User talk:DASH Project

What is going on? World Blogs Clogs Elections The Bar (talk) (talk) (talk) (talk) (hic) Welcome to RationalWiki, DASH Project! Check out our guide for newcomers and our community standards! Tell us how you found RationalWiki here! If you are interested in contributing: Read what our articles are intended to be Check out the to-do list See our help page and Wikipedia's formatting cheatsheet If writing a new article, consider writing up a draft And most importantly: Pull up a goat and have some fun!

Hi there. Welcome to the goat! The Goonie 1 ^{What's this button do? Uh oh....} 22:04, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, it's an honor, please teach me in the ways of the goat ^{— Unsigned, by: DASH Project / talk / contribs}

Okay. First, please sign your talkpage posts with four tildes at the end like this: ~~~~ Lord of the Goons ^{The official spikey-haired skeptical punk} 22:29, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi Dash Project. I suggest checking some of the links in the template above, plus our RationalWiki page, as your ideas about what the site's purposes & style are or should be seem rather off-target. If you disagree with others' opinions, you will find that they are usually willing to debate on talk pages or at the RationalWiki:Forum, Saloon bar, etc. but dropping tirades against the site into article space is not a good way to start out. As for humour, it is not excluded by any definition of rationality that I know of, & most longstanding editors here are happy with the "snarky" tone of our articles. Wėąṣėḷőįď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 22:37, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

dropping tirades against the site into article space is not a good way to start out

Excuse me, but I don't consider what I wrote a tirade. It is my personal page, is it not? You respond to it of your own free will. I'm not forcing you to read or do anything.

I suffer from autism and OCD, and in the past stuff on this site has pissed me off greatly, and I cannot stop obsessing over the fact the somewhere out there, there are a group of people who want me to not believe the way I do, while claiming themselves to be open-minded. In actuality they are no better than the Christian right.

And you're lucky you're a pagan. Why are you even defending the other users on this site anyways, when they probably hate your guts for believing in the supernatural? Or if the paganism thing is one big joke then it's a rather strange one. ^{— Unsigned, by: DASH Project / talk / contribs}

Please sign talk page entries using four tildes like this: ~~~~ or by clicking on the sign button: , on the toolbar above the edit panel. Thank you.

He was talking about what you wrote in Essay:Appeal to ridicule, not your userpage. (it was originally in the mainspace, but has been moved to essayspace.) Blue (is useful) 22:49, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Mostly harmless

So, when someone's world view leads to children contracting horrible diseases for no reason, or people suffering and dieing for failure to seek out proper medical in a timely fashion, is it the right thing to do to ignore it cause it just a different world view?

When someone's world view leads to sucking the life savings out of vulnerable populations with offers of the impossible, its all relative right? tmtoulouse 22:30, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

When someone's world view leads to sucking the life savings out of vulnerable populations with offers of the impossible, its all relative right?

In the end, it's up to the buyer to decide. I personally see the notion of selling spirituality as the latest hot trend or as medicine is blasphemous, made all the worse when you take all the cool mysticism out of something by adding pseudoscientific technobabble and marketing it as something retarded like it's "therapeutic" or something. It does not make any sense logically, and will only piss off both rationalists like yourself and spiritual people who feel like their traditions are being raped by the greedy self-help industry.

That said, I believe alternative medicine can be used to augment conventional medicine, but should never be used as a substitute. When I was a kid I had a primary and secondary doctor - the main one being conventional, medicine-based physician, the other being a Chinese medicine doctor. She helped me with minor adjustments like allergies or (more effectively) emotional trauma, but would never trust her alone if I were contract a deadly illness. DASH Project (talk) 22:40, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

I work with an MRI technician whose first job was at a hospital for children. A large percentage of his work was imaging young athletic children, not because of their injuries in athletics but because of the supplemental health care of chiropractors. "Adjusting" a 12 year old's spine and neck is never a good idea even if they have an actual doctor as well.

And the emergence of pertussis and measles in children is just a natural casualty in the buyer beware market place of ideas? tmtoulouse 22:47, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Atheism killing people?

I don't deny that Stalin and Mao are mass murderers, but I do deny that they murdered because of atheism. It's important to make a distinction between 'murderers who are atheists' and 'murderers because of atheism'. EddyP (talk) 22:50, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

--DASH Project (talk) 22:54, 5 October 2010 (UTC)I don't deny that Stalin and Mao are mass murderers, but I do deny that they murdered because of atheism. It's important to make a distinction between 'murderers who are atheists' and 'murderers because of atheism'

Well I will admit I kind of pulled that one out of my ass, but when you've got an entire website of people who, from how I see it (and I could be wrong,) wish to exterminate spirituality from the face of the earth, not to mention the mental illness I have of being nigh-unable to stop thinking about attempts to destroy or piss on something that matters deeply to me, then you kinda get desperate.

We are not trying to exterminate spirituality from the face of the earth. --Sir Onion ^{Kneel before my vegetable might!} 22:56, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

--DASH Project (talk) 23:01, 5 October 2010 (UTC)We are not trying to exterminate spirituality from the face of the earth. I don't believe that. If you truly were not trying to destroy a way of thinking then you wouldn't hate it so much and spit, piss and shit all over it when you get the chance to. You simply cannot brand all believe in the nonphysical as "woo" and say you hate it and wish to mock and desecrate it, then deny you want it changed or eliminated. Face it, you hate us.

And someone plead tell me how to respond directly to someone's reply the way you guys seem like you are doing. I don't want my posts getting disorganized and placed under the wrong heading.

RationalWiki promotes & defends an understanding of the universe based on science, evidence & logic. Such an understanding is not necessarily incompatible with religious or spiritual beliefs (which many of our editors have), but in line with the site missions our articles question beliefs which do not have an empirical basis, especially ones which are falsely presented as if they do, and refute beliefs which outright contradict evidence-based knowledge. Satire & ridicule are among the tools we use, but are generally accompanied by reasoned analysis of the belief or practice in question. Wėąṣėḷőįď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 23:41, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Technical help

And someone plead tell me how to respond directly to someone's reply the way you guys seem like you are doing. I don't want my posts getting disorganized and placed under the wrong heading.

Okay, what specifically do you need help with? I am more than willing to help with the technical aspects. Lord Goonie ^{Hooray! I'm helping!} 23:04, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

if you start with a colon , or more than 1 colon (:) you get indented text. Thats one way of making replies more clear. Hamster (talk) 23:43, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

& Please put the signature (~~~~) at the end of your comments rather than the beginning. Thanks. Wėąṣėḷőįď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 23:46, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

What they said above. Click the edit button on this section to see how we did it.

If you start a new paragraph, it will need fresh colons, like I did here. ħuman 00:51, 6 October 2010 (UTC)