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What has changed with you?

I

irmerk

New Member
arg-fallbackName="irmerk"/>
I kind of got the idea from TJ, the Amazing Atheist, in his video of five questions to VFX.

So, what have you changed in convictions or opinion since your entry to LoR, or even YouTube? Please be specific if it is YouTube, as I assume most will talk about in LoR. Maybe you were not decided on a subject, maybe you had never thought of something, maybe you were completely converted by someone. I think some of these might be interesting.

Personally, I had not thought too much on the death penalty pretty much because I thought it too complicated and just pushed away for later consideration. However, after the recent thread on it here, I have become more supportive of rehabilitation and against the penalty.

Also, I think people, mostly Ozymandyus, have helped me better understand and solidify concepts of objective morality.

Another would be better defining my stance on drug legalization.

Last that I can think of from LoR is from dealing with conversing with others, I have better learned how to stay on topic and try to keep personal distractions to a minimum.

As for YouTube, it helped me better understand why atheism, science and whatever else actually matters via Thunderf00t, gogreen18 (ugh...), theAmazingAtheist, potholder54, etc. etc.

Also with YouTube is obviously better understanding countless bits of science from astronomy, evolution, chemistry, physics, geology, paleontology, taxonomy, blah, blah, blah - as I am sure most people here would confess.
 
arg-fallbackName="Aught3"/>
LoR hasn't done much for me, except to help me refine some of my positions and the reasons I hold them. It has strengthened my conviction to read up on philosophy a bit more, once I get some free time.

The biggest thing YouTube did for me was really to get me to 'embrace' my atheism. I was brought up in a non-religious household but didn't really know what being an atheist meant. YouTube explained it to me.
 
arg-fallbackName="Ozymandyus"/>
I've learned to try to ramble on a bit less. And definitely learned about various points of view on tons of different topics and picked up a few facts about various issues.

I've also mellowed my style of disagreeing a little, I found when rereading some stuff and when reading other people's responses that I am sometimes overly derisive/dismissive. Also, I've also changed my sleeping habits a bit by staying up late responding to random posts. Speaking of which, it's 3 in the morning. Time to go to bad.
 
arg-fallbackName="irmerk"/>
I think the reason I have learned so much from here and much more YouTube is because I really was not adamant about any of these ideas or concepts, much less knowledgeable on them, until I came to said websites. I was just sheltered by my mom until I moved out and ignorant until I got my own access to a computer and the internet.
 
arg-fallbackName="Aught3"/>
Oh well I was ignorant without the internet, but you still have to be willing to spend the time going through these ideas and understanding them. I can see how the LoR assists in that cause.
 
arg-fallbackName="Otokogoroshi"/>
My collection of friends has always been fairly limited and until recently highly intelligent. My three closest friends in high school were honor roll students and took advanced classes (that I often ditched to join hehe). Now I know one person with a PHD in medicine and another working on his PHD in developmental psychology... So really I surrounded myself with the smerts.

I adore reading and learning so it never occurred to me that there were people out there who just flat out didn't believe in evolution or other scientific principals. Youtube taught me that for better or worse :p

Recently I was appalled to learn two of my 'friends' (friends of friends really) genuinely thought evolution had been debunked and wasn't true. They saw the Ben Stein movie and didn't question it at all. Needless to say I tried my best to divorce them of these beliefs but no surprise... they're both religious folks.

/eyeroll
 
arg-fallbackName="MachineSp1rit"/>
i think it's been a week of something since I've joined you guys, so i can't say much. however, i fond pleasure of arguing and learning something from intellectual, educated people. Made up my views on certain subjects and else.

as for youtube, well youtube is another story, can't say i got something significant from there either, all this drama and stupid fights, never been into them. just got deeper into subject of atheism and theism, learned some specificity of people from different countries on the subject, also got known to political opinions of certain nations. and the last one, i got to known how people can seem clever at first sight, and terribly ignorant and brainwashed when you look deeper into them.

oh and English got better, of course.
 
arg-fallbackName="PuppetXeno"/>
I never really cared for the atheist/theist debate until I ran into it on youtube. It amazed me how many people actually rejected proper science for all sorts of really bad reasons, I still think it's nothing other than absurd.

As for LOR - it's nice to read people's viewpoints and argumentations on a number of things, that helps me form/strengthen my own positions, although there's hardly any real-life situations where I actually have to explain these viewpoints / positions - I don't seem to hang out around idiots much (or they are wise enough to shut up by default when they see me ;) )
 
arg-fallbackName="nasher168"/>
Youtube in particular has sort of encouraged me to be more outspoken as an atheist. Incidentally, it was actually VenomfangX's stupidity that drove me towards thunderf00t and later all the others.
I have been atheist (or something like it, anyway) since I was probably about 8. I remember resolutely defying the teachers by refusing to clasp my hands in prayer during assemblies, but that was as far as I went. These days, I would have told them to prove that I'm not just talking to myself. Fortunately, in secondary school (and particularly in sixth form) they don't care about who prays. I just turn up the music in my head when the priest talks.

The LoR has done only one thing. It drove me to a hatred of fundamentalism rather than just laughing at it's stupidity. It was the "Letter from Hell" thread that did that. I'm not sure whether that's good or bad. I don't hate fundamentalists as a group, though, just their fundamentalism.
 
arg-fallbackName="nasher168"/>

This is the "a letter from hell" video. I couldn't find the thread in this forum, but it was on youtube.
To put it into context, this video is used to convert small children by basically inspiring a reign of terror. Imagine being brought up in a Christian household and then seeing this. You would never be free of that fear.
 
arg-fallbackName="Spase"/>
On youtube... well. I learned how stupid some people are. I started watching videos there as a sort of guilty pleasure, watching Christians embarrass themselves. I was raised an atheist so it never really occurred to me that there would be an atheist community.. it was just a fact of life.

here at LoR mostly I think I've gotten better about not over extending myself in arguments. I try to keep my claims only to things I really know pretty well and that I know where to find good sources to cite if someone doesn't believe me. I read a lot so I have a tendency to weave bits and pieces of things I know into arguments and I'm getting better at leaving those things out because more often than not those little details end up being weaknesses in the argument rather than support when I can't remember where I read it.

Oh! And while before I wasn't willing to make a claim one way or the other about 9/11 conspiracies because I was unwilling to spend the time to look up all the claims made by truthers now I feel pretty solid about it not being a conspiracy. It was nice to have people who have paid attention to it all and who are educated in the areas and done the research articulate it all.
 
arg-fallbackName="ImprobableJoe"/>
Nothing changes for me... I'm just too old.

I have learned all sorts of stuff about how absolutely nutty people are, from YouTube. Before the Internet, you could pretend that insanity was confined to odd people on the edge of town, and/or MTV Spring Break specials. The Internet and YouTube in particular have not only made nutty people more visible, but has added significantly to the general level of world crackpottery.

Here's how it happened: 50 years ago, if you wondered if it was a good idea to marry a plastic chicken(just a fucked-up example), you would have to ask someone if they thought it was a good idea or just keep it to yourself. After awhile, you might meet a nice woman, settle down, and forget the whole thing besides a slight twinge driving past the KFC. Now, you go on the Internet and there are a million people creating websites and tons of videos promoting marrying plastic chickens. Instead of dropping the idea and moving on, you're encouraged to make your own videos, and make marrying plastic chickens a centerpiece of your entire life.

Bad juju...
 
arg-fallbackName="Daealis"/>
Youtube did some changes to my train of thought. First it introduced me to the part of humanity, that is the reason of my signature. There are some seriously fucked up people in there. Stupidity beyond measure. I shit you not, I've seen videos so stupid, I got an actual, physical headache out of it.

Second change youtube did for me was atheism. When I registered I was still an evangelical christian. Not knowing where to look for information, I searched with the questions(or keywords of my questions) for videos on the subjects bothering me in religion, bible and faith related issues. After a while I bumped into Desertphile, TJ, DonExodus2 and Thunderf00t, and some of the opposition(VFX, Jesuzfreek777 and some random little contributors). DE and TF were the two most compelling to me and wathing them, reading the links they provided(cdk007 also sourced pretty good) I drifted into agnostic theism. Being bumped by The God Delusion and some other authors I came in terms with the whole 'no god'-thing and within months I started to argue against religions. I've already argued with creationists for a while and their stupidity and circular 'goddunit'-reasonings were a driving force in YT.

League of Reason hasn't had the same dramatic impact. I enjoy reading the topics and try to contribute to anything I can. One could say LoR is more like a preparatory school, giving you ammunition on whatever you might be interested in.
 
arg-fallbackName="acerba"/>
The internet has taught me that the phrase "gallows humor" is redundant.

And because of YouTube, I also discovered Richard Dawkins and his sexy accent.
 
arg-fallbackName="enterman"/>
I never really had a care about any ideas like those presented here or on youtube until recently. Now when I come here and go to youtube I try and absorb as much as I can. There's always something new to learn everyday :D
 
arg-fallbackName="gwr3440"/>
Neither youtube nor the League of Reason changed me.

Moving to the USA did. Even though the UK has an established religion it is largely ignored and there were very few religious loonies. I was never a pariah before that. Nor subject to an endless barrage of religious stupidity and bigotry.
 
arg-fallbackName="Jotto999"/>
I've been on youtube and LoR a lot since this site started. My beliefs haven't changed much, rather, some of them have only been reinforced. But I have learned tons of things, from both sites. Especially watching videos among the type that Thunderf00t makes, I have learned a lot from those.
 
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