Speaking as someone who has blown up 10 555 timer IC's in the last couple of weeks, YES YOU CAN. Only the low power kind, though. And electrolytic caps blow up reeeal nice, too...
I agree. Geeks being proud of their alleged intellectual superiority is just as repugnant as whites being proud of their alleged genetic superiority. Would Slashdot advertise "White Pride day"?
Majority rule is an important concept in any kind of democracy. Your post is moderated down because, since it is unrelated to the topic, the majority of readers do not want to waste their time on it. Moderation expedites the reading experience by allowing readers to make quick decisions regarding which posts to read. Being moderated down does not mean that readers cannot read your opinion, nor does it mean you cannot write your opinion. Moderation is merely a tool to improve the quality of the Slashdot experience and a way for ordinary people to participate in the system; it is not censorship.
Being on topic now, This geek pride thing sounds interesting, but there is another event of earth-shattering importance coming up soon, and it IS an april fools' day joke: NATIONAL ATHEISTS' DAY IS APRIL 1ST! ("And the fool hath said in his heart, there is no God")
IANAP, but in my understanding the path of the photon is straight, but space is bent. Ow Ow Ow I sprained my brain thinking about it!
Re:This stuff is not physics.
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The Mind of God
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· Score: 1
I guess when I say that physics explains something, I am really only saying that physics explains physics, and that religion does not explain physics. I guess you got me. The reason I dislike religion is that most major religions look to some sort of "holy text" for guidance and make irrational arguments for the god they want so badly to exist, and I think that it is BS to use this irrationality to tell people how they should live their lives. On the other hand, there is an absract notion of god as creator of everything. This is similar to the idea of logic as the explainer of everything. I suppose if I accept one, I should accept the other. I just find one supremely useful and the other completely irrelevant.
Rather that step away to look from a spiritual perspective, I like to look from a humanistic perspective. I ask, "How does this discovery help humanity?" The answer is not just limited to any improvement in quality of life it produces; I simply like to have the feeling that we are making progress. We are not necessarily making progress toward anyting--there is not a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that will explain everything or justify our existance--but human progress for its own sake is something for which to strive.
Thank you for your excellent post. I am an atheist, and you made me realize that when I belittle peoples' religious beliefs, I am denying them the comfort which comes with an unconditional belief in god and which is arguably a basic human need. We need to recognize that people's minds work in different ways, and while my mind may prefer to stick with rational thought, others' may not.
Sometimes to argue whether a thought is true or not true is to miss the point. All thoughts are just the product of chemical interactions in our brains, but the concept of truth, like that of beauty, is completely subjective, no matter how inelegant this may seem. Who is to say that a "rational" person is more correct than a lunatic? Is it because the majority of people are rational? I don't like the idea of a moral majority imposing its beliefs on everyone, so why a rational majority?
Another topic that riles me up is the seperation of church and state. While I often discuss the "evils" of religious dogma, and the disaster that would result if it made its way into politics, (which it is doing,) scientific dogma can be just as dangerous. Imagine if we discovered that whites were genetically inferior to blacks? Should we administer mandatory vasectomies to whites to ensure our country an optimal future? Of course not. This seems absurd, but only recently has it become not "PC" to talk of "curing" homosexuals for moral reasons; attempts to justify this with scripture are what I hope we realize is really absurd.
Religion should stay out of science, and out of government, and likewise our country should protect the right of its people to practice any religion they choose. Any attempt to reconcile the two, especially in the case of this book (mixing the belief in god, the most unscientific of religious ideas, with physics, the most unreligious and unforgiving of the sciences) is bound to fail. The set of beliefs we can all agree on are human-oriented beliefs, not logic-oriented beliefs or god-oriented beliefs, because if there is a purpose in life, I believe it is to serve humanity, not any higher power or ideal.
If you don't like to accept the fact that you, too, are a machine, and you decide to invent a God to comfort you in this cold, hard, lonely mechanical world, so be it--I can't stop you. Many people take this approach. Althouch I find theistic thinking aesthetically repulsive, I concede that in many practical respects, it is neither inferior nor superior to atheism as far as our insignificant, petty, day-to-day lives are concerned; I should not be arrogant and say that religion is for the weak--indeed perhaps I do not see the great advantages in having a soul--but I will say that religion often goes hand in hand with dogmatism, and dogmatism is the enemy of the individual, (of the soul, if you will,) and should be avoided at all costs.
Re:you make the same mistake!
on
The Mind of God
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Whenever I hear talk about Pascal's wager, remember that Far Side comic where Colonel Sanders meets his maker, who turns out to be a giant chicken. At least I think that's the far side, and not just a figment of my sick, messed-up imagination.
Re:you make the same mistake!
on
The Mind of God
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>Most athiests (weak atheists, empirical agnostics) will happily change their opinion if evidence for the existence of God is presented.
I hope I'm not nitpicking here, but I consider myself a strong atheist, and I would believe in god if there were evidence to support this belief. At the present time, however, I see no evidence soon to be arriving and, from the statements of many theists I have talked to, it never will, because "God wants us to believe on faith." To this I respond, half jolkingly, by asking how god can want something if he doesn't exist yet. I call "faith" gulliblity, and people who buy into it fools and cowards.
BTW, I utilize the point in your third paragraph very often when I am confronted with a "rational" theist (if there is such a thing), and I have come to understand that these people have invoked god (invented him, really) to give them purpose and hope, because they are too weak or lazy to search for these the hard way, or too optimistic to consider the possibility they don't exist.
> Can you logically prove that believing in murder is wrong?
Although Mr. AC may not see it as such, this is actually a tough question that warrants a little analysis. For simplicity, let's consider the kind of murder that nearly everyone considers to be wrong: let's say a man was murdered by robbers who then went on to steal his money (money being the motive.) The robbers say "murder is good. By the simple act of murder, we gain money to spend on ourselves." However, suppose we have a government which exists for the purpose of stopping the descent into a pre-human state which would result if everyone were to think in the manner of the robbers. Suppose also that each citizen of this government enters into a contract with the government in which he or she gives up some rights (the right to steal) in return for a basic measure of safety. People will agree to this because such an arrangement benefits everyone. It is simply common sense. The idea that morals should serve the people is not selfish, it is practical.
Note: for a more complete version of the social-contract argument, read Hobbes. My writing is mainly a rehash of his main ideas. Notice that Hobbes does not bring god into his system of morality at all, yet it is still morality. What a concept!
P.S. If you're not up to reading Hobbes, read Calvin and Hobbes. It's almost as deep, and many times funnier!
I am not attacking your beliefs, but as an athiest I do not see how calling an elegant set of equations "god", or calling an improbable medical scenario, or a sunset, or a warm fuzzy feeling "god" helps us to understand the universe any better. Monotheists try to connect all these things by virtue of their all being part of "god". I say they are all part of "the universe". Is that different? Is "the universe" my "god"? This is unclear. The danger comes when religious thought prevents us from learning more about the universe. At best, it distorts ideas by holding us to unproven, irrational beliefs which are incompatible with physical evidence. This can paralyze people who try to believe in physical reality and god at the same time; those who say they understand both usually have done so by distorting the facts and ideas until they become internally inconsistent and useless. At worst, religion actively impedes scientific progress because of stubbornness and adherence to outdated modes of thought (I need not point out the numerous crimes against humanity committed by the catholic church.)
In short, I believe that when religion and science are at odds, science must win (because, while both methods of thought attempt to reveal truth, only science does so provably,) and that when there is NO outright contradiction, (For example, "God brought the universe into existance" vs. "The universe came into existance",) science will again win because the theist view explains nothing more; the difference is, in fact, irrelevant. "God did it" is nothing more than an easy way out--it tells us nothing we need to know--and implies that no further study is required.
Up until now I have discussed a relatively harmless kind of theism. Perhaps "god" created everything, but what about the devil? One way of looking at the world is to see some things as "godly", and some things as less godly, not godly, or even evil. This dualistic view is dangerous because it leads to divisiveness, prejudice, and hate. Even if two such dualistic-minded religious groups agree on something, they will always find a third to demonize and persecute. Often religious value judgements are based on old, outdated writings, which are, (among other things,) often sexist and anti-homosexual, and in my personal opinion contain little wisdom whatsoever. Something someone wrote a long time ago does not justify making value judgements today; in fact, it justifies nothing. No reasonable human being would actually believe that those words came direct from god--we just want someone or something to tell us what to believe because we are too lazy or stupid to think for ourselves, and many of us simply want to hate and to feel justified in doing so. I hope that science maintains a safe distance from religion, because dogmatism could spell the end of science, and indeed of the individual. I am not being overly melodramatic--what are we if we cannot think for ourselves anymore?
Re:This stuff is not physics.
on
The Mind of God
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Please remember that many atheiests consider themselves "spiritual" people. Just because they don't believe in god does not mean they believe that science can explain everything. Unfortunately, they are still half as deluded as the theists: science, in some form or another, can explain everything that is explainable. Moreover, anything that has not been explained in a scientific manner has not truly been explained. Since the last time I checked, physicists had not yet proved the existance of any god or gods, making the leap from physics to theological speculation does not lend the speculation any more credibility, but only detracts from the physics. If you want to learn more about the universe, read some real physics, not this pop pseudo-science, and if your idea of "learning" about the universe is listening to theological babble on how god made the whole shebang, then you are already lost--just don't spoil it for the rest of us rationally-minded folks.
If you aren't Christian, you ought to be unbiased enough to see that the sig is simply fact--nothing more. However, as someone who is familiar with Christianity, I believe that impeding moral progress is more a property of Christian institutions rather than of Christianity itself. Christ was a radical--we can't forget that. Most modern conservative "Christian" views are incompatible with Christ's actual ideas.
I contend that all organized religions are enemies of moral progress because their stability depends on lack of change. In times of change people tend to think for themselves. This is bad for organized religion for obvious (to the non-brainwashed) reasons.
Possibly any belief in the existance of a god or gods by itself is at odds with the concept of human morality. This is why. The theist system of morality goes like this: Group of people invents god -> god dictates moral code -> Group attempts to impose moral code on other, incompatible hunmans, resulting in mush suffering -> Repeat.
The humanist system of morality, on the other hand, goes something like this: Humans with different ideas about morality sit down and work things out with minimal loss of life. See--much simpler, easier, and doesn't make irrational assumtions or encourage hate and prejudice.
Moreover, Bertrand Russel is awesome and you should have a Bertrand Russel sig too.
P.S. Thomas Jefferson said this: "The Christian god can easily be pictured as virtually the same god as the many ancient gods of past civilizations. The Christian god is a three-headed monster; cruel, vengeful, and capricious. If one wishes to know more of this raging, three-headed, beast-like god, one only needs to look at the caliber of people who say they serve him. They are always of two classes: fools and hypocrites."
So... Ha Ha! So much for those right-wing conservative bastards who say "let's get rid of this separation of church and state crap so we can get back to the REAL values this country was founded on: CHRISTIAN values, reflecting the CHRISTIAN ideas of our founding fathers, who were all CHRISTIAN." For the ignorant folks out there, this is crazy because the first six presidents of the U.S. were deists, and OUR COUNTRY WAS FOUNDED ON THE RADICAL NOTION OF FREEDOM FROM RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION, DAMMIT! THAT'S WHY WE CAME OVER HERE! We cannot have this freedom without the separation of church and state--it is one of the most "sacred" of our country's values, next to freedom of speech. (No, not the right to carry ridiculously powerful assault weapons. Yes, we know they're for "hunting" purposes only.)
The question of whether or not there is "free will" is irrelevant if two assumptions are made:
1) Consciousness cannot move forward or backward through time, but is confined to the present.
2) No consciousness exists outside of time (i.e. no god).
For the sake of argument, let's assume these are true. Then, looking back on the past, one cannot say to the criminal either "you could have made a different choice" or "you couldn't have made a different choice"; these statements are irrelevant because the past is 100% certain. The only thing that remains is to say "You did a bad thing and you will be punished". This is justice and justice is independent of free will. Either:
1) The criminal chose to commit a crime and brought the punishment upon himself (fair), or
2) The criminal had no choice but to commit the crime and we have no choice but to punish him (also fair).
"yeah but DC is just as dangerous, and if it were to replace alternating current it would be even more dangerous tha AC."
No. Aside from the hand-clamping effect of DC, AC is more dangerous, especially at around 50 Hz, because it interferes with the operation of the heart more easily.
The "one hand method" is rather inconvenient. I have been shocked a few times across the heart, so I know its value, but I was thinking, why not just wear a metal band on each wrist and connect them with a wire, and that way if you get shocked from arm to arm it will only fry your hands off and not kill you? I have done this but I'm not crazy enough to shock myself on purpose and test it.
I've read other accounts of people making ball lightning in the microwave. I'm skeptical as to whether this is the same kind of phenomenon (that drunken hicks see after they've been struck by lighning), but I'm even more skeptical about burning chains of silicon passing through microscopic cracks while retaning a spherical shape.
Re:Space travel won't solve overpopulation.
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Um... people don't "expand", they procreate. Under ideal conditions, the growth rate is proportional to the population, yielding exponential growth.
Note also that stuff with mass can't move at the speed of light.
Re:YETI as the so-called "missing link"
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YETI@Home
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I assume you're joking, but if you're not...
Secular humanism is not a religion. If you are referring to a court "decision" to the contrary, the statement in question which grouped secular humanism with other atheistic religions such as buddhism was made in a dictum, or legal footnote, and does not posess the power of law (not to mention that it is totally inaccurate.)
Slashdot Mirror
> you can't make silicon explode.
Speaking as someone who has blown up 10 555 timer IC's in the last couple of weeks, YES YOU CAN. Only the low power kind, though. And electrolytic caps blow up reeeal nice, too...
Nyyygg! WinCE! The thought of it makes me wince...
Yes--the important kind of free speech is the freedom for people to say what you DON'T want to hear. Nobody has a problem with the other kind.
I agree. Geeks being proud of their alleged intellectual superiority is just as repugnant as whites being proud of their alleged genetic superiority. Would Slashdot advertise "White Pride day"?
Majority rule is an important concept in any kind of democracy. Your post is moderated down because, since it is unrelated to the topic, the majority of readers do not want to waste their time on it. Moderation expedites the reading experience by allowing readers to make quick decisions regarding which posts to read. Being moderated down does not mean that readers cannot read your opinion, nor does it mean you cannot write your opinion. Moderation is merely a tool to improve the quality of the Slashdot experience and a way for ordinary people to participate in the system; it is not censorship.
Being on topic now, This geek pride thing sounds interesting, but there is another event of earth-shattering importance coming up soon, and it IS an april fools' day joke: NATIONAL ATHEISTS' DAY IS APRIL 1ST! ("And the fool hath said in his heart, there is no God")
> since light is bent by gravitational fields...
IANAP, but in my understanding the path of the photon is straight, but space is bent. Ow Ow Ow I sprained my brain thinking about it!
I guess when I say that physics explains something, I am really only saying that physics explains physics, and that religion does not explain physics. I guess you got me. The reason I dislike religion is that most major religions look to some sort of "holy text" for guidance and make irrational arguments for the god they want so badly to exist, and I think that it is BS to use this irrationality to tell people how they should live their lives. On the other hand, there is an absract notion of god as creator of everything. This is similar to the idea of logic as the explainer of everything. I suppose if I accept one, I should accept the other. I just find one supremely useful and the other completely irrelevant.
Rather that step away to look from a spiritual perspective, I like to look from a humanistic perspective. I ask, "How does this discovery help humanity?" The answer is not just limited to any improvement in quality of life it produces; I simply like to have the feeling that we are making progress. We are not necessarily making progress toward anyting--there is not a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that will explain everything or justify our existance--but human progress for its own sake is something for which to strive.
Thank you for your excellent post. I am an atheist, and you made me realize that when I belittle peoples' religious beliefs, I am denying them the comfort which comes with an unconditional belief in god and which is arguably a basic human need. We need to recognize that people's minds work in different ways, and while my mind may prefer to stick with rational thought, others' may not.
Sometimes to argue whether a thought is true or not true is to miss the point. All thoughts are just the product of chemical interactions in our brains, but the concept of truth, like that of beauty, is completely subjective, no matter how inelegant this may seem. Who is to say that a "rational" person is more correct than a lunatic? Is it because the majority of people are rational? I don't like the idea of a moral majority imposing its beliefs on everyone, so why a rational majority?
Another topic that riles me up is the seperation of church and state. While I often discuss the "evils" of religious dogma, and the disaster that would result if it made its way into politics, (which it is doing,) scientific dogma can be just as dangerous. Imagine if we discovered that whites were genetically inferior to blacks? Should we administer mandatory vasectomies to whites to ensure our country an optimal future? Of course not. This seems absurd, but only recently has it become not "PC" to talk of "curing" homosexuals for moral reasons; attempts to justify this with scripture are what I hope we realize is really absurd.
Religion should stay out of science, and out of government, and likewise our country should protect the right of its people to practice any religion they choose. Any attempt to reconcile the two, especially in the case of this book (mixing the belief in god, the most unscientific of religious ideas, with physics, the most unreligious and unforgiving of the sciences) is bound to fail. The set of beliefs we can all agree on are human-oriented beliefs, not logic-oriented beliefs or god-oriented beliefs, because if there is a purpose in life, I believe it is to serve humanity, not any higher power or ideal.
If you don't like to accept the fact that you, too, are a machine, and you decide to invent a God to comfort you in this cold, hard, lonely mechanical world, so be it--I can't stop you. Many people take this approach. Althouch I find theistic thinking aesthetically repulsive, I concede that in many practical respects, it is neither inferior nor superior to atheism as far as our insignificant, petty, day-to-day lives are concerned; I should not be arrogant and say that religion is for the weak--indeed perhaps I do not see the great advantages in having a soul--but I will say that religion often goes hand in hand with dogmatism, and dogmatism is the enemy of the individual, (of the soul, if you will,) and should be avoided at all costs.
Whenever I hear talk about Pascal's wager, remember that Far Side comic where Colonel Sanders meets his maker, who turns out to be a giant chicken. At least I think that's the far side, and not just a figment of my sick, messed-up imagination.
>Most athiests (weak atheists, empirical agnostics) will happily change their opinion if evidence for the existence of God is presented.
I hope I'm not nitpicking here, but I consider myself a strong atheist, and I would believe in god if there were evidence to support this belief. At the present time, however, I see no evidence soon to be arriving and, from the statements of many theists I have talked to, it never will, because "God wants us to believe on faith." To this I respond, half jolkingly, by asking how god can want something if he doesn't exist yet. I call "faith" gulliblity, and people who buy into it fools and cowards.
BTW, I utilize the point in your third paragraph very often when I am confronted with a "rational" theist (if there is such a thing), and I have come to understand that these people have invoked god (invented him, really) to give them purpose and hope, because they are too weak or lazy to search for these the hard way, or too optimistic to consider the possibility they don't exist.
> Can you logically prove that believing in murder is wrong?
Although Mr. AC may not see it as such, this is actually a tough question that warrants a little analysis. For simplicity, let's consider the kind of murder that nearly everyone considers to be wrong: let's say a man was murdered by robbers who then went on to steal his money (money being the motive.) The robbers say "murder is good. By the simple act of murder, we gain money to spend on ourselves." However, suppose we have a government which exists for the purpose of stopping the descent into a pre-human state which would result if everyone were to think in the manner of the robbers. Suppose also that each citizen of this government enters into a contract with the government in which he or she gives up some rights (the right to steal) in return for a basic measure of safety. People will agree to this because such an arrangement benefits everyone. It is simply common sense. The idea that morals should serve the people is not selfish, it is practical.
Note: for a more complete version of the social-contract argument, read Hobbes. My writing is mainly a rehash of his main ideas. Notice that Hobbes does not bring god into his system of morality at all, yet it is still morality. What a concept!
P.S. If you're not up to reading Hobbes, read Calvin and Hobbes. It's almost as deep, and many times funnier!
I am not attacking your beliefs, but as an athiest I do not see how calling an elegant set of equations "god", or calling an improbable medical scenario, or a sunset, or a warm fuzzy feeling "god" helps us to understand the universe any better. Monotheists try to connect all these things by virtue of their all being part of "god". I say they are all part of "the universe". Is that different? Is "the universe" my "god"? This is unclear. The danger comes when religious thought prevents us from learning more about the universe. At best, it distorts ideas by holding us to unproven, irrational beliefs which are incompatible with physical evidence. This can paralyze people who try to believe in physical reality and god at the same time; those who say they understand both usually have done so by distorting the facts and ideas until they become internally inconsistent and useless. At worst, religion actively impedes scientific progress because of stubbornness and adherence to outdated modes of thought (I need not point out the numerous crimes against humanity committed by the catholic church.)
In short, I believe that when religion and science are at odds, science must win (because, while both methods of thought attempt to reveal truth, only science does so provably,) and that when there is NO outright contradiction, (For example, "God brought the universe into existance" vs. "The universe came into existance",) science will again win because the theist view explains nothing more; the difference is, in fact, irrelevant. "God did it" is nothing more than an easy way out--it tells us nothing we need to know--and implies that no further study is required.
Up until now I have discussed a relatively harmless kind of theism. Perhaps "god" created everything, but what about the devil? One way of looking at the world is to see some things as "godly", and some things as less godly, not godly, or even evil. This dualistic view is dangerous because it leads to divisiveness, prejudice, and hate. Even if two such dualistic-minded religious groups agree on something, they will always find a third to demonize and persecute. Often religious value judgements are based on old, outdated writings, which are, (among other things,) often sexist and anti-homosexual, and in my personal opinion contain little wisdom whatsoever. Something someone wrote a long time ago does not justify making value judgements today; in fact, it justifies nothing. No reasonable human being would actually believe that those words came direct from god--we just want someone or something to tell us what to believe because we are too lazy or stupid to think for ourselves, and many of us simply want to hate and to feel justified in doing so. I hope that science maintains a safe distance from religion, because dogmatism could spell the end of science, and indeed of the individual. I am not being overly melodramatic--what are we if we cannot think for ourselves anymore?
Please remember that many atheiests consider themselves "spiritual" people. Just because they don't believe in god does not mean they believe that science can explain everything. Unfortunately, they are still half as deluded as the theists: science, in some form or another, can explain everything that is explainable. Moreover, anything that has not been explained in a scientific manner has not truly been explained. Since the last time I checked, physicists had not yet proved the existance of any god or gods, making the leap from physics to theological speculation does not lend the speculation any more credibility, but only detracts from the physics. If you want to learn more about the universe, read some real physics, not this pop pseudo-science, and if your idea of "learning" about the universe is listening to theological babble on how god made the whole shebang, then you are already lost--just don't spoil it for the rest of us rationally-minded folks.
If you aren't Christian, you ought to be unbiased enough to see that the sig is simply fact--nothing more. However, as someone who is familiar with Christianity, I believe that impeding moral progress is more a property of Christian institutions rather than of Christianity itself. Christ was a radical--we can't forget that. Most modern conservative "Christian" views are incompatible with Christ's actual ideas.
I contend that all organized religions are enemies of moral progress because their stability depends on lack of change. In times of change people tend to think for themselves. This is bad for organized religion for obvious (to the non-brainwashed) reasons.
Possibly any belief in the existance of a god or gods by itself is at odds with the concept of human morality. This is why. The theist system of morality goes like this:
Group of people invents god -> god dictates moral code -> Group attempts to impose moral code on other, incompatible hunmans, resulting in mush suffering -> Repeat.
The humanist system of morality, on the other hand, goes something like this:
Humans with different ideas about morality sit down and work things out with minimal loss of life.
See--much simpler, easier, and doesn't make irrational assumtions or encourage hate and prejudice.
Moreover, Bertrand Russel is awesome and you should have a Bertrand Russel sig too.
P.S. Thomas Jefferson said this:
"The Christian god can easily be pictured as virtually the same god as the many ancient gods of past civilizations. The Christian god is a three-headed monster; cruel, vengeful, and capricious. If one wishes to know more of this raging, three-headed, beast-like god, one only needs to look at the caliber of people who say they serve him. They are always of two classes: fools and hypocrites."
So... Ha Ha! So much for those right-wing conservative bastards who say "let's get rid of this separation of church and state crap so we can get back to the REAL values this country was founded on: CHRISTIAN values, reflecting the CHRISTIAN ideas of our founding fathers, who were all CHRISTIAN." For the ignorant folks out there, this is crazy because the first six presidents of the U.S. were deists, and OUR COUNTRY WAS FOUNDED ON THE RADICAL NOTION OF FREEDOM FROM RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION, DAMMIT! THAT'S WHY WE CAME OVER HERE! We cannot have this freedom without the separation of church and state--it is one of the most "sacred" of our country's values, next to freedom of speech. (No, not the right to carry ridiculously powerful assault weapons. Yes, we know they're for "hunting" purposes only.)
Excuse my rant.
The question of whether or not there is "free will" is irrelevant if two assumptions are made:
1) Consciousness cannot move forward or backward through time, but is confined to the present.
2) No consciousness exists outside of time (i.e. no god).
For the sake of argument, let's assume these are true. Then, looking back on the past, one cannot say to the criminal either "you could have made a different choice" or "you couldn't have made a different choice"; these statements are irrelevant because the past is 100% certain. The only thing that remains is to say "You did a bad thing and you will be punished". This is justice and justice is independent of free will. Either:
1) The criminal chose to commit a crime and brought the punishment upon himself (fair), or
2) The criminal had no choice but to commit the crime and we have no choice but to punish him (also fair).
"yeah but DC is just as dangerous, and if it were to replace alternating current it would be even more dangerous tha AC."
No. Aside from the hand-clamping effect of DC, AC is more dangerous, especially at around 50 Hz, because it interferes with the operation of the heart more easily.
Kinda offtopic, but...
The "one hand method" is rather inconvenient. I have been shocked a few times across the heart, so I know its value, but I was thinking, why not just wear a metal band on each wrist and connect them with a wire, and that way if you get shocked from arm to arm it will only fry your hands off and not kill you? I have done this but I'm not crazy enough to shock myself on purpose and test it.
Hardly obscure.
"Many things in nature..."
Like the reptilian-sized brain rattling inside your skull?
I've read other accounts of people making ball lightning in the microwave. I'm skeptical as to whether this is the same kind of phenomenon (that drunken hicks see after they've been struck by lighning), but I'm even more skeptical about burning chains of silicon passing through microscopic cracks while retaning a spherical shape.
Congressional ethics?
Sheet?
Um... people don't "expand", they procreate. Under ideal conditions, the growth rate is proportional to the population, yielding exponential growth.
Note also that stuff with mass can't move at the speed of light.
I assume you're joking, but if you're not...
Secular humanism is not a religion. If you are referring to a court "decision" to the contrary, the statement in question which grouped secular humanism with other atheistic religions such as buddhism was made in a dictum, or legal footnote, and does not posess the power of law (not to mention that it is totally inaccurate.)