What's on your mind today?

[TheOGMamaBear]

In my English class last week, we watched an episode of The Twilight Zone called "To Serve Man", and I found it to be incredibly interesting to be honest. Afterward we got to write a nifty 2 page analysis of what we saw.
Being the tree-hugging, animal loving hippie that I am, I turned the entire thing into an animal rights thing, mostly about factory farming. My teacher actually liked my argument/rant though, and when I received the paper back she gave me a 99 (a point off for using British-English spelling. fdfasdf) and wrote a note saying "Nice coherent vegan argument!" with a smiley face!

And does anyone here watch The Twilight Zone? If the other episodes have messages in the plot, I might start watching that programme.

Sounds interesting! I have a ton of vegan friends. My daughter and I aren't vegetarians but we are careful about where we get our food. We eat locally raised meat , fish caught by hubby and eggs grown at the farm down the street.

Factory farming is awful.

[Chimera]

I've been having way too much fun with Blasphemy Day.

[templeboy]

Had an awesome philosophy tutorial this afternoon. Take a bunch of opinionated and well-read intelligent arts students, give them a sheet of vague questions about...well, I can't even remember what it was supposed to be about, but it turned into a passionate discussion of what is wrong with the world, the UN, countries, power systems....me, a humble biochemistry student taking the course as a filler, pretty much sat back to listen, and although my occasional attempts to make any contribution myself were generally ignored, it was the best class of my week.

Come to think of it, the only class I've enjoyed at all this semester is my Thursday afternoon philosophy tutorial. Smart, opinionated people discussing controversial, complex issues makes for much more fun than trying to get my head around the endless theorems that make up first year university mathematics....

Oh, and Chimera, I've had much fun hijacking your blasphemy day!

[Chimera]

I'm sure you did. It was pretty fun, though.

[Renegnicat]

Racism is on my mind right now. In another forum I used a derogatory racial epithet without thinking, and thus got banned. I was already on record for being an anti-semite, which hurt me very much, but it was my own fault for trying to explain my views on racism and the like.

It seems nowadays, if you make a comment on another race that is rooted in ignorance, people are quite quick to label that person a Racist. But to me, that's a very hypocritial thing. I know that any comment rooted in ignorance can be quite hurtful. I'm sure I hurt plenty of people with the epithet, but it just seems to me that there's a difference between being ignorant of an ethnicity and willing to learn, and actively hating other ethnicities.

It seems hypocritical to me because those people that call other's racist for ignorant statements can't exactly claim omniscience. Everyone's bound to make an ignorant remark sooner or later, I just wish they'd simply tell me where I was wrong and correct me. They don't have to assume that I am set in my ways, that I will reject all other notions...

Of course, I understand that racial epithets can hurt others. I don't normally go around flinging racial epithets, nor was the epithet I used actually aimed in a pejorative sense towards anyone in particular. I guess it's the fact that racial epithets were historically used in a pejorative fashion, but if it's not used pejoratively, does that still make someone a racist?

There are many people who would say yes. But if that's the case, then saying "black" or "chinese" would make someone a racist because those words aren't used pejoratively. The difference is between the epithet, which people assume is used pejoratively, and other words, which people assume are safe to say. But Racism is more than just words. It's about actively hating other ethnicities. It's about thinking that other ethnicities are evil or somehow unclean and deserve to be exterminated. It's not about ignorance. If it was, then everyone on earth would be a racist.

Damn... I just feel really sad that some other people can't see that.

[Reginus]

At lunch today another kid (right wing Christian) and I had a debate on if there is any evidence for God. Anyway, I took the atheism side (it's fun arguing against your own opinions), and apparently I played the position pretty well because now he says "atheist! atheist!" every time he sees me . It's starting to get really annoying though.

[LoneMateria]

At lunch today another kid (right wing Christian) and I had a debate on if there is any evidence for God. Anyway, I took the atheism side (it's fun arguing against your own opinions), and apparently I played the position pretty well because now he says "atheist! atheist!" every time he sees me lol

[Chimera]

I have a biology test today and I feel completely unprepared for it.  

[Renegnicat]

Funny you should say that. I just dropped my Physics class because I was failing. BWO HA HA HA!  

[MommaSquid]

I got an email today that blew my mind.

Being a Christian is like being a pumpkin.  

God lifts you up, takes you in, and washes all the dirt off of you.   He opens you up, touches you deep inside and scoops out all the yucky stuff-- including the seeds of doubt, hate, greed, etc.    Then He carves you a new smiling face and puts His light inside you to shine for all the world to see.    This was passed on to me from another pumpkin.   Now, it is your turn to pass it to a pumpkin.   I liked this enough to send it to all the pumpkins in my patch.    Happy Fall!

Worst of all...it was from my mother!

[Renegnicat]

Carves you a new smiling face

Wanna know how I got these scars...?

[Chimera]

I got an email today that blew my mind.

Being a Christian is like being a pumpkin.  

God lifts you up, takes you in, and washes all the dirt off of you.   He opens you up, touches you deep inside and scoops out all the yucky stuff-- including the seeds of doubt, hate, greed, etc.    Then He carves you a new smiling face and puts His light inside you to shine for all the world to see.    This was passed on to me from another pumpkin.   Now, it is your turn to pass it to a pumpkin.   I liked this enough to send it to all the pumpkins in my patch.    Happy Fall!

Worst of all...it was from my mother!

That's really creepy.

I'll keep my seeds of doubt, thank you very much.

[TheOGMamaBear]

I'll keep my seeds of doubt, thank you very much.

I find it so awful that they even mention seeds of doubt. Heaven forbid (lol) we are human!

[Whitney]

Find an image of a really scary jack-o-lantern then send the email back with it in place of the other image

[MariaEvri]

Find an image of a really scary jack-o-lantern then send the email back with it in place of the other image

here this might help