Warning, idiot detected

[Thomas Doubting]

That would be me :?
First things first, I have to say that (although you will very soon notice) english is not my native language, actually it is my third language with german being second.. so I hope you won't tear me apart for raping the language, it can't be helped instantly, but I am working on it.

I am a 30 yo moron from Bosnia (& Hercegovina)
Born an atheist, raised to be among the biggest idiots and ignorants alive, which of course makes me proud to the bone ( I won't say which one though :mrgreen: )
Once in a while however, I am fond of reason and rational thinking and nice conversations, which is why i joined this forum, unfortunately not too long ago.

A bit more about me, I was born in a country which had a war not even 20 years ago, mainly because of religions, child in a mixed marriage between the 2 conflicting religious groups (muslims and christians), it made it very easy for me to choose NONE of their religions and simply open my eyes to see that they are living an illusion and giving themselves and each other a horrible time because of it, which made me sad and almost apathetic for a while.
My father who was raised by fundies can't dismiss the religious concept fully and never will be able to, but he told me something that heped me a lot.

Son, I can't tell you what to believe in, and nobody should, if you want to believe that your meaning in life is to be host to some almighty fruit fly and help it overtake the world, then I won't stand in your way, I do however wish you to decide that on your own, after thinking about it, without other people forcing you what to believe in.

I never found the fly so here I am, still using my own brain to think about the world.

I lived in Germany for 8 years where people don't put so much weight on religious belief which made it easier for me to strengthen my (dis)belief and get some informations not twisted and stretched by fanatics.

My mission is to try to help people break out of the fantasy land and to make the world a better place for all people, especially a more just environment for atheists which in some countries, communities or simply pretty much everywhere have difficulties in life just because they don't want to blindly submit to brainwashing. I for instance, lost my job not too long ago just because I told my boss that him believing in something that he can't prove only because some manipulable sheep believed it before him doesn't make him a better man than me.. after he found out I am an "infidel" and told me that it is a shame and he wouldn't have expected me "to be so stupid".
So he calling me stupid is irrelevant but me calling the child by its name is reason enough to fire me, oh well, guess I can't really complain compared to what others have to put up with...

I do have to thank him though, without him kicking me out I wouldn't have time to spam in such forums and sleep all day.

To shorten this nonsense, of course I am aware of the fact that me changing the world is a bigger illusion than the one the believers are trapped in, just to make sure you know I know what you know :shock:

Having all this said, I wish to point out that I am glad to be on board, see you people around! Just a little request, don't ban me just for being stupid and don't hate me for my crappy english. K? Thanks.

 

[televator]

It always astounds me how much better the written English of people from abroad (at least on the LoR) is than a great chunk of the "Amurikah!!! Woooh! We're number one!!!!11!111 Learn English or GTFO!!!" US populace.

Welcome.

Oh, and help yourself to some cake. Can't let you in until you do.

 

[Thomas Doubting]

Thanks, i almost feel at home already

Also thanks for the compliment.. lets say my english is much worse than what a literate native speaker can offer, I did realise that the uneducated (and ignorant) people wouldn't survive a spellcheck of a bosnian 8 year old but those are not the people i wish to talk to all the time. But my vocabulary is quite meager, lacking many words used in adult conversations and technical, scientific, political, rare terms... but as I said, I am working on it and just skimming through the posts here will help a lot, even more when I take the time to read thoroughly :geek:

oh! and thanks for the cake!

 

[impiku]

Welcome to the forums. English is also not my native language. I don't feel at home, seeing my political philosophy radically differ from most people here. But then again I'm a fighter, I'm used to this sort of environment. Nice profile picture, is that you when you were a child? Did you survive an abortion?

 

[Thomas Doubting]

Welcome to the forums. English is also not my native language. I don't feel at home, seeing my political philosophy radically differ from most people here. But then again I'm a fighter, I'm used to this sort of environment. Nice profile picture, is that you when you were a child? Did you survive an abortion?

hang in there, try to avoid getting banned , it requires some skill when you get cornered like that
and this is photoshopped!! in reality i looked even worse :cry:
not that it got any better in meantime.. but no abortion, my mom still hates me because she had to press that head out of her womb guess she regrets not having aborted

on a different note.. seeing you are in a place called the "League of Reason", and most its members disagreeing with you, did it cross your mind that you might be unreasonable?
just a thought :roll:

 

[impiku]

on a different note.. seeing you are in a place called the "League of Reason", and most its members disagreeing with you, did it cross your mind that you might be unreasonable?
just a thought :roll:

I only disagree when it comes to politics and racial issues. I doubt my opinions will be radically different in most other issues. Having many people to agree with you might provide you some intellectual security but your belief could be false and it could reinforce prejudice because of the illusion that you are right(since many people are endorsing your stance).

 

[Thomas Doubting]

on a different note.. seeing you are in a place called the "League of Reason", and most its members disagreeing with you, did it cross your mind that you might be unreasonable?
just a thought :roll:

I only disagree when it comes to politics and racial issues. I doubt my opinions will be radically different in most other issues. Having many people to agree with you might provide you some intellectual security but your belief could be false and it could reinforce prejudice because of the illusion that you are right(since many people are endorsing your stance).

not in my case, I don't look for people to agree with me.. i look for people to talk to and share leech of their knowledge, but i analyze myself more than i analyze others, i know my logic is often off-the-wall and i am not only skeptical but also very self-critical, which helps me get a grip on reality rather than getting a hard-on when somebody happens to share my opinion, heck if too many people agree with me I triplecheck what it was about because I think its fishy if people don't lacerate my incoherent statements :mrgreen:

 

[impiku]

but i analyze myself more than i analyze others, i know my logic is often off-the-wall and i am not only skeptical but also very self-critical

..which is a nice habit many seem to lack. Reflection is a key to personal/intellectual improvement.

...helps me get a grip on reality rather than getting a hard-on when somebody happens to share my opinion, heck if too many people agree with me I triplecheck what it was about because I think its fishy if people don't lacerate my incoherent statements :mrgreen:

Religious folks should take this statement seriously, along with some atheists.

 

[Thomas Doubting]

Yeah, although agreeing with myself won't help my credibility :lol:
In spite of being far from the most intelligent, reasonable, morally optimal -insert more qualities- people, i at least know that i have flaws, and many of them, which is why i am permanently scrutinizing what i do and say, trying to correct myself in case i go wrong.
I wish others would at least admit that they can be wrong, denial and blind self-approval is the best way to make things worse..

 

[impiku]

I wish others would at least admit that they can be wrong, denial and blind self-approval is the best way to make things worse..

Most self-proclaimed "free-thinkers" I've met were closed minded like this. It seems like political correctness is reinforcing this phenomenon.

 

[Thomas Doubting]

to be able to analyze that we would have to define "political corectness" first
and see if there is such a thing :lol:

 

[Gnug215]

I am often wrong.

At least that's a safe bet, because I realize that the information I have available to make a given judgment call is not sufficient - whatever "sufficient" would be in this case.

So in that sense, I'd say I'm more often ignorant, and I know this.

I would not say that I suffer under political correctness. Not sure how that would work.

I am, however, sure that I'm suffering from a wide variety of cognitive biases, such as confirmation bias (which really is one of the most dangerous things around) and the Typical Mind Fallacy.

Anyway, you're a welcomed idiot here. Self-deprecation is always a hit with me, but while I enjoy yours, I can see how it's not true. At least not the idiot part, nor the poor English part. Your vocab is pretty good if you know a word like "meager"!
Incidenally, if you want to test your vocab, you could try http://testyourvocab.com/ and see.

Anyway, welcome aboard!

 

[Prolescum]

Wotcha.

 

[Thomas Doubting]

Wow thanks for the link, this looks really good! It has a lot more "hard words" to offer than the last one i tried.
And now i have to look up "incidenally", can't find it in my vocabularies.. (sure you don't mean incidenTally? )
About the confirmation bias.. damn right it is dangerous.. when you look at religions you see how easy it is to just ignore facts and reality in general if you can find even a grain of dust supporting what you think is true..

And thanks for trying to cheer me up but I can't say you're right, my english may look halfway decent but if you catch me without my vocabularies and try to talk about some intellectual or adult topic, you will see how often I lack the proper words to express what i think, also the vocabularies can't always help.. But i am permanently working on it
And about the idiot part.. I always "see the monkey in the mirror", not only because my looks don't differ too much from a common ape :lol:
I wish more people were aware of it, that animal which likes to sniff its finger after scratching its butt is still a big part of our personalities, all we know or think we know won't change that fact.

-NSFW, + disturbing (hopefully)-

Show More Hide

{TEXT}

we didn't even grow out of such things..much less destructive and anti social behavior and other things i can't agree with..
Which is also why I don't expect too much from other people.. seeing how often we get disappointed, I am always trying to keep the worst case scenario in mind, expecting the worst but hoping for the best, especially when it comes to myself.
People call me a pessimist because of my permanent self-depreciation but I find it realistic and one of the few useful things I learned from my father, he often broke my wings when I seemed to be lifting off and he told me to do my best to not get conceited, something like "If you always think you are great you will try to deny facts or find yourself crying in the corner many times when you see how things are in reality, but if you underestimate your abilities while trying your best, you might be in for a pleasant surprise once in a while".
If you kill your illusions on your own, you won't give the world too many chances to kick you in the groin :mrgreen:

 

[Gnug215]

Wow thanks for the link, this looks really good! It has a lot more "hard words" to offer than the last one i tried.
And now i have to look up "incidenally", can't find it in my vocabularies.. (sure you don't mean incidenTally? )

Aha! This was, of course, a test... which you passed!

ahem...

 

[Thomas Doubting]

Wow thanks for the link, this looks really good! It has a lot more "hard words" to offer than the last one i tried.
And now i have to look up "incidenally", can't find it in my vocabularies.. (sure you don't mean incidenTally? )

Aha! This was, of course, a test... which you passed!

ahem...

aww.. i can feel the love and support from LoR more and more, most thoughtful of you!

haha nothing against typos, I am pro-typo-ist.. but I wasn't sure if its a real word :facepalm:

But i did learn something out of it! now i know what incidentally in that context means :idea:

 

[Noth]

Hi!

First things first, I have to say that (although you will very soon notice) english is not my native language, actually it is my third language with german being second.. so I hope you won't tear me apart for raping the language, it can't be helped instantly, but I am working on it.

I'm an English teacher. Your English is good (just capitalise names of languages/ people like German and English )

Welcome

 

[Thomas Doubting]

Hi!

First things first, I have to say that (although you will very soon notice) english is not my native language, actually it is my third language with german being second.. so I hope you won't tear me apart for raping the language, it can't be helped instantly, but I am working on it.

I'm an English teacher. Your English is good (just capitalise names of languages/ people like German and English )

Welcome

Oh awesome!! may i take private instructions now and then?
there is something i am not sure about... when i refer to this dumphole we call our planet, do i say the earth or the Earth?
and about the shiny thingy up there which is burning my skin every day.. do i say the sun or the Sun?
I thought when i refer to our sun it is the Sun
but if i talk about suns in general i leave it small?
*confused*

capitalization is my kryptonite.. along with punctuation.. while i do know where to put my dots and commas and the rest, i am just to lazy to do so and i like to dramatize with the ellipsis... (<- like there)
oh and i.. I... do i always write capital I? I think it would be correct but i got so programmed to just leave it small.. now i am not even sure anymore if it should be always capitalized

enough for one day i guess :mrgreen:

 

[Gnug215]

Oh awesome!! may i take private instructions now and then?
there is something i am not sure about... when i refer to this dumphole we call our planet, do i say the earth or the Earth?
and about the shiny thingy up there which is burning my skin every day.. do i say the sun or the Sun?
I thought when i refer to our sun it is the Sun
but if i talk about suns in general i leave it small?
*confused*

capitalization is my kryptonite.. along with punctuation.. while i do know where to put my dots and commas and the rest, i am just to lazy to do so and i like to dramatize with the ellipsis... (<- like there)
oh and i.. I... do i always write capital I? I think it would be correct but i got so programmed to just leave it small.. now i am not even sure anymore if it should be always capitalized

enough for one day i guess :mrgreen:

I have also been in doubt about this sun/earth thing. I figured that they had to be capitalized when they are proper names ("Our Sun is the best evarrr!!", "Welcome to Earth, now let me show you all our military secrets), but not in all other situations... but what situations? Example: "What on Earth is going on?" I'd say it always had to be capped there, but the problem is that I'm seeing un-capped everywhere. Even dictionary.com, which tells me that it is "often initial capital letter", lists examples ALL of which use lower caps.

So yeah... Good question.

Now, "I" is always capitalized when referring to yourself. And since you never use "i" alone in any context without referring to yourself, you can safely capitalize your "I"'s every time.

Punctuation is always a problem, but as you mention, it can be used to spice up one's writing. Being a long-time chatter, I've developed (degenerated?) my own special use of punctuation to denote various moods and such. And yeah, I use ellipsis a LOT myself - too much - but I in recent years I've started to try to use them properly - at least to some extent.
I went on Wikipedia to check out what they say about it:

An ellipsis can also be used to indicate a pause in speech, an unfinished thought, or, at the end of a sentence, a trailing off into silence (aposiopesis). When placed at the beginning or end of a sentence, the ellipsis can also inspire a feeling of melancholy longing. The ellipsis calls for a slight pause in speech or any other form of text.

I often use it at the end of a sentence in chat, and then sort of continuing with what I'm saying on a new line.
Example:

<Gnug215> So I can sit there in a chatroom...
<Gnug215> Sending off one disjointed line after the next...
<Gnug215> But I'm doing it with good intention...
<Gnug215> Namely to give whomever I'm speaking to something to read gradually...
<Gnug215> As I'm trying to wrap my brain around finishing this semi-long train of thought I'm working on.

It's usually to let the reader know that I'm not finished... BUT... confusingly, I also sometimes use it to indicate, as Wiki says, an unfinished thought, or a trailing off into silence. It HAS happened before that I used it that way, and the reader then expected me to say more. I should really be careful with that.

 

[kenandkids]

As a welcome, welcome.

You've already shown yourself to be intelligent and you even tolerate nonsense better than I. You are a welcome addition here.


Now about your gruesome picture...