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The term "separation of church and state" comes from a letter from Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists. It is generally thought that Jefferson was a Deist (along with John Adams), and would generally fear a theocratic state. Although it is not in the Constitution directly, it is considered to be the desire of a variety of influential founding fathers (although .. that link seems to rely on some hearsay and may be a bit propagandist).

Actually, that would be a myth.

The cause-effect relationship between eating pork and exhibiting trichinosis was not established until the 19th century. The idea that dietary laws against pork (which started over 5000 years ago) were somehow sane or rational is wishful thinking at best.

Some links:
http://www.dialognow.org/node/view/907
http://www.infidels.org/library/magazines/tsr/1998 /6/986koshe.html
http://www.myjewishlearning.com/texts/Weekly_Torah _Commentary/shemini_artson5759.htm

Two things that are coincident in time need not be causally related. Even if your cell phone provider made no specific changes, there may be other environmental changes that are responsible for improved performance (e.g., property owner a few houses down cut down a tree between you and the antenna, etc). If you don't make the effort to isolate these potential causes, you've not shown causality.

http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/logic.html#cu mhoc

Actually, that's not true. There are at least half a dozen other ancient 'gospels' besides the ones that made it into the Bible. You're free of course to doubt their religious content and their accuracy, but from a historical perspective all of these documents need to be evaluated the same way a historian would evaluate any other set of ancient religious documents.

Naturally all of the gospels must be evaluated the same way as other ancient documents and indeed this is done. Not having done research personally, the first question that pops into my mind is: if these other gospels are considered authentic, why aren't they in the bible? I don't know if you have any information on that; I know my catholic religious classes didn't even mention them.

There's a good article by Marshall J. Gauvin that describes some of the reasons why many scholars doubt the existence of a Jesus that at all resembled what the gospels say.

You are guilty of the same thing. Unless you were alive during the 1st century AD. I see no proof of your statements.

Proof of which statements? I made three statements about the first century:

Paul wrote his epistels long before the gospels were written down.

There is no proof that the gospels existed in the first century.

Revelation, the book of the NT which is the basis of all upstart end-time sects, is dated 96AD.

early christians didn't care about written tradition Items number one and three are the views of traditional scholars. Even the most bible thumping southern baptist deacon will agree to these two. Just look at the Wikipedia entry about the New Testament

The burden of proof for item number two is not on my side.

Item 4 can be infered from the fact that even though christian churches existed and that they had written works (like the epistels of paul) only a couple of years after jesus allegedly lived, they didn't bother to write anything about jesus down until at least 69 AD. (69 AD is the optimistic dating usually given by traditional scholars for the gospel of mark) Here is an interesting writeup about the The Formation of the New Testament Canon (2000) by Richard Carrier, an atheist, which contains further support for item 4, if you are interested.

The claims I made about the existance of alternative gospels and that they were selected by the catholic church is again not controversial at all. Ask any catholic priest or consult the catholic encyclopedia. In fact, you can download some alternative gospels from the web. (The gospel of thomas for example) But these claims are not about the first century anyway.

religion
n.

1.
a. Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.
b. A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship.
2. The life or condition of a person in a religious order.
3. A set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader.
4. A cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.

religion
n.

1.
a. Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.
b. A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship.
2. The life or condition of a person in a religious order.
3. A set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader.
4. A cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.

Athiests are, in my opinion religious: They believe there is no God. They are as firm in this conviction as any Christian/Hindu/Muslim, etc. is in his/her believe that there is a God. Any statement to the contrary invokes a reaction quite similar to what a Christian would have when his beliefs are argued against, and there is a fair (if not large) amount of intolerance towards those whose beliefs are not identical.

I think you're operating from a definition of atheism that has been written by the religious. Some religions (such as Roman Catholicism) have a real problem with the word "atheist" and have promoted a definition that describes only one type of atheism (strong). In reality, atheism is simply the lack of a belief in any god, much like asymmetric is the lack of symmetry and apolitical is the lack of politics. That is distinctly different from the positive belief that there is no god (which some atheists hold) that is generally referred to as "positive" or "strong" atheism. Here is a link that will give you more information.

Agnostics, on the other hand, are far more open-minded. They are willing to see either way, and aren't going to immediately reject either, viewing both as a possibility, neither of which can be proven.

Agnostics believe that it is impossible to ever know whether or not there is a god. It's possible to be an agnostic atheist (like me) or an agnostic theist, believing that although there must be something that created the universe it is impossible to know its nature.

But, in my view, agnostics also miss the point of religion entirely: To believe in something that is not known, and is not proveable by any known methods, and more importantly, to accept the fact that it may never be proveable at all.

That's a very interesting take on the purpose of religion. I'm not sure that the majority of christians (who generally believe that jesus is a fact period end of discussion) would agree that this is the point of their religion. Can you expand on what you consider the value of believing something that isn't known or provable?

Mass insanity? Maybe. But most theoretical scientists proceed with some facts, but largely a belief that there is something there, and they work and act upon their beliefs (even if their theory may never be 'proven'). Scientists have invested billions of dollars and more than a few man-hours around the ideas of the 'standard model' of particles, or to join the standard model with quantum physics using these things called 'strings'. Yet they plod on, sustained by their belief that some good may come of their research.

Science deals with trying to understand why things are as they are observed. Theories are made, tested and revised in the light of the factual observations made. The purpose of a theory is not to be proven true and scientists are willing (subject of course to normal human foibles) to see their theories disproven or modified. Newton's Laws of Motion are a good example. They seemed to hold true for all cases for hundreds of years and we have been able to build great technology from our understanding of them. But now we've discovered that they don't hold true for all cases. The fact that our understanding has changed doesn't destroy the value we've received from Newton's work.

Einstein's theory of relativity is a great example: He worked on it, argued about it, etc. But he never lived to see it 'proven'. In fact, he stated himself that it may never be proven, and that a single event can disprove it entirely. But the belief that he was right, and the evidence that seemed to support the theory brought it both recognition and acceptance. It is accepted as fact to a large enough extent that it is still used today.

Again, the best that science can do is try to understand the universe. Einstein did live to see predictions his theory made proven by obser

I refer you to an excellent discussion on the semantics of the term "atheist".

What I particularly dislike about the definition you would like to use is the implication that atheists can only exist near to and dependent upon a theistic group for their self-definition (I can't just say "The universe is sufficient unto itself." in your semantic, I have to say, "That person is wrong!"). Without a theist to disagree with, your version of an atheist can't exist. A situation that I find more than a little ridiculous.

Despite attempts by highly influential Christian thinkers to alter the meaning of words and marginalize the semantics of "atheist", the word ultimatly relies on it's construction. Just as immoral (against morals) is different from amoral (without morals), so atheism is different from the never-coined imtheism.

Actually, many who call themselves atheists are agnostic but do not understand the word. You may be in either group; I cannot tell. You have not yet stated "I believe there is no god".

You may choose to agree with the loss of meaning from the semantic hijacking that you're arguing for. I don't, and will continue to deny that that reduction of definition is the correct one. Further, I assert that atheist and agnostic are not exclusive categories as many agnostics currently lack a belief in God and are therefore also atheists (just inconclusive ones).

Regards,
Ross

Not even close.

I did not say they were close.

A small harm is not zero harm. You are ignoring the fact that many small harms may add up to a big harm.

If you can't accept that simple fact then you've got problems reasoning logically and nothing I might say is going to change your mind. I'd suggest you read up on logic

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Commercial software bigots - a dying breed.

The Bible is 100% true, eh? Then explain all these inconsistancies please...

Are you saying that the Microsoft installers do not exist? Or are you saying that you agree that the Microsoft installers exist, but the manner in which I said it is not a rhetorically accepted manner for stating a fact?

Now, I say that there is no Bigfoot (Microsoft's tools are not sufficient).

Ah, so you are asserting that all the tools included in a basic Windows server install, like Group Policy Management Console (which lets you control software installs on computers, including non-Microsoft programs) and Microsoft Software Update Services (for updates to Microsoft products) don't exist, and that you bring up 3rd party tools, but are claiming that Systems Management Server or other add-on tools from Microsoft don't exist.

Well, there are numerous tools included with the cheapest Windows Server and add-ons designed for software and upgrade management.

So, now that I've named the products that are included with Server or available directly from Microsoft, do I need to provide some other "proof" that they exist?

So, now that I've named the products that are included with Server or available directly from Microsoft, do I need to provide some other "proof" that they exist? Perhaps a blury photo of a box?

The tools exist, so everyone is in agreement that bigfoot exists.

I'm asking you to back up your assertion, without a comparison ("adequate" is not a comparison, "better" and "best" are). You can not. That is an answer all of its own.

Welcome to Pascal's Wager 101.

You say the purpose of an encyclopedia "is to present information factually and to be explicitly aware of their own limitations." Anyone who knows even a bit about how Wikipedia works knows the pitfalls of trusting it as a perfectly authoritative source of information. Those that don't know anything about it might still see the "edit" button.

Where in the Encyclopedia Britannica are you going to see the same sort of warning? I guess we don't need one, because Britannica is perfect. It's not like they would ever edit their articles to avoid harming the reputation of some powerful group.

All "knowledge" comes with the explicit and implicit biases of the author, the editor, and whatever else enters into the process of bringing facts to a reader. Wikipedia is superior to traditional encyclopediae precisely because the process is open and the readers cannot help but be aware of the opportunity for fraud and bias.

This is the perfect time for me to post this link.

Are we to have a censor whose imprimatur shall say what books may be sold, and what we may buy? And who is thus to dogmatize religious opinions for our citizens? Whose foot is to be the measure to which ours are all to be cut or stretched? Is a priest to be our inquisitor, or shall a layman, simple as ourselves, set up his reason as the rule of what we are to read, and what we must disbelieve? (Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to N. G. Dufief, Philadelphia bookseller, 1814, on the occasion of prosecution for selling De Becourt's "Sur le CrZation du Monde, un Systme d'Organisation Primitive"; from George Seldes, ed., The Great Quotations, Secaucus, New Jersey: Citadel Press, 1983, p. 371)

found here.

In actuality, GWB--and the Bush family in general--are quite religiously moderate.

"No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God."- George H.W. Bush, August 27 1987.

A lot of people think they understand economics, certainly. But sorry, you really don't.

And your authority is? I don't respond to argument by assertion. Your post is littered with it. I'd suggest you learn a little more about logic.

---

It's wrong that an intellectual property creator should not be rewarded for their work.
It's equally wrong that an IP creator should be rewarded too many times for the one piece of work, for exactly the same reasons.
Reform IP law and stop the M$/RIAA abuse.

Yeah, because modern encyclopedias aren't rife with errors.

The main advantages of Wikipedia lie in having more eyes and a certain "fruitcake balance" factor, if you will -- fruitcakes are likely to counter each other out until the post becomes reasonably balanced. Whereas, with print materials, there are ideological chokepoints, in a fashion.

I have yet to discover any bible passage that, taken in context, contradicts any other.

Well, here you go. And here's some more.

Some favorites:

• "And the Lord spake to Moses face to face, as a man speaketh to his friend." (Ex. 33:11) versus "No man hath seen God at any time." (John 1:18)
• "with God all things are possible" says Matthew 19:26, but "And the LORD was with Judah; and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron." (Judges 1:19)
• "I will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, but destroy." (Jer. 13:14) versus "The Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works." (Ps. 145:9)
• contradictory accounts of Judas's death: "And he cast down the pieces of silver into the temple and departed, and went out and hanged himself." (Matt. 27:5) versus "And falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all of his bowels gushed out." (Acts 1:18)

Go see britanica.com, or better yet read Age of Reason. I'm not saying he could not, elsewhere, have been a rabid athiest but Britannica says Deist and "Age of Reason" is a diest manafesto, at least the copy I read.

One source of the athiest myth is Teddy Rosevelt's famous quote that Paine was "a bloody atheist", but this is caused by my first claim.

Have you read Age of Reason? The first section is entitled "CHAPTER I - THE AUTHOR'S PROFESSION OF FAITH." (not my capitals). You can find it here.

Are you claiming:
(a) Age of Reason doesn't advocate deism
(b) Paine didn't write it
(c) Paine did write it, did advocate deism, but later changed his mind?

Perhaps you ment agnostic?

Who are these "most historians"? I have a bridge to sell them :)
______________________________________________ _

Agnostics doubt the existence of a god but are willing to change their minds

Nope.

From The Atheism Web:

The term 'agnosticism' was coined by Professor T.H. Huxley at a meeting of the Metaphysical Society in 1876. He defined an agnostic as someone who disclaimed both ("strong") atheism and theism, and who believed that the question of whether a higher power existed was unsolved and insoluble. Another way of putting it is that an agnostic is someone who believes that we do not know for sure whether God exists. Some agnostics believe that we can never know.

In recent years, however, the term agnostic has also been used to describe those who simply believe that the evidence for or against God is inconclusive, and therefore are undecided about the issue.

To reduce the amount of confusion over the use of term agnosticism, it is recommended that usage based on a belief that we cannot know whether God exists be qualified as "strict agnosticism" and usage based on the belief that we merely do not know yet be qualified as "empirical agnosticism".


A similar division exists in atheism, the lack of a belief in gods is called "weak atheism" and is different from the belief that gods cannot exist, which is called "strong atheism".

I am a weak atheist. I don't have a belief that gods exist (I've never seen anything that I think requires god-like beings to explain), and I don't think that it is impossible for god-like beings to exist (sufficently advanced technololgy and intelligence could make a being god-like).

Those with faith would probably mention that there's more to life than just competing with everybody else.

That's a rather scientific, results-oriented way of looking at it

Science can't really say God does or does not exist, though, because God theoretically has the capability to do anything he/she pleases, and there's no way you can test that with a scientific theory.

As a side note, even such a well-known atheist as Carl Sagan believed in God near the end.

Death has a powerful concentrating effect on people's minds.

You really don't have that much to lose, if you want to look at it rationally. Blaise Pascal once said something along these lines. Either (1) God exists, or (2) God does not exist. In case (2), whether or not you believe does not matter. In case (1), it very much matters. Incidentally, in either case not believing doesn't really confer any long term benefit. I guess it depends on whether or not you're a gambling man. :)

1) The Wager proposes a false dichotomy by assuming that the only possibilities are A) the Christian God exists, or B) no gods exist. It excludes the rather obvious C) one or more non-Christian gods exist.

2) What if you believe in the wrong God? If you're going to assume that a god exists, how can you be sure which one it is? If you believe in God (Yahweh) but the real god is Zoroaster (or Zeus, Odin, etc.) isn't he going to be pretty pissed off if you worship the wrong god? Believing in God is NOT a no-lose proposition.

3) The Christian God, from what I've seen in the Bible, would not take kindly to those who choose to believe only because they've weighed the benefits -- namely, because they're taking a calculated gamble.

This page goes into more detail about Pascal's Wager.

Luckily that has been done for us, by Thomas Paine, in The Age Of Reason, a comprehensive debunking and exposition of how hopelessly flawed the OT and NT are.

Rebuttals? Refutals? None have been published. His work stands, and only a fraction of what he pointed out as faults in the Bible have ever been explained away by mistranslations in his source material.

But you won't bother to read it, of course, that would require questioning something you hold dear and possibly engaging your logical and critical thinking skills towards your religion. I know most religious people all too quickly attack the logical progressions of scientific studies, but are deathly afraid of examining their own faith with the same degree of effort.

Christianity relies on the accuracy of the Bible. If you start doubting certain passages and disregarding others, the entire deck of cards comes crashing down. How can the word of God be inaccurate? If you can ignore certain parts, why not all of it?

This is what drove Thomas Paine to write The Age of Reason, a thorough debunking of this have-your-cake-and-eat-it approach to religion.

The only religious positions that have *any* solid philosophical or logical foundations are deism, atheism and agnosticism. Everything else has as much credulity as me saying "last night while I was watching TV an angel appeared and told me the word of God!!!!!!! Check out my rough draft of what it said on my AOL homepage!! Praise Ungdor who died for us while orbiting the moon bathed in the blood of his enemies!!"

Atheism is the paradoxical doctrine that implies that atheists can and have investigated the supernatural realm which they believe to not exist, and the knowledge they found as a result of their investigation of this non-existent realm is that God isn't there.

No, atheism is simply the lack of a belief in any gods. No investigation required; there's no evidence of anything to investigate. Here's a link to help you out.

I've never understood how athiests could view life as more important than --insert random religion here--s

No mystery here. Life is real. Religion is fantasy, and not even good fantasy. No religion has even come close to proving otherwise. Reality is if course more important than fantasy.

If we just die...and we're poof, gone, then we wouldn't know we were gone, we would be cease to exist, so would we have really lost anything??

Ah, Pascal's Wager. Not much of a reason to follow a religion, since even if you could follow them all you still wouldn't cover every possibility. And with some of those possibilities, it's better to be an atheist.

The supposed fulfillment of these prophecies was recorded so as to give the impression that Jesus was the Messiah. The writers didn't quite get there stories together, though, and mistakenly wrote about Jesus fulfilling prophecies that were never meant for him to fulfill, like the Virgin birth of Emmanuel.

'The Septuagint had retained the Ishtar-worshipping virgin-temple practices in part by insisting on the physical virgin-birth of Isaiah's prophetic Emmanuel in verses 7:14. The later writers of Matthew and Luke relied on the Septuagint for their references. After reading this passage in Isaiah, Matthew sought to find a way to fit Jesus into the virgin-birth role that Isaiah spoke of, thus achieving a prophecy in Jesus' own birth. The impetus for the idea and the motivation which would eventually permanently seal it into the canon, came from the huge numbers of pagan converts. These converts didn't want to leave behind Mithras and Perseus, who were both virgin-born, in exchange for a Jewish Messiah who was not.' (From infidels.org)

I agree with your point, though, about the abuse of the term 'miracle'.

MySQL's cached results are only of value when the result sets rarely change. This proves that it was a select only operatoin.

I'm sorry, what proves it? The fact that MySQL has a cache means that only SELECT statements are used in the test? Or are you just hoping that your assertion is enough, even though e-Week asserts otherwise? Hmm. What authority do I trust? A Slashdot random with the name "Goober" or e-Week? Hmm. How about I just download the test materials and see for myself? OK. Looking at newUser.jsp, final.jsp and other files used in the Nile testing application, I'm seeing INSERT and UPDATE statements. I guess that must be mighty inconvenient for your "proof" so I'm sure you find some explanation for it.

Specifically, it does not appear that they properly converted their queries to prepared queries.

I don't think PreparedStatement is the home run you imagine it to be. In fact, I and many others might prefer to let the dynamic SQL ride. But if you're so gung ho, grab the code and rerun the test with your changes. I look forward to the published, reproducible results.

The only conclussion that anyone who actually understands RDBMS can draw from this is that MySQL is still a slow performer and that the results are horribly biased toward MySQL.

Ooohhh. Anyone who actually understands a RDBMS would agree with you. And suddenly we're in Junior High debate class. You can't honestly think that I'm going to fall for an amateurish version of the No True Scotsman fallacy? How old are you?

Flamebait, huh? Typically /. rating for something that truthfully answers the question. lol!

Probably not flamebait, but definitely not proof.

If you believe that he didn't exist, then how can you ignore all of the evidence that supports his existance? The existance of Jesus was recorded by several different people in different places and at different times. The existance of Jesus is accepted by most scholars, including atheists.

This turns out not to be the case. There is quite a bit of doubt about the authenticity of the bible, especially since the gospel accounts were all written well after Jesus's time and contradict each other.

The problem there lies that the majority of people he interacted with (back then and even now) claimed that he was a healer, a great teacher, and a prophet. I doubt you would get the same response for the cults you refer to.

The majority of people who interacted with Hercules (according to the Greek writings we have) described him as a great hero. Is he real? Superman always seems to get good press in his various books. Do you see the point? All you have to describe Jesus's supposed actions is the bible, the authenticity of which is in grave doubt (since it contains many errors, inconsistencies and tales of things that didn't happen).

This is very much untrue. The authenticity of the Bible has been proven by many scholars. I would suggest you read the book "The Case For Christ" by Lee Strobel. It contains several scientific references to why the bible is authentic.

It certainly has not been proven that the bible is divinely inspired or a true history. I suggest you read the various rebuttals that have been written to Strobel's book.

They did know right from wrong, and we still do... by our conscious. But we "choose" to do wrong by our free will.

Reread Genesis; it was the Tree of Knowledge of Right and Wrong that they ate from. God said they'd die, the snake said they wouldn't. Gee, they didn't die. But that's not the point; the point is that they didn't know right from wrong until they ate of the tree. And that's what pissed god off, that they learned right from wrong. Even though, being all-knowing, he knew in advance that this would happen.

God wishes that none shall perish (John 3: 16). All we have to do is to accept Jesus as our Lord and Saviour which saves us from our debt of sins and therefore we do not go to hell.

If he wished that none would perish, none would perish. All-powerful, remember? The christian god is the ultimate mafia boss. "Gee, that's a nice soul you got there. Be a shame if anything happened to it."

Jesus had to die not to change the rule, but to keep the rule. The consequence of sin is death (spirtual death) and therefore there has to be payment for our sins. And with Jesus's death, He pays the debt for us so we do not have to die.

The consequence of sin (according to christian beliefs) is only death because god wants it to be. If he didn't want that to be the consequence, it wouldn't be (all-powerful, remember?) God creates the rule, creates the consequence, creates beings that he knows will break the rule, then threatens to torture them for all eternity unless they jump through his hoops. If the christian god existed, by definition nothing would happen in this universe in anything other than the precise way in which that god wanted it to happen (all-powerful, remember?)

You are right. But not for the reasons you state. It's because people don't want to believe that we are sinful and not perfect.

This is an interesting theory. I assume you have evidence that atheists consider thems

If you believe that he didn't exist, then how can you ignore all of the evidence that supports his existance? The existance of Jesus was recorded by several different people in different places and at different times. The existance of Jesus is accepted by most scholars, including atheists.

This turns out not to be the case. There is quite a bit of doubt about the authenticity of the bible, especially since the gospel accounts were all written well after Jesus's time and contradict each other.

The problem there lies that the majority of people he interacted with (back then and even now) claimed that he was a healer, a great teacher, and a prophet. I doubt you would get the same response for the cults you refer to.

The majority of people who interacted with Hercules (according to the Greek writings we have) described him as a great hero. Is he real? Superman always seems to get good press in his various books. Do you see the point? All you have to describe Jesus's supposed actions is the bible, the authenticity of which is in grave doubt (since it contains many errors, inconsistencies and tales of things that didn't happen).

This is very much untrue. The authenticity of the Bible has been proven by many scholars. I would suggest you read the book "The Case For Christ" by Lee Strobel. It contains several scientific references to why the bible is authentic.

It certainly has not been proven that the bible is divinely inspired or a true history. I suggest you read the various rebuttals that have been written to Strobel's book.

They did know right from wrong, and we still do... by our conscious. But we "choose" to do wrong by our free will.

Reread Genesis; it was the Tree of Knowledge of Right and Wrong that they ate from. God said they'd die, the snake said they wouldn't. Gee, they didn't die. But that's not the point; the point is that they didn't know right from wrong until they ate of the tree. And that's what pissed god off, that they learned right from wrong. Even though, being all-knowing, he knew in advance that this would happen.

God wishes that none shall perish (John 3: 16). All we have to do is to accept Jesus as our Lord and Saviour which saves us from our debt of sins and therefore we do not go to hell.

If he wished that none would perish, none would perish. All-powerful, remember? The christian god is the ultimate mafia boss. "Gee, that's a nice soul you got there. Be a shame if anything happened to it."

Jesus had to die not to change the rule, but to keep the rule. The consequence of sin is death (spirtual death) and therefore there has to be payment for our sins. And with Jesus's death, He pays the debt for us so we do not have to die.

The consequence of sin (according to christian beliefs) is only death because god wants it to be. If he didn't want that to be the consequence, it wouldn't be (all-powerful, remember?) God creates the rule, creates the consequence, creates beings that he knows will break the rule, then threatens to torture them for all eternity unless they jump through his hoops. If the christian god existed, by definition nothing would happen in this universe in anything other than the precise way in which that god wanted it to happen (all-powerful, remember?)

You are right. But not for the reasons you state. It's because people don't want to believe that we are sinful and not perfect.

This is an interesting theory. I assume you have evidence that atheists consider thems

If you believe that he didn't exist, then how can you ignore all of the evidence that supports his existance? The existance of Jesus was recorded by several different people in different places and at different times. The existance of Jesus is accepted by most scholars, including atheists.

This turns out not to be the case. There is quite a bit of doubt about the authenticity of the bible, especially since the gospel accounts were all written well after Jesus's time and contradict each other.

The problem there lies that the majority of people he interacted with (back then and even now) claimed that he was a healer, a great teacher, and a prophet. I doubt you would get the same response for the cults you refer to.

The majority of people who interacted with Hercules (according to the Greek writings we have) described him as a great hero. Is he real? Superman always seems to get good press in his various books. Do you see the point? All you have to describe Jesus's supposed actions is the bible, the authenticity of which is in grave doubt (since it contains many errors, inconsistencies and tales of things that didn't happen).

This is very much untrue. The authenticity of the Bible has been proven by many scholars. I would suggest you read the book "The Case For Christ" by Lee Strobel. It contains several scientific references to why the bible is authentic.

It certainly has not been proven that the bible is divinely inspired or a true history. I suggest you read the various rebuttals that have been written to Strobel's book.

They did know right from wrong, and we still do... by our conscious. But we "choose" to do wrong by our free will.

Reread Genesis; it was the Tree of Knowledge of Right and Wrong that they ate from. God said they'd die, the snake said they wouldn't. Gee, they didn't die. But that's not the point; the point is that they didn't know right from wrong until they ate of the tree. And that's what pissed god off, that they learned right from wrong. Even though, being all-knowing, he knew in advance that this would happen.

God wishes that none shall perish (John 3: 16). All we have to do is to accept Jesus as our Lord and Saviour which saves us from our debt of sins and therefore we do not go to hell.

If he wished that none would perish, none would perish. All-powerful, remember? The christian god is the ultimate mafia boss. "Gee, that's a nice soul you got there. Be a shame if anything happened to it."

Jesus had to die not to change the rule, but to keep the rule. The consequence of sin is death (spirtual death) and therefore there has to be payment for our sins. And with Jesus's death, He pays the debt for us so we do not have to die.

The consequence of sin (according to christian beliefs) is only death because god wants it to be. If he didn't want that to be the consequence, it wouldn't be (all-powerful, remember?) God creates the rule, creates the consequence, creates beings that he knows will break the rule, then threatens to torture them for all eternity unless they jump through his hoops. If the christian god existed, by definition nothing would happen in this universe in anything other than the precise way in which that god wanted it to happen (all-powerful, remember?)

You are right. But not for the reasons you state. It's because people don't want to believe that we are sinful and not perfect.

This is an interesting theory. I assume you have evidence that atheists consider thems

Out of all the religions (that I've researched), Jesus was the only person to claim to be God. All of the other religions are people writing about other people who appeared to be God-like (but never claimed to be God).

As a result of this, you basically have 2 choices. Either Jesus was wrong (because he was lying, crazy, etc) or he was right. Now I don't believe he was lying or crazy because he knew that if he claimed to be God he would surely be killed. Additionally all of his diciples afterwards proclaimed to the world that he was God (dispite severe persecution).

Fair enough. If you're right, when we die, we die. If I'm right, well... Let's just say I'll stick with my faith.

The problem with extrapolating outside of your data range is that you may get erroneous data (error prone data). As is the case of extrapolating backwards in time to see how close the moon was. There are a lot of factors that we just don't have data for that would explain what was going on at that point in time.

Some others have done work on this. Here is what they say:

...our moon was probably never closer than 151,000 miles. A modern astronomy text (Chaisson and McMillan, 1993, p.173) gives an estimate of 250,000 kilometers (155,000 miles), which agrees very closely with Brush's figure.

First, the blind in this instance have no prior experience with sight. Even if everything about seeing were to be described to them in great detail, it would be so far beyond their experience as to be incomprehensible. Those who witnessed this act would construe it as supernatural, literally meaning above or more than what is natural, because for them blindness is natural.

Yes, the blind would have no personal experience with it. However I have not met any blind people in the world today who consider sight to be supernatural. Lance Armstrong rides a bicycle on a 30 degree upward slope faster than I can ride on flat ground. It is outside of my personal experience to be able to do what he does let alone for a long as he is able to do it. I do not, however, consider it supernatural.

An attribution of something above and beyond reality requires not only lack of experience with the subject at hand, but a dogmatic belief that the subject is intrinsically unknowable. (Not as unknown to me personally, but rather unknown to anyone.) This is the God of the Gaps that I cannot accept.

You may argue that the experiment was performed by a reputable institution, but I would argue that a reputable institution wouldn't even dream of allowing such an insane person through their doors, much less let him do his little tricks.

Here is where we diverge greatly. I do not consider an institution to be reputable if it ignores information that is inconvenient. This is of course not the same as watching someone's "little tricks" and noting the use of smoke and mirrors.

In summary, fine-tuning theory states that the basic parameters of physics must be set to such specific values that it can only be accounted for by intelligent design. This is, in essence, the results of the seeing person's experiment - the probability that we (life) would be capable of existing at all (not to mention human consciousness) is so small as to be impossible - a much more distant prospect than the 1/24 chance that the colored objects are named correctly.

The chances of me winning a six-number lottery jackpot -- assuming I buy one ticket -- are 1 in 13,983,816. Everyone else has the same chance (assuming there is no cheating of course). From a realistic point of view, no one would never win the lottery. However, people do indeed win the lottery. Christians, jews, muslims, buddhists, and even atheists have all won the lottery at one time or another. Does this mean that at a given time, Jesus plucked those balls down just for you? Are you truly that arrogant? Or rather is it random chance that you won?

I am extremely lucky. I was born into a universe that was physically acceptable for formation, born on a planet upon which organic compounds are plentiful, have been birthed from a species of supreme bad-asses (to borrow a phrase from Cryptonomicon), and live in the wealthiest country on the planet. Woohoo! I won the lottery! And had I lost, we would not be having this discussion. A great improbability is not the same as an impossibility.

Now then, with regard to the Fine-Tuning Design Argument, I and others have a few issues. First and foremost is the notion that everything just seems to fit too perfectly. I take it that you don't know too many physicists or engineers do you? The general response I get from those communities is that it's a wonder that this chaotic and unordered world functions as well as it does. For further discussion and other important points, I'll have to simply say "look

First, the blind in this instance have no prior experience with sight. Even if everything about seeing were to be described to them in great detail, it would be so far beyond their experience as to be incomprehensible. Those who witnessed this act would construe it as supernatural, literally meaning above or more than what is natural, because for them blindness is natural.

Yes, the blind would have no personal experience with it. However I have not met any blind people in the world today who consider sight to be supernatural. Lance Armstrong rides a bicycle on a 30 degree upward slope faster than I can ride on flat ground. It is outside of my personal experience to be able to do what he does let alone for a long as he is able to do it. I do not, however, consider it supernatural.

An attribution of something above and beyond reality requires not only lack of experience with the subject at hand, but a dogmatic belief that the subject is intrinsically unknowable. (Not as unknown to me personally, but rather unknown to anyone.) This is the God of the Gaps that I cannot accept.

You may argue that the experiment was performed by a reputable institution, but I would argue that a reputable institution wouldn't even dream of allowing such an insane person through their doors, much less let him do his little tricks.

Here is where we diverge greatly. I do not consider an institution to be reputable if it ignores information that is inconvenient. This is of course not the same as watching someone's "little tricks" and noting the use of smoke and mirrors.

In summary, fine-tuning theory states that the basic parameters of physics must be set to such specific values that it can only be accounted for by intelligent design. This is, in essence, the results of the seeing person's experiment - the probability that we (life) would be capable of existing at all (not to mention human consciousness) is so small as to be impossible - a much more distant prospect than the 1/24 chance that the colored objects are named correctly.

The chances of me winning a six-number lottery jackpot -- assuming I buy one ticket -- are 1 in 13,983,816. Everyone else has the same chance (assuming there is no cheating of course). From a realistic point of view, no one would never win the lottery. However, people do indeed win the lottery. Christians, jews, muslims, buddhists, and even atheists have all won the lottery at one time or another. Does this mean that at a given time, Jesus plucked those balls down just for you? Are you truly that arrogant? Or rather is it random chance that you won?

I am extremely lucky. I was born into a universe that was physically acceptable for formation, born on a planet upon which organic compounds are plentiful, have been birthed from a species of supreme bad-asses (to borrow a phrase from Cryptonomicon), and live in the wealthiest country on the planet. Woohoo! I won the lottery! And had I lost, we would not be having this discussion. A great improbability is not the same as an impossibility.

Now then, with regard to the Fine-Tuning Design Argument, I and others have a few issues. First and foremost is the notion that everything just seems to fit too perfectly. I take it that you don't know too many physicists or engineers do you? The general response I get from those communities is that it's a wonder that this chaotic and unordered world functions as well as it does. For further discussion and other important points, I'll have to simply say "look

I triple dog dare you to read that book and remain an atheist.

Nope, Atheist are more anti-god, stating firmly that god doesn't exist.

It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.
--Einstein 24 March 1954

Then may I introduce you to the numerous (and apparently not self-respecting) skeptics of the Secular Web who do all of that and more on a regular basis.

Yes, even the moderators. Yes, even after berating other folks for falling into the same traps. Yes, I speak from experience...

Try reading a dictionary that was written in 1800 or earlier.
Argumentum ad antiquitatem.

You are reading a definition that is the result of the taxonomists having won and in the process completely missing the fact that there was ever a legitimate dispute.
Argumentum ad misericordiam.

The point I was making is that the whole idea of rigid taxonomy is a Victorian invention. The idea of fixed immutable categories that are determined by rigid application of science is very much a late 19th century view.
Non sequitur.

The reason we have names for things is so that we can distinguish them from other things. This is the principle behind language in general, and taxonomies in specific. Fruits and vegetables are different, and the extent of their difference is determined by the shifting language we use to describe them, the moons and stars, and everything else in our perception of the world. If the current definition of fruit says that a tomato is a fruit, then it is.

When it comes to the definition of 'planet' there is no real scientific basis for the taxonomy.

Terms such as "fruit", "vegetable", and "planet" are classifications based on an arbitrary set of observable properties. Just because the chosen observables can be scientifically measured doesn't mean that the choice of observables is at all rigorous. You're assuming that there is a scientific basis for choosing these observables (forming a basis), so this last claim is Audiatur et altera pars. Farmers choose to differentiate between fruit and vegetable based on skin thickness and perishability. Good for them. Taxonomists choose based on what part of the lifeform carries the reproductive seeds. Good for them too. Until we have a comprehensive, rigorous set of criteria under which to make these types of classification, we're not going to make any progress in this debate.

Try reading a dictionary that was written in 1800 or earlier.
Argumentum ad antiquitatem.

You are reading a definition that is the result of the taxonomists having won and in the process completely missing the fact that there was ever a legitimate dispute.
Argumentum ad misericordiam.

The point I was making is that the whole idea of rigid taxonomy is a Victorian invention. The idea of fixed immutable categories that are determined by rigid application of science is very much a late 19th century view.
Non sequitur.

The reason we have names for things is so that we can distinguish them from other things. This is the principle behind language in general, and taxonomies in specific. Fruits and vegetables are different, and the extent of their difference is determined by the shifting language we use to describe them, the moons and stars, and everything else in our perception of the world. If the current definition of fruit says that a tomato is a fruit, then it is.

When it comes to the definition of 'planet' there is no real scientific basis for the taxonomy.

Terms such as "fruit", "vegetable", and "planet" are classifications based on an arbitrary set of observable properties. Just because the chosen observables can be scientifically measured doesn't mean that the choice of observables is at all rigorous. You're assuming that there is a scientific basis for choosing these observables (forming a basis), so this last claim is Audiatur et altera pars. Farmers choose to differentiate between fruit and vegetable based on skin thickness and perishability. Good for them. Taxonomists choose based on what part of the lifeform carries the reproductive seeds. Good for them too. Until we have a comprehensive, rigorous set of criteria under which to make these types of classification, we're not going to make any progress in this debate.

Try reading a dictionary that was written in 1800 or earlier.
Argumentum ad antiquitatem.

You are reading a definition that is the result of the taxonomists having won and in the process completely missing the fact that there was ever a legitimate dispute.
Argumentum ad misericordiam.

The point I was making is that the whole idea of rigid taxonomy is a Victorian invention. The idea of fixed immutable categories that are determined by rigid application of science is very much a late 19th century view.
Non sequitur.

The reason we have names for things is so that we can distinguish them from other things. This is the principle behind language in general, and taxonomies in specific. Fruits and vegetables are different, and the extent of their difference is determined by the shifting language we use to describe them, the moons and stars, and everything else in our perception of the world. If the current definition of fruit says that a tomato is a fruit, then it is.

When it comes to the definition of 'planet' there is no real scientific basis for the taxonomy.

Terms such as "fruit", "vegetable", and "planet" are classifications based on an arbitrary set of observable properties. Just because the chosen observables can be scientifically measured doesn't mean that the choice of observables is at all rigorous. You're assuming that there is a scientific basis for choosing these observables (forming a basis), so this last claim is Audiatur et altera pars. Farmers choose to differentiate between fruit and vegetable based on skin thickness and perishability. Good for them. Taxonomists choose based on what part of the lifeform carries the reproductive seeds. Good for them too. Until we have a comprehensive, rigorous set of criteria under which to make these types of classification, we're not going to make any progress in this debate.

Try reading a dictionary that was written in 1800 or earlier.
Argumentum ad antiquitatem.

You are reading a definition that is the result of the taxonomists having won and in the process completely missing the fact that there was ever a legitimate dispute.
Argumentum ad misericordiam.

The point I was making is that the whole idea of rigid taxonomy is a Victorian invention. The idea of fixed immutable categories that are determined by rigid application of science is very much a late 19th century view.
Non sequitur.

The reason we have names for things is so that we can distinguish them from other things. This is the principle behind language in general, and taxonomies in specific. Fruits and vegetables are different, and the extent of their difference is determined by the shifting language we use to describe them, the moons and stars, and everything else in our perception of the world. If the current definition of fruit says that a tomato is a fruit, then it is.

When it comes to the definition of 'planet' there is no real scientific basis for the taxonomy.

Terms such as "fruit", "vegetable", and "planet" are classifications based on an arbitrary set of observable properties. Just because the chosen observables can be scientifically measured doesn't mean that the choice of observables is at all rigorous. You're assuming that there is a scientific basis for choosing these observables (forming a basis), so this last claim is Audiatur et altera pars. Farmers choose to differentiate between fruit and vegetable based on skin thickness and perishability. Good for them. Taxonomists choose based on what part of the lifeform carries the reproductive seeds. Good for them too. Until we have a comprehensive, rigorous set of criteria under which to make these types of classification, we're not going to make any progress in this debate.

>> You *can't* prove a negative.

Not entirely true
Proving a Negative

Hitlers Genocide was based on his idea of race. If it was just religion then Jews that converted would not have been put into the camps.

Sounds unambiguously religious to me. Hitler campaigned against athiests as godless communists to appeal to his Catholic constituents in the early 1930s. Whatever his personal beliefs were (or were not), he consistently claimed to be catholic and he used religion to gain and hold power.

To reject everyone who does evil in the name of a religion as having 'BAD FAITH' and discounting them makes no sense. If we consider the goodness of, say, everyone with facial hair- but then disqualify everyone with facial hair who does evil as falsely claiming to have facial hair, or of having "BAD FACIAL HAIR", then we can conclude that the remaining people with facial hair are much better people than average and that having facial hair therefore inspires goodness. This is nonsense- in the same way, dismissing evil religious people as 'not really religious' and then concluding that religious people are good is assuming your own conclusion.

you have a a duble blind experiment to prove that?

My claim was correlation, not causation. A survey of members of the (US) National Academy of Science was published in the journal Nature on 23 July 1998, page 303: "Leading scientists still reject God" (I link to the table of contents, which I think are accesable without a subscription... but I could be wrong about that.) In it, all 517 members of the National Academy of Sciences were sent a survey and slightly over 50% responded. Of those, 7% responded that they had a personal belief in God, 72% that they had a personal disbelief, and 21% responded with doubt or agnosticism. This belief appears to be down from historical surveys of 'distinguished natural scientists', 28% of whom reported belief in God in a survey in 1914, and 15% reporting belief in 1933.

No. I suppose I could have been clearer on the point. Fallacy isn't error in deduction, which is always suspect. Fallacy is applying rules which are known to be in error. What you're suggesting is an interesting and subtle misinterpretation of what I said, and something I'm going to need to be a lot more careful about specifying in the future.

Induction and deduction are implicitly guesses, and therefore suspect. More specifically, they're best guesses; you go with the available evidence, and if something new crops up that replaces it, well, great, let's all jump ship. Common sense was replaced by classical physics was replaced by newtonian physics was replaced by relativistic physics was replaced by quantuum mechanics; we'll probably be adding something to that list in the next 30 years or so (strings and branes are the horse i'm putting my money on.) Herbalism to Alchemy to Phlogiston to Oxidation to Modern Chemistry to Materials Science. The list for math is obscene. Computer science is already doing pretty well for lists itself, but that's my field, so that may just reflect my better understanding of its history than the other topics.

None of that is fallacy. It's falsehood. Granted, history of science is /also/ peppered with fallacy, but on the whole, that list represents a revealing of and refinement of knowledge, not (in any real sense) the undoing of bad logic. We weren't cavement because we believed quantuum mechanics due to the teachings of our parents/elders (argumentum ad verecundiam,) out of appeal to furce (ad baculum,) or because all the other cavemen believed in QM (ad populum;) it was simply because we didn't know not only about QM, but about physics, or in most cases fire.

The issue here is that they've been given a good explanation, and facts which support it. At that point, no amount of re-explanation is a fallacy; if it were the case that the glass had been flat and then that the glass after N years was thicker at the bottom, then the explanation they were giving would in fact be both logical and sound. The issue is that their supporting facts are false - the glass was never univorm, and therefore there is a question of whether significant flow has in fact occurred, which it has not.

Arguments topple due to both fallacies and falsehoods. The germane difference is whether it's the initial facts or the logic which led to a result which is in error. This would be fallacy if this guy had said "it's true because Bill Nye said so," or "It's obviously true because everybody knows it," or "It's been known since such-and-such ancient book, so clearly it's true" (This kills me - one of my favorite comics, Lewis Black, indulged in argumentum ad lazarum when mocking the Atkins Diet, questioning whether we'd in fact been eating exactly the wrong thing since the dawn of civilization. Though it left me in tears laughing, which is probably the important part, that is in fact fallacy.)

I should point out that making a misstep during reasoning is not the same thing as a fallacy. A fallacy is using one of a concrete series of logical errors; an error in reasoning is an error in reasoning. If you neglect to take an issue into account, or go through a complex series of reasoning and accidentally swap two individuals leading to error, or if you make a judgement based on a misimpression regarding an individual or situation, that's not a fallacy; that's an error, which leads to a falsehood. Fallacies are using mechanisms which are in error in justification. Whereas this list isn't complete, there's a good primer at each of these links.

Therefore:
- I killed the queen because she was an alien, so she'll ruin us all.
Action on false