wv wrote:

waterfield wrote:

… In that light I suspect he is a moderate-which of course will piss of the leftists. But as I age I’ve come to realize that for me labels mean little.

—————–
Well, myself, i find labels quite useful. I mean George Bush was a “Rightwinger”.
I think the label fits just fine. Bernie is a “new deal progressive” or a “democratic-socialist” etc. Reagan was a useful-idiot. Mike Martz was a paranoid wizard.
Lassie was a whiney sheepdog. ….see, perfectly useful labels.

Seriously, i think labels are just fine, depending on context.

I mean if labels dont matter and are meaningless then Trump is the same as Hillary, right?
We cant use words to differentiate them?

w
v

You got that mixed up.

Lassie was a collie.

Bush was the useful idiot.

Reagan was the whiney sheepdog.

waterfield wrote:

It all reminded me of some of those historical clips from the rise of Nazi Germany and Hitler’s call to action.

Really? Where’d ya get that idea?

I think I’ve posted this before…

More Mexicans Leaving Than Coming to the U.S.

bnw wrote:

nittany ram wrote:

bnw wrote:

nittany ram wrote:

It’s interesting that the number of scientists that identify as atheists varies depending on their discipline. The highest number of believers are in the social sciences whereas the fewest are in biology and physics. This makes sense to me because they are the two sciences that’s findings are constantly contradicting religious dogma.

Sure seems like the biological sciences are knocking at the door of parthenogenesis which will affirm the Immaculate Conception.

Parthenogenesis happens all the time.

But not in mammals. At least not that we know of, yet. Getting there though. When it happens it will affirm the Bible.

If it happens in mammals it can only result in a female clone. Even if it could result in a male it wouldn’t prove the virgin birth story from the bible just as the existence of modern submarines doesn’t prove that Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Bemeath the Sea actually happened. It would only mean that mammalian offspring can be conceived asexually, today…not necessarily 2000 years ago.

One reason we don’t want to generalize about religion per se is that it takes so many forms. Actually according to one poll a few years ago “just over half of scientists (51%) believe in some form of deity or higher power; specifically, 33% of scientists say they believe in God, while 18% believe in a universal spirit or higher power.” So for many, science and some kind of faith are not opposed things. This of course contradicts the idea that anti-scientific whack jobs

And to be honest with you, as atheistic and philosophically materialist as I am (and I am), I count lectures from atheists about why religion is bad about the same as I count conversion sermons from the zealously religious. I don’t censor it, or try to hush it, but my glaze over and I go to another room.

It’s interesting that the number of scientists that identify as atheists varies depending on their discipline. The highest number of believers are in the social sciences whereas the fewest are in biology and physics. This makes sense to me because they are the two sciences that’s findings are constantly contradicting religious dogma.

As far as arguments about religion go, as a rule I don’t try to convince people of faith that their diety of choice doesn’t exist. Many people ‘need’ their faith. Often they have little else in their lives so I don’t want to take something away that means so much to them. But I will argue with people about the major organized religions and the horrors they’ve caused. That’s just historical fact and thus fair game.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 10 months ago by nittany ram.
• This reply was modified 9 years, 10 months ago by nittany ram.

zn, your argument is reminiscent of the argument used by gun rights advocates.

I have seen people of faith who do not buy into the fundamentalist program who can handle, with grace and sincere conviction, debates about the irrationality of religion. We all have. So “attacking religion” in general serves very little purpose.

I have seen gun owners who do not buy into the NRA program who can handle with grace and sincere conviction, debates about gun control. We all have. So attacking gun rights serves very little purpose.

Like most gun owners, most people of faith are reasonable people.

But that doesn’t counter the great amount of harm done by a very few hyper-religious people. Pence, Cruz, Santorum etc.

Even though this isn’t an admission of guilt, I consider this an admission of guilt.

bnw wrote:

I worked my way through college. I chose a school which I could afford and majored in a degree program to get a job that could pay the bills. I could have gone elsewhere and spent much more money while miring myself in tremendous debt getting a degree that would never pay the bills. But I didn’t. No way in hell should I have to bail out those who did.

The problem is a lot of kids graduating with degrees in STEM fields are having a hard time finding employment now too. It’s not just art history majors who can’t find a job.

wv wrote:

nittany ram wrote:

I read an interview with Donaldson where he said he was told there is little interest in turning Covenant into a movie trilogy because of the fear by Hollywood brass that it would seem too similar to the Lord of the Rings films. FWIW.

—————
Well as a general rule, movie-suits usually WANT to copy other successful shows,
dont they?

w
v

True, but this interview occurred during the period when the LOTR movies were being released. It probably was too soon then. Perhaps now the studios would feel differently.

Zooey wrote:

nittany ram wrote:

zn wrote:

In terms of character driven works in fantasy, that would include Martin. Arguably he was actually making up for a deficiency he saw in Tolkien.

Along with Martin’s GOT, Donaldson’s ‘The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant’ and Rothfuss’ ‘Kingkiller Chronicles’ have a lot of character development as does the ‘Shannara’ series by Terry Brooks. Of course, Those
books also have great storylines. Like anything else, the best fantasy has some of both I suppose.

I thought of Covenant, too, when you wrote that fantasy is usually plot-driven rather than character-driven. Covenant is a hell of a character. I am surprised nobody has made movies of the Covenant Chronicles. I read somewhere that there had been a couple of false starts. Somebody owns the rights, but it’s just never got underway for some reason. I don’t know what the problem is, but there are hundreds of millions of dollars lying there waiting for somebody to pick them up.

I read an interview with Donaldson where he said he was told there is little interest in turning Covenant into a movie trilogy because of the fear by Hollywood brass that it would seem too similar to the Lord of the Rings films. FWIW.

Well, to be clear I understand that fantasy/sci-fi/horror represent three different genres but that doesn’t mean they don’t have things in common. One of those things they have in common is that they are often story driven as opposed to character driven. The authors of all three of those genres also use words strung together in sentence form according to the rules of a given language to convey the meaning of the stories. All three genres are also written by authors that are human and they are often but not always given money in exchange for their writings. Actually, when you think of it there really is very little difference between them.

Zooey wrote:

bnw wrote:

J.R.R. Tolkien had more than a few.

Yeah, I’m not riding with you in this posse.

I think Tolkien’s interesting characters begin and end with Gollum.

Everyone else is just a Type, imo. No complexity of character.

I think Tolkien’s genius/appeal was in the History he constructed for everything. He is the first writer to really create an alternate world.

And. I think that if Tolkien published his books for the first time today, they would largely be ignored. He did some ground breaking fictional work, but he wasn’t a great writer. He was merely the first writer to open the door to an alternate reality that had bones.

I think most of the stuff written in the fantasy/sci-fi/horror genres are more story driven than character driven. Exceptions would be stuff by Kurt Vonnegut and Stephen King.

canadaram wrote:

The Lord of the Rings is my foil. Several times I have tried to read that book yet I can never get past 20 pages or so. My eyes glaze over every time. I’m pretty sure that all of my friends have read the all the LOTR books plus The Hobbit. I will try again some day soon, but for now it remains my shame.

I felt the same way about the Game of Thrones books. And this is coming from someone who LOVES the TV show.

Zooey wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

False Flag.

. . . .

How convenient. Hildabeast no longer leads the news.

These are terrible times, with raw emotions swirling to the top. I get that. But you don’t really think this was a set up to help out Clinton, do you? That’s Alex Jones territory, and he inhabits a place of gross hysteria and paranoia, not sanity.

You’re better than that, bnw.

Let’s put the outrage against Hillary’s emails in a little context.

Ford pardoned Nixon.

Reagan made a deal with Iranian revolutionaries to hold the hostages until after the election, then Reagan sold arms to a terrorist state and funneled the money to fund an illegal war in Nicaragua without congress knowing about it.

Bush Jr. falsely and deliberately misled Americans into believing Iraq and Hussein were connected to 9/11 in order to start the war opposed by almost every nation on the planet that cost us trillions of dollars and more lives than were lost on 9/11.

Dick Cheney outed a covert CIA operative for revenge.

But the outrage is Hillary’s use of a private server for her emails.

Alrighty then.

Basically, if you weren’t indignant about the above actions by Republicans, I am not going to listen to you talk about Hillary Clinton.

All true with the exception that Reagan didn’t secretly broker a
deal with Iran for the hostages to be released after he was elected. He often gets credit for their release and was all too happy to accept it but Reagan actually had nothing to do with it. They were going to be released regardless of the outcome of the election.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jan/17/marco-rubio/rubio-wrongly-credits-reagan-1981-release-hostages/