Define Innocence

[mania-[ker]]

I was sitting in my sociology class last night and the professor brought up the idea of innocence. She asked us "What is innocence?". Having assumed all along that the definition of this word was simply someone who is without guilt, I was surprised at the mass variety of other words brought up by people and equally surprised at peoples reasonings.

So what is innocence to all of you?

[Commodore]

I think innocence is a lack of experience, that is no one can be completely innocent since from birth you are experiencing things. So then there are varing degrees of innocence based on your experiences. The obvious extension could involve talking about virginal purity. The metaphor of original sin works well for this as far as the idea that free will is what allows us to experience and obtain knowledge, removing innocence.

[superbowl shuffle]

I would rest the colloquial meaning on the way things are viewed -- such that learning something or first doing something doesn't detract from innocence so much getting used to things.

Like when I first drank alcohol, I still held a sort of awe for the next few weeks. It is when drinking became mundane that I think I really lost my innocence in that respect.

Additionally I don't think finding out about Santa Clause is as detrimental to inncoence as, say, understanding the stresses and tensions of family gatherings such as Christmas.

[Stak]

What I've stated is nothing more than a direct observation. If you'd read the rest of my thread you'd see I was sticking up for him, but I doubt your attention span held that long.

And what are you trying to say by me "running away", that I have no right to leave? How many times have you thrown a fit to me about how much the community hates you and how much you can't stand it and this is a justification for you to completely explode and be a jerk to EVERYONE no matter what they say? Or I suppose that you think I have some kind of responsibility to keep giving to this community after all of the tireless dedication I've put in to a group of people that consists of a lot of immature brats such as yourself? What do you think, really.

And how many times have I tried to console you anyway and reconcile things between you and other people, and you say ignorant bullshit like this now? You want to talk about hypocricy, even when you're trying to make it fit where it isn't, don't you.

I did what I had to do back then and there was no shame in doing it. Much as people like yourself might have thrown a piss fit over it it had nothing to do with any of you. It wasn't about attention no matter how much you might think otherwise.

Get a clue. Sometimes I think you want people to hate you.

[Zenith Nadir]

who cares (this isn't dmzx)

[Stak]

ahaha who edited my post

[Zenith Nadir]

me

i also added a word censor.