No matter how open-minded...

[Whit]

For me, it's people who aren't moved by music, people who are fine with listening to the radio or club music because it's easy to dance to or it's simple, people who don't go looking for music that inspires them or brings out all manner of emotion/feeling to the surface (be it joy, excitement, anger, passion etc). These are the things I can't accept/understand, no matter how wide I open my mind.

this, thank you.

I can understand the appeal of club music, it's fun sometimes, but it's very rare that it conveys much in the way of emotion (don't get me wrong, there are exceptions). Club music can make you happy, but other music can really make you feel.

also I can't understand why anyone listens to the Black Eyed Peas (incoming rant)

Spoiler

they're beyond terrible, only one of their vocalists can even sing (fuck will.i.am, seriously, hate auto tune so damn much), most of their music is sampled, their lyrics are sub-abysmal ("I got a feeling" anyone? and what was up with that part about a bar-mitzvah? it didn't make any sense at all). Also, everyone acts like Fergie is so pretty, she just isn't, get over it. Maybe the people where I live are just plain prettier than most people are used to idk, but she's barely above the average woman her age that I see on the street.

the way that people buy identical sports games year after year (I can understand buying Madden/FIFA/whatever-the-big-sports-game-in-your-country-is 2-3 times a decade, because then the mechanic differences start to add up, but buying every year you're basically paying full retail on a roster update)

one more rant and I'm done

Spoiler

Why is it that stupid people have this whole herd mentality thing? In my experience smart people are more individual in their tastes in entertainment, but the dumber people are, the more prone they are to going crazy over the latest pointless entertainment fad. For examples, see Twilight, Beiber (or Bieber, don't care enough to google it), the Jonas Brothers, Angry Birds, Just Dance (or any other wii/kinect/move shovelware that hit the big time), etc. I admit I'm not perfect, I've fallen for a few idiotic fads myself, but seriously.

sorry to drag this out for so long, I'm just a bilious hate-filled human being I guess.

 

[MaxwellEdison]

Since religion was covered...drugs. I definitely want to risk permanent damage so that I can black out and wake up feeling like shit in some strange place. Sounds like a good time to me.

No offense, but perhaps you can't wrap your head around it because you've got the wrong idea of what it's like to use them. I don't know many people who have had that experience, even while using copious amounts of drugs.

 

[MaxwellEdison]

People who aren't transhumanists.
I've had a few discussions about it with Facebook people, basically boiled down to "I have a Hollywood level understanding of technology, I don't like cyborgs!" in the end. So...I guess more accurately, people who stay ignorant of issues even after showing interest in them. If you really like debating something, perhaps you should read about it at some point.

 

[Whit]

I don't understand what it's like to want sex and orgasms. The former I have only a passing philosophical interest in, and the latter doesn't do much for me, it's more or less boring. Not that I've never tried to enjoy it, but I get much more pleasure from drawing or writing.

I'm not sure whether to feel sorry for you because you're missing out on something fun, or see you as one of the only truly free people on this earth for your ability to not be subject to the instinct on the same level as everyone else.

I'm gonna go with both I guess. Wouldn't trade places with you, but I can see merit in your outlook.

 

[Omega Pirate]

I don't understand people who listen to music. I don't mean while in the car and driving. I mean buying and listening to music.

 

[Whit]

Homeopathy. I don't get it. How can less of something make it more concentrated? It makes no sense! How can the bark of a tree with trace amounts of something be more potent than the raw, distilled form? Water has a memory? When *maybe* a single molecule of the original material remains in the dilution, how can this said to be an effective amount? Don't waste my time. You want to believe in anything else, go for it. This? Don't tell me about it. Ever. I'll find new languages to call you dumb.

Its not always about such incredibly small doses, but yeah, that particular branch at the very least is idiotic, but hey, placebos are frequently nearly as powerful as the real thing, so at least its got that.

 

[Whit]

Close-minded people are my problem. I just don't get why my being non-christian or democrat suddenly means that I'm going to h*** or that I'm evil and eat puppies for breakfast.

Welcome to America, land of the paranoid conservative. But if you think it's bad being a non-Christian, try being an Atheist like me.

 

[dark-mortality]

I can't wrap my head around what I can't wrap my head around. (Try to sort out what I mean, and you will get a cookie!)

I also don't understand girls, but that may totally be because I am a boy.

 

[Sholtz]

People who diss the religious as being simple minded or fools or stupid, and feeling the need to call anyone's god/gods imaginary.

Do you feel good putting someone down, or treating them as a lesser? Do you realize you're just perpetuating the circle of hate that spawns around these topics by making the religious feel justified for attacking you? When your sole purpose seems to be to try to make religious feel child-like then I call you a severe jerk, just like I get angry at religious people for their intolerance.

You're not showing your supposed vast intellect in doing any of this. You're just serving to support their criticisms of YOU!

The difference between belief in Santa Claus, and belief in a god is that Santa Claus holds no weight. Ask a religious person what hurts more? Someone saying their god isn't real, or someone saying Kris Kringle isn't real. It's about the importance of the character to the person. Not to mention a god doesn't have to listen to the rules he set in place. If he made the world he can ignore all it's fundamental rules such as physics or math. Sure you may program a game with rules, but then are you in turn bound by these rules just because you created them? The reason there is no need for evidence is because they understand this, they realize that whatever power may be is above and beyond our existence and therefore can't be proven one way or another. Therefore search for proof comes to naught.

In general I don't understand anyones need to put ANYONE down. Be it the religious attacking the non, Or the Atheist attacking the religious.

 

[dark-mortality]

I don't understand people who listen to music. I don't mean while in the car and driving. I mean buying and listening to music.

(Read this in an old grandma voice) Oooohhh, you snipper snapper. You just go back to your ripetty hap, hippety tap thingys. Back in my days, the sound of the old farmers were the only good part of the day.

(You can now read this normally) Anyway, yeah. Some people simply like music. Who knows, maybe you will find something you will listen to daily, over and over again?

 

[Fanta Grape]

Erm, pardon me if I'm misunderstanding this, but why is the fact that you can't prove religion even an argument? Many religions by definition are based on faith alone and to prove it would be to go against the point. The origin of major religions may be unknown and therefore, there's no logical reason to have an opinion of it regarding its validity. Religion serves as a reference point for morals and ethics, and it often gives people optimism that they otherwise wouldn't have. Some people need a religion to help deal with the facts of reality, and some people can use religion to help out a community. The misuse and the misunderstanding of religion is the problem itself, not the fact that it exists and people follow it. Ultraconservative ideals pushed out by a few particular louder members are sometimes frustrating, maybe, but they actually DO have a higher moral ground than atheists. The reasoning is that we can't actually know any facts about the universe, only our perceptions of them and the definitions we've created. The one exception is cogito ergo sum and that barely qualifies. Without this sort of objective reasoning, morality and ethics don't actually exist. Religion, whether you like it or not, has its place in society and is a logical decision to make despite the lack of reasoning behind it. For the record, I'm not religious.

You epistemology is worrisomely scant. From the Tim Minchin beat poem Storm, upon hearing the titular character remark that all knowledge is mere opinion, in much the same way you have expressed here:

I resist the urge to ask Storm,
Whether knowledge is so loose weave,
Of a morning, when deciding whether to leave,
Her apartment by the front door,
Or the window on the second floor.

Epistemological uncertainty is a problem, yes, and it is certainly possible that tomorrow all the things we have ever known about anything will be turned inside out and upside down, but certainly you must concede that it is impractical to accept any and all propositions put to us without discrimination. And doubly certainly you must believe that some methods for discriminating amongst the beliefs that are put to us are better than others at providing a sturdy framework on which to make decisions that have the outcomes we desire - this is to say that you're more likely to be able to eat your morning cereal if you learn how your spoon works by direct experimentation rather than consulting your cat. In keeping with that, it seems unreasonable to say that all ideas are valid because they cannot be 100% disproved, but that it's not true that you can eat co-co pebbles by licking your crotch and scratching up the arm of your couch.

But let's say you could, and thus even these ultraconservatives have valid ideas - how does that give them the "moral high ground" over atheists? Do they not enjoy the same vindication for their beliefs that the ultraconservatives do? Why is it ok to positively assert the existence of God, but not the non-existence of God, if neither is verifiable?

It's more of a fact that the mere possibility of religion is far more viable as a method for making decisions than an abstract sense of societal guilt which is usually derived from religious beliefs anyway. The only way to truly form any sort of grounded morality is to create an artificial one, such as Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative. Even in that sense, it only truly works if everyone follows it. Murder is bad for the sake of being bad is not a justifiable argument, but murder as a sin defined by a higher being is a point of reference which can always be relied upon. To believe in God and to disbelieve him is an argument which I believe is swayed far more to the latter (as to the reason of my agnosticism) but it doesn't actually legitimise any of my actions. With this in mind, believing in a religion can be logical for practical reasons.

An argument like this:

The religious, I dont get how people can overlook the barbarity and outmoded moral concepts thats rife throughout religion. I dont get how these people can then say they hold the moral high ground, that as an atheist Im spiritually dead and morally suspect.
If Im totally honest it makes me very angry.

doesn't make sense to me at all. The morality isn't barbaric in its practices without a comparison and there simply isn't any. Religion is followed because of many reasons such as what I've stated or for any other number of reasons, such as peace of mind with conformity, and to "not be able to comprehend why people would follow a religion," just doesn't make sense. I could see why people might see following a religion through a logical process is a bit of a stretch, but there's arguments on both sides for that which make perfect sense. Religion provides answers to the unknown and as long as there's something which we don't know, there'll always be a reason for it.

 

[Whit]

I think you guys tend to generalize religion and portray it in more of a bad light than it deserves. There are many things about religion that have benefits. Yes, there are negatives to religion, but there are negatives to everything. Yes, the more zealous religious folk can do some very immature and very mean things, but so can a very zealous atheist.

I know that zealous atheists can be assholes sometimes, but you're ignoring scale when you say that. I mean when's the last time a zealous Atheist went around killing people they had philosophical disagreements with? I can't think of a single example of an Atheist killing for the sole reason of being over-zealous about their Atheism. Meanwhile this is a disturbingly common practice among more zealous Christians, in some parts of the the U.S. abortionists are frequently murdered and their clinics bombed, and homosexuals are still lynched/dragged through the streets/beaten/shot etc. My fellow Atheists do kill people sometimes, but when they do it, it's for individual reasons, not zeal.

 

[Jonluw]

Ha, I'm not a fan of - what I deem to be - unnecessary touching (even from my girlfriend, at times) and I will sometimes have trouble meeting people's eyes, something my dad has pointed out to me on multiple occasions. It's weird though because I'm not socially awkward or a particularly introverted person. I'm highly confident and quite a good public speaker (especially when expressing my own opinions).

In terms of the "not caring so much attitude"...I've had that for as long as I can remember. According to so many people in my family, I'm so laid-back that I'm practically horizontal lol...

Human psychology is weird eh?

Weird indeed.

 

[Whit]

how a McDonald's burger can be classed as a burger when it has nothing but cardboard in it?

what about how pizza is legally a vegetable in the U.S. now, in spite of the fact that of the 3 primary pizza ingredients the closest you can find to a veggie is the tomato paste, which comes from a FRUIT. I mean at least McDonalds burgers are still technically beef, in that they're meat from cows. The way they're produced is completely unnatural, but the patties are still beef. Meanwhile, there's NO veg content in a pizza, yet the whole damn thing counts as a veggie dish (so they can serve it in public schools and consider their need to serve a veggie fulfilled).

 

[Soviet Steve]

I know that zealous atheists can be assholes sometimes, but you're ignoring scale when you say that. I mean when's the last time a zealous Atheist went around killing people they had philosophical disagreements with? I can't think of a single example of an Atheist killing for the sole reason of being over-zealous about their Atheism. Meanwhile this is a disturbingly common practice among more zealous Christians, in some parts of the the U.S. abortionists are frequently murdered and their clinics bombed, and homosexuals are still lynched/dragged through the streets/beaten/shot etc. My fellow Atheists do kill people sometimes, but when they do it, it's for individual reasons, not zeal.

You're opening up to people saying Hitler, Stalin etc. at you here. I should note than an atheist killing people does not mean that atheism calls for it, unlike most religions.

 

[Sacman]

Furries... I just don't get it... Anthropomorphic animals are possibly one of the most disturbing things I've ever seen... and I've been to the offended section of encyclopedia dramatica...<.<

I don't care if people enjoy it... but I really, really don't get it...

 

[Whit]

Yeeeep. Religion and drugs for me.

Since religion was covered...drugs. I definitely want to risk permanent damage so that I can black out and wake up feeling like shit in some strange place. Sounds like a good time to me.

Drugs rule bro. Just gotta know yer way around them. When in doubt, do pot. Just don't overdo it and it's all good. And by drugs i assume you mean alcohol and cigarettes as well.

I don't have a problem with moderate consumption of the more mild stuff (I think pot should be legal), but what I really don't get is these people who ALWAYS drink to excess, there's a point of diminishing returns people, a certain level of booze can make things more fun, but that doesn't mean things will get MORE fun as you get drunker, once your BAC hits .05% (roughly) any more and things will only go downhill. So many people (particularly back in high school) just don't really seem to get that there's no point in having a good time if you're too drunk to remember it in the morning. That and they never seem to learn from their hangovers, those are your body's little way of saying "don't you ever do that to me again you asshole!"

 

[Mafoobula]

So, yeah, I'm an open-minded guy who can see things from other people's perspectives. Usually. Then WBC comes along and completely stumps me.
I don't want to wish death on any of them, because there's proof that they're not all beyond redemption, BUT, I'd be lying if I said there weren't a handful of their members that could do with a sound whacking. Not a beating, mind you, just enough to condition them to not be so vocal.

I've mostly given up the fight for good grammar and spelling. I hardly bat an eye when someone uses the wrong there, or says "your" because "you're" is two characters too long.
However, "would of, could of, should of" is way the hell beyond me, and I will rage ever damn time I see it. How ass-retarded are you when you write that out and think that's alright? This goes beyond pet peeve and into the realm of "major psychotic *&^%ing hate." Yeah, call me a grammar Nazi, it just pisses me right the *&^% off.