Ho ho, I've been drinking, time to make a post.
I don't do this too often; I usually post when I'm unhappy, so a lack of posts is probably good news.
Boredom and a lack of funds to do anything meaningful over the last few weeks meant that I started coming online a lot again, started reading the boards here on SG after a lapse of a year or so. Kinda like I never left, except I'm longer really "in" with locals and such. Oh well.
I kind of missed the sensibilities of the regulars on here. I'm surrounded more and more by very intelligent, but very conservative, people. It's amazing how many religious conservatives there are in the science programs at school. The guy who sits next to me in physics, Steve, is from Lebanon, we've hit it off okay... pre-class discussion with others has exploded recently, with a lot of people automatically parroting Israel's stance and pissing Steve off. I know a little about the conflict-- enough to know to keep my damn mouth shut. Hearing his take on it is still eye-opening; even when you try to look at all sides, with the stories dealt by the US media, you still end up with a biased perspective.
Anyway. The combination of intelligence and willful ignorance by the conservatives in class gets kind of depressing. I want to shake some of my fellow students, let them know that they're not going to hell just for exploring alternatives to what their pastors tell them... even if you think the earth's 6000 years old, you can still make testable hypotheses based on the notion of some star's light being x million years old, and you don't have to sell your soul to do it... bleah.
So... yeah. I missed the SG posters. (Some of you, I guess.)
I don't do this too often; I usually post when I'm unhappy, so a lack of posts is probably good news.
Boredom and a lack of funds to do anything meaningful over the last few weeks meant that I started coming online a lot again, started reading the boards here on SG after a lapse of a year or so. Kinda like I never left, except I'm longer really "in" with locals and such. Oh well.
I kind of missed the sensibilities of the regulars on here. I'm surrounded more and more by very intelligent, but very conservative, people. It's amazing how many religious conservatives there are in the science programs at school. The guy who sits next to me in physics, Steve, is from Lebanon, we've hit it off okay... pre-class discussion with others has exploded recently, with a lot of people automatically parroting Israel's stance and pissing Steve off. I know a little about the conflict-- enough to know to keep my damn mouth shut. Hearing his take on it is still eye-opening; even when you try to look at all sides, with the stories dealt by the US media, you still end up with a biased perspective.
Anyway. The combination of intelligence and willful ignorance by the conservatives in class gets kind of depressing. I want to shake some of my fellow students, let them know that they're not going to hell just for exploring alternatives to what their pastors tell them... even if you think the earth's 6000 years old, you can still make testable hypotheses based on the notion of some star's light being x million years old, and you don't have to sell your soul to do it... bleah.
So... yeah. I missed the SG posters. (Some of you, I guess.)