree there is an anti intellectual trend with some creationists, as there is with hardcore atheists such as Dawkins. But the theocratic element of American Christianity is actually very small and overblown by a paranoid media. Again, you have the same sort of thing on the atheist side, which is also a very vocalized minority.
There's a lot in there I wish I'd known.
On my first day of high school, my dad gave me a priceless piece of advice: Don't be friends with people just because they're available and easy to be friends with. Seek out the people worth befriending, and become their friend no matter how hard it is.
I didn't really understand him at the time, but 15 years later it strikes me as one of the most valuable things anyone has ever told me.
But those described are not friends, but merely partners.
To me, friends are those who will be around during bad times as well as good. In other words, they'll be around even when your "worth" is very low.