I'm not commenting on porn one way or another. But if something that consenting adults do happens to go against my morality, do you know how I deal with that?

I don't do that thing myself. That's all.

You see, part of my morality involves recognizing the unnecessary control of other people as evil. Consenting adults == no victim == no crime == not a law-enforcement matter. I might speak against practices I disagree with, perhaps even vehemently, but in these cases trying to use government's police power (that is, armed men willing to do violence to force compliance) is just plain fucking disgusting.

It matters in the sense that the "young-earth creationists" are easily ridiculed and the mountain of evidence against them is strong.

It matters because it's easy, in the soft minds of so many, to represent all creationists as young-earth creationists who believe things that are easily and trivially falsified by geological, astronomical, and nuclear-physics data. So precious few people are willing to do a little reading and learn that in the hundred years prior to the 1960s almost all creationists were ancient-earth creationists, that a handful of charismatic, vocal, wrong religious people are the only reason we even know of such a thing as a young-earth creationist (oh and the idea of a pre-flood canopy of water vapor is frickin impossible as well, and not even Biblical).

If you have ever actually met and talked to a number of atheists, they tend to have a lot of anger and resentment towards established religion and the more nutty followers of it. Some of them even have victim/persecution complexes. They tend to paint with a very broad brush and deny entirely that reasonable spiritual people exist. That would, after all, get in the way of their resentment. I don't believe I have ever met a pro-atheism atheist, but I have met a lot of anti-fundamentalist atheists. The common trait most of them have is that they cannot disagree with something without also trying to destroy it, which could be a lot more effective if they made any attempt to understand why those beliefs arose in the first place.

All of this is readily understood by those who simply want to objectively understand the beliefs in question, both scientific and religious. It tends to be lost upon those whose primary concern is winning converts.

Actually as I said in another post in this same discussion, my preference is for stainless steel containers. No plastic -> no need for plastic softeners -> no exposure to BPA or any other chemical serving its purpose.

But many people here do feel a need to show everyone how clever they are and how dumb everyone else is, even if they have to make baseless assumptions to try it, don't they?

I still try to do what you are doing here, in the hope that it might make some kind of difference, and because it's the fucking truth that needs to be said ... but you will find (and probably have found) that people will cling dearly to their victimhood and closely embrace their conditioned helplessness as though it were precious to them.

Expecting a literate adult with no disabilities to be able to follow simple, clearly written instructions is some kind of heresy in our society. In the context of things like computer security, you will be accused of blaming the victim when you tell them there are ways they can stop being exploited. In the context of tasks like installing a filter or configuring a system, you'll be told that "not everyone is an expert" and treated like you are making unreasonable demands.

People just love to limit themselves and avoid learning new things. The society in general has become childish and self-centered to its core, and such people have one primary concern: avoiding blame. If you are a helpless victim then you can't assume responsibility for your life, your decisions, and your problems. If you are a helpless victim then nothing could ever be your fault. That's the appeal. Just as a cell infected by a virus never "intended" to become a virus factory, so also do these people believe their own bullshit. They fear the introspection and lack the objectivity to do otherwise.

Trying to convince them of the truth, that they CAN in fact do it, is tantamount to convincing them to accept responsibility for all the things they could have done differently. Over a lifetime the cumulative number of such things can be quite large. They have to get upset with you and invent faults with your truth because they're cowards who are not prepared to do that and don't even understand the value in it. If something is your fault, that's good! It means you can change it by making better decisions. It means you are not really so helpless. But again you have to be mentally and emotionally mature enough to value this more than avoiding blame.

While I use soap a bit more often than you indicate, I am right with you on the antibacterial soap.

I am not a doctor and this is definitely not medical advice. But If I were worried about bacteria I personally (deciding only for myself) would take a probiotic. About 70% of the immune system is in the gut.

It's not just humans. You may find this interesting to read, as well as this. Male fish are definitely not supposed to have female characteristics.

As far as humans are concerned, you may find this an interesting read. It indicates that humans may be more susceptible to such endocrine disruptors (like BPA) than previous studied using rodents initially indicated.

So then we're back to what constitutes good decision-making. Fact: I have no overriding reason why I absolutely must use containers made with BPA. Fact: not only are alternatives to such containers readily available, I also happen to like them better for aesthetic and durability reasons. Conclusion: exposing myself to BPA is an unnecessary risk.

Still, if you think it's harmless you are free to continue using it. At one time people were told (by doctors no less) that cigarettes were beneficial. Now if I had some dire need (as in my life and well-being absolutely depended on it) to use BPA-containing plastics, perhaps I'd take my chances. But I don't.

Not to mention the long-term effects of BPA exposure. If you don't know about this, I'd recommend researching it.

Besides, I think stainless steel just looks better and I know I'm not going to break it. When you have and regularly use an electric kettle anyway, you can quickly sanitize a steel container too.

Maybe they could politely ask the NSA?

That's the spirit!

Most of the time you must choose between quality and quantity.

Having both has been known to occur ... for a little while ... but it's very rare.

Slashdot is odd. Most other places, jokes are considered good if they are clever, unexpected, witty, amusing, and most of all, ORIGINAL (around here, most jokes like that will offend someone's sacred cow and get modded as -1 Troll).

Here, jokes are most likely to be enjoyed, encountered, and/or modded up to +5 Funny if they are repetitive, predictable, expected, tiresome memes.

This pattern is so consistent and observable that I think a conclusion about it can be made: slashdot is filled with insecure (and perceived or real) outcasts who have a certain desperation to feel like they fit into a culture of likeminded people. If you view it that way, suddenly the irrational celebration of the ten millionth "sharks with lasers on their heads" joke makes sense. If you view it that way, the hostility they often show when you reject or even question their brand of humor also makes sense.

It's sort of like when you were in high school and the more "average" people suddenly adopted the mannerisms, gestures, and speech patterns of the latest big movie or TV show, all the time pretending that they have always expressed themselves that way. The terror of being an individual! No meme is too repetitive, no joke too lame if it offers even a phony escape from that!

I'll add, most of these controversies purportedly about "science" are really controversies about "the status quo that cherrypicks bits of science to lend itself credibility". Powerful men have defined reality for the proles long before they had any sort of science by which to claim legitimacy. "Scientific data proves it (and only an idiot would question THAT)" can be used (abused by dishonest people) in a manner very similar to "God told me I should rule over you!" The purpose is the same: "don't argue with me, accept it as truth".

If you want to see that in action, look at why aspartame as a food additive was originally not allowed, then why the FDA director was pressured out of the agency, and who replaced him and what his primary goal was (which was of course approving aspartame). That's what money does to what was formerly good science.

How do you read what he wrote and come up with that in response to it? Do you secretly believe everyone other than yourself is a moron?

It's like Slashdotters think it is weakness to try and understand what the other person believes and in what way it could be reasonable. It depends on the part where what the guy wrote must also be interpreted by the reader, and everything except rigorous mathematical formulae has multiple ways that it can be construed.

There actually are lots of problems with vaccines but you will never find this information without sincerely searching for it yourself, because there are too many monied interests who profit from a single view of the situation.

It's not as well known as it deserves to be, but the early Christians were actually a very diverse group. What we now call Gnosticism was representative of many if not most of them.

Sadly it was systematically stamped out, largely in part because there is such great power in organized religion and adherence to its dogmas.

Excluded, "non-canonical" books like the Gospel of Thomas, the Book of Enoch, and the Gospel of Judas are really fascinating to read.

That's both sad and amusing. Having read and learned about the Bible, I can tell you this much: the geneologies in Genesis and elsewhere are not complete and exhuastive. They do not claim to be complete and exhaustive. Nowhere in the Bible is it so much as implied that they are.

The standard ancient Hebrew practice of listing such geneologies is to list only the most famous/notable ancestors. More mediocre and lesser-known ancestors are left out deliberately because they were not considered worthy of mention. Thus there are large gaps of unknown time in the geneologies listed in Genesis and elsewhere. Nothing to the contrary is ever claimed. This fact is not even difficult to find out, except that it does depend on doing your own homework instead of letting the TV and the culture do the thinking for you. The main point of all the geneologies in the Bible is to establish that the line of King David was known (old testament) and is the same line from which Yeshua (new testament) is descended, which is important because various prophecies concerning the Messiah predicted this (e.g. Isaiah).

To infer some kind of final ultimate Age of Humanity or Age of The Earth from this is madness. The Bible never represents it as such, and anyone claiming it does is simply unfamiliar with the very book (and ancient Hebrew culture) they are claiming to understand. The Bible makes no claims whatsoever concerning things like how long ago Adam lived, how long ago Noah lived, how long ago the Flood was, etc.

Most self-described Christians don't know this and that's just plain fucking lazy, to be frank with you. You believe this is the WORD OF GOD and yet you can't be bothered to learn a few easily researched facts about it?? This is what happens when people always have some excuse for why they won't do their own thinking and their own learning.