Where would you class someone who was raised with religious teachings but after due consideration and study decided it was all mythological nonsense? As someone else pointed out, there are no agnostics when it comes to believing or not in Santa Claus. I believed in Santa - when I was young and ignorant.
(Personally I like Carlin's way of putting it: "I was a Catholic until I reached the age of reason." which is sort of what I think is beginning to happen to humanity as a whole...)
What, you don't believe in the FSM? No pasta for YOU!:)
(Excellent reply, btw. I've found that particular style of analogy to be very useful; haven't seen a good counter to it yet. How about it, Mr. Moore? )
I think the thing to remember is that evolution amplifies small differences, just at rates you can't see. So any statement of "$FOO are not producing their own species" needs many thousands of years to actually see
If creationists only breed with creationists, it might happen a mite sooner than that:)
Interesting. It's very possible it's the water heater or pump, although those should be easy to check. The best way I'm aware of to find out would be to check the resistance across the various systems to the piping; this can be done with a VOM and ground strap. Anything under a megaohm or so I'd consider suspect. Best bet is to get a qualified electrician to check the system; having the original contractors there to pinpoint where the wiring was run wouldn't hurt either. I'm NOT a qualified electrician, just a basic maintenance grunt (albeit a very experienced one) so go get one. There are many possibilities, and even professional installers make mistakes.
An anecdote: I remember one newer apartment I worked on not long ago where I got a mild shock off of the toilet supply valve when I went to change it out; turned out that a sheetrocker had driven a screw thru the wiring at a point where the screw also contacted the copper piping behind the wall (no wiring shield was installed there for some reason, and space was so tight the piping was run almost directly behind the wiring channel). Figuring out where that was happening took the better part of a day and the tearout of a large amount of sheetrock.:(
Fortunately the screw had only contacted the neutral and not the hot wire (and even then the contact was very intermittent), otherwise I might have gotten badly burned - the valve had almost completely failed and I was kneeling in a shallow pool of water. Upon questioning the prior (and first) occupants of the apartment, turns out they'd had intermittent electrical problems on that circuit that they'd never reported to the landlord, specifically the bathroom GFCI would trip at odd times even when there was nothing plugged into it. Shit happens...
The coax I can't help you with other than to suggest that, barring any direct accidental connection to the electrical wiring, it's possible that the coax insulation is broken somewhere (house entry?) where it's making contact with the electrical ground that's carrying current. That's a weird one, I'm surprised the cable installers didn't notice stray currents on the coax.
Except that it's fairly widely believed that the groups who colonized this continent were responsible for the extinction of much of the megafauna that was here when they arrived. There's quite a large body of evidence for that, too.
"Native americans living off the land" is largely a politically correct theory based off of a few tribes who did live that way. For the most part they were no more or no less environmentally destructive than we are nowadays, they just didn't have the technology to boost their ability to do so.
It sounds like in your grandparents house the subpanel is grounded to the piping, not a true, seperate earth ground. That's common in a lot of older or not professionally installed electrical systems and they should have it looked at and repaired by an electrician. I've encountered quite a few older installations like that. It's dangerous because the piping system doesn't make a very good ground.
One thing you may want to think about is the possibility of the power company's transformer going bad and loosing a neutral
Or the power line to the house being damaged by wind, which happens frequently out where I live. A few years ago the entire building I live in lost both neutral and ground (such was my understanding anyway) and it took the utility people hours to track down.
Regarding the GP post, there should be a +1 Excellent Use Of Analogy moderation. That's the best I've ever seen!:)
I've seen cases where when I plugged in a certain power tool and revved it up, it would trip every GFCI outlet in the house. Same effect, caused by the power tool's bad (dangerous really) design.
Interestingly I had to dump all my old metal-case power tools quite a few years ago because when I plugged them into GFCI outlets or strips they'd trip them every time. Same cause?
Shame, too. Those tools were much sturdier and more reliable than most of the plastic case stuff sold nowadays, although I've been pretty happy with my mid-high cost Milwaukee and then Dewalt replacements. But those still break if you drop them off a ladder:(
I suppose that makes sense with desktop PCs, as the user rarely touches the metal parts of the case. But with laptops isn't that poor design? What happens if the power transformer develops an internal short? Couldn't that possibly ground the hot AC thru the case?
Heck, we still don't know much about the hundreds of different processes that occur in something as seemingly simple as a candle flame. Odd that that came up just now, as I have an article on my desk about just that (sorry, no linkie, Discover never published it online that I can find).
Fascinating article, tho. Did you know that if you shine a bright light on a flame, it casts a shadow? Comes from the various solid products (soot and unburned particles from the fuel) that are mixed within the flame...
Actually, studying religion/mythology is an excellent way to learn about human society and culture; just won't tell you anything about the structure of reality:)
What makes it new, exactly? Atheism has been around at least as long as religion has. Just because there are forums where people (not just scientists) can be open and honest about being atheists without fear of being persecuted for it doesn't make a "new religion".
Did you ever think that atheists are more vocal now than they have been in the past because maybe, just maybe, there's less chance of them being socially persecuted for it?
Except, that is, fanatic 'true believers' who consider unbelievers to be inferior, and attempt to shout down any opposing views.
Or did you mean "fanatic true unbelievers"?
Atheists are just like believers, in the sense that there's a wide spectrum in the types of people who don't believe. Some are assholes, some are moderates, and some just plain don't care and stay out of the arguments and the public limelight. But they share something in that they don't accept any particular theology without evidence. This is not the sort of faith or belief that you are talking about, it's a complete lack of it. You haven't met many atheists, have you?
Perhaps you shouldn't blanket label atheists just as you don't want believers to be blanket labeled. You certainly seem to label them based on the posts of what, two, perhaps three people here on slashdot? If you're going to call the kettle black, you might want to understand a bit more about the composition of the kettle first.
You know what pisses me off? When I see people like you labeling anyone they don't understand as "enemies" and "not us, therefore them" and you fell right into the same trap you were bitching about.
Your last paragraph is the only thing you said that makes any rational sense. You should have stuck with saying just that. There's no proof or disproof of either or any set of mythological beliefs. Atheism, however, doesn't incorporate any beliefs at all.
Therefore, to affirmatively believe that god does not exist involves faith in the same way as believing there is a god - even if atheism starts from a much more rational basis.
Pshaw. There's the scientific side - show me evidence. You don't show any evidence. Lack of belief in something with no evidence to make one think it exists is not any sort of faith. It's a refusal to believe in phantasms. One might just as well say it's a refusal to believe in hallucinations. There's a good reason the sarcastic mythology of the flying spaghetti monster is becoming common, it's to answer such irrational and illogical subjective opinion as you are displaying here.
More than refusing dialogue it looks to many of us as the Pope was forced not to be present under the menace of riots: One of the students stated "THERE IS NO DIALOGUE WITH THAT INDIVIDUAL"
My neighbor says that's not accurate, but that the reason the students in the vid didn't want him there was that he refused to have any sort of dialogue with them, not that they were refusing to have it with him. She's an Italian exchange student at the local university.
She says that she doesn't agree with your interpretation and that she doesn't feel that you represent the attitude of the students at the university, that she knows many people there and that most of them don't feel that the pope represents their views, and that they are not fascists but simply want a truthful exchange of viewpoints and not just a speech.
That's not evidence, that's subjective conjecture. How do you know that other thinking beings share the exact same feelings you do, about the same subjects? Have you ever met anyone, even someone who shares the same mythological belief that you do, who "feels" exactly the same you do about everything?
And then I read a physics textbook and do not see any forces or particles that mediate joy, sadness, love or feeling ticklish. This suggest to me that there are concepts which are not explained and perhaps are not explainable by science, although they can be studied by other means.
Perhaps. But religion isn't about studying "feelings", it's about enforcing particular ways of looking at reality. In any case, you're wrong about one thing; there are a lot of theories about why emotions exist; we just haven't found one that explains everything yet. But at least science tries to explain them rather then just saying that they exist because some mythological being created us that way. Just because science hasn't yet come up with clear explanations for emotions yet doesn't mean that it can't and won't. You lack imagination.;)
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and the old testament has more to say about the evil of pork than homosexuality.
There are many politicians who don't understand this message, apparently.
tic
Where would you class someone who was raised with religious teachings but after due consideration and study decided it was all mythological nonsense? As someone else pointed out, there are no agnostics when it comes to believing or not in Santa Claus. I believed in Santa - when I was young and ignorant.
(Personally I like Carlin's way of putting it: "I was a Catholic until I reached the age of reason." which is sort of what I think is beginning to happen to humanity as a whole...)
tic
What, you don't believe in the FSM? No pasta for YOU!
(Excellent reply, btw. I've found that particular style of analogy to be very useful; haven't seen a good counter to it yet. How about it, Mr. Moore? )
tic (a *cough* devout atheist *g*)
Disbelief in God won't send you to hell, but rather belief coupled with wanton disobediance will.
Then what's the point of believing in god in the first place? To me that seems like locking yourself into a prison of your own designing.
tic
Arguing the non-existence of god with a religious person is like arguing the existence of color with someone who was born blind.
:)
There, fixed it for you.
tic
If creationism actually had any scientific validity to it, you might have a valid point. But it doesn't, so your intended point is ridiculous.
tic
I think the thing to remember is that evolution amplifies small differences, just at rates you can't see. So any statement of "$FOO are not producing their own species" needs many thousands of years to actually see
:)
If creationists only breed with creationists, it might happen a mite sooner than that
tic
Interesting. It's very possible it's the water heater or pump, although those should be easy to check. The best way I'm aware of to find out would be to check the resistance across the various systems to the piping; this can be done with a VOM and ground strap. Anything under a megaohm or so I'd consider suspect. Best bet is to get a qualified electrician to check the system; having the original contractors there to pinpoint where the wiring was run wouldn't hurt either. I'm NOT a qualified electrician, just a basic maintenance grunt (albeit a very experienced one) so go get one. There are many possibilities, and even professional installers make mistakes.
:(
An anecdote: I remember one newer apartment I worked on not long ago where I got a mild shock off of the toilet supply valve when I went to change it out; turned out that a sheetrocker had driven a screw thru the wiring at a point where the screw also contacted the copper piping behind the wall (no wiring shield was installed there for some reason, and space was so tight the piping was run almost directly behind the wiring channel). Figuring out where that was happening took the better part of a day and the tearout of a large amount of sheetrock.
Fortunately the screw had only contacted the neutral and not the hot wire (and even then the contact was very intermittent), otherwise I might have gotten badly burned - the valve had almost completely failed and I was kneeling in a shallow pool of water. Upon questioning the prior (and first) occupants of the apartment, turns out they'd had intermittent electrical problems on that circuit that they'd never reported to the landlord, specifically the bathroom GFCI would trip at odd times even when there was nothing plugged into it. Shit happens...
The coax I can't help you with other than to suggest that, barring any direct accidental connection to the electrical wiring, it's possible that the coax insulation is broken somewhere (house entry?) where it's making contact with the electrical ground that's carrying current. That's a weird one, I'm surprised the cable installers didn't notice stray currents on the coax.
Good luck!
tic
Except that it's fairly widely believed that the groups who colonized this continent were responsible for the extinction of much of the megafauna that was here when they arrived. There's quite a large body of evidence for that, too.
"Native americans living off the land" is largely a politically correct theory based off of a few tribes who did live that way. For the most part they were no more or no less environmentally destructive than we are nowadays, they just didn't have the technology to boost their ability to do so.
tic
It sounds like in your grandparents house the subpanel is grounded to the piping, not a true, seperate earth ground. That's common in a lot of older or not professionally installed electrical systems and they should have it looked at and repaired by an electrician. I've encountered quite a few older installations like that. It's dangerous because the piping system doesn't make a very good ground.
tic
One thing you may want to think about is the possibility of the power company's transformer going bad and loosing a neutral
Or the power line to the house being damaged by wind, which happens frequently out where I live. A few years ago the entire building I live in lost both neutral and ground (such was my understanding anyway) and it took the utility people hours to track down.
Regarding the GP post, there should be a +1 Excellent Use Of Analogy moderation. That's the best I've ever seen!
tic
I've seen cases where when I plugged in a certain power tool and revved it up, it would trip every GFCI outlet in the house. Same effect, caused by the power tool's bad (dangerous really) design.
:(
Interestingly I had to dump all my old metal-case power tools quite a few years ago because when I plugged them into GFCI outlets or strips they'd trip them every time. Same cause?
Shame, too. Those tools were much sturdier and more reliable than most of the plastic case stuff sold nowadays, although I've been pretty happy with my mid-high cost Milwaukee and then Dewalt replacements. But those still break if you drop them off a ladder
tic
Yeah, you discharged the battery across your metal braces.
You're lucky the braces didn't heat up enough to burn you or crack a tooth open, and that the battery didn't explode.
tic
I suppose that makes sense with desktop PCs, as the user rarely touches the metal parts of the case. But with laptops isn't that poor design? What happens if the power transformer develops an internal short? Couldn't that possibly ground the hot AC thru the case?
tic
Heck, we still don't know much about the hundreds of different processes that occur in something as seemingly simple as a candle flame. Odd that that came up just now, as I have an article on my desk about just that (sorry, no linkie, Discover never published it online that I can find).
Fascinating article, tho. Did you know that if you shine a bright light on a flame, it casts a shadow? Comes from the various solid products (soot and unburned particles from the fuel) that are mixed within the flame...
tic
Bitter, are we?
:)
Actually, studying religion/mythology is an excellent way to learn about human society and culture; just won't tell you anything about the structure of reality
tic
What makes it new, exactly? Atheism has been around at least as long as religion has. Just because there are forums where people (not just scientists) can be open and honest about being atheists without fear of being persecuted for it doesn't make a "new religion".
Did you ever think that atheists are more vocal now than they have been in the past because maybe, just maybe, there's less chance of them being socially persecuted for it?
tic
And the sanity check is when they refuse to own up to their own hypocrisy.
tic
I don't believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, either. Does that make me an atheist? Why?
tic
Except, that is, fanatic 'true believers' who consider unbelievers to be inferior, and attempt to shout down any opposing views.
Or did you mean "fanatic true unbelievers"?
Atheists are just like believers, in the sense that there's a wide spectrum in the types of people who don't believe. Some are assholes, some are moderates, and some just plain don't care and stay out of the arguments and the public limelight. But they share something in that they don't accept any particular theology without evidence. This is not the sort of faith or belief that you are talking about, it's a complete lack of it. You haven't met many atheists, have you?
Perhaps you shouldn't blanket label atheists just as you don't want believers to be blanket labeled. You certainly seem to label them based on the posts of what, two, perhaps three people here on slashdot? If you're going to call the kettle black, you might want to understand a bit more about the composition of the kettle first.
You know what pisses me off? When I see people like you labeling anyone they don't understand as "enemies" and "not us, therefore them" and you fell right into the same trap you were bitching about.
Your last paragraph is the only thing you said that makes any rational sense. You should have stuck with saying just that. There's no proof or disproof of either or any set of mythological beliefs. Atheism, however, doesn't incorporate any beliefs at all.
Therefore, to affirmatively believe that god does not exist involves faith in the same way as believing there is a god - even if atheism starts from a much more rational basis.
Pshaw. There's the scientific side - show me evidence. You don't show any evidence. Lack of belief in something with no evidence to make one think it exists is not any sort of faith. It's a refusal to believe in phantasms. One might just as well say it's a refusal to believe in hallucinations. There's a good reason the sarcastic mythology of the flying spaghetti monster is becoming common, it's to answer such irrational and illogical subjective opinion as you are displaying here.
No, I don't believe you. Your bias is showing.
tic
More than refusing dialogue it looks to many of us as the Pope was forced not to be present under the menace of riots: One of the students stated "THERE IS NO DIALOGUE WITH THAT INDIVIDUAL"
My neighbor says that's not accurate, but that the reason the students in the vid didn't want him there was that he refused to have any sort of dialogue with them, not that they were refusing to have it with him. She's an Italian exchange student at the local university.
She says that she doesn't agree with your interpretation and that she doesn't feel that you represent the attitude of the students at the university, that she knows many people there and that most of them don't feel that the pope represents their views, and that they are not fascists but simply want a truthful exchange of viewpoints and not just a speech.
Just the messenger.
tic
He suffers from the same form of irrationality that Robertson did when he said god would kill him if he didn't get $X donations.
tic
Yes. I have feelings.
;)
That's not evidence, that's subjective conjecture. How do you know that other thinking beings share the exact same feelings you do, about the same subjects? Have you ever met anyone, even someone who shares the same mythological belief that you do, who "feels" exactly the same you do about everything?
And then I read a physics textbook and do not see any forces or particles that mediate joy, sadness, love or feeling ticklish. This suggest to me that there are concepts which are not explained and perhaps are not explainable by science, although they can be studied by other means.
Perhaps. But religion isn't about studying "feelings", it's about enforcing particular ways of looking at reality. In any case, you're wrong about one thing; there are a lot of theories about why emotions exist; we just haven't found one that explains everything yet. But at least science tries to explain them rather then just saying that they exist because some mythological being created us that way. Just because science hasn't yet come up with clear explanations for emotions yet doesn't mean that it can't and won't. You lack imagination.
tic
WTF? You don't study "science" unless you're an anthropologist or a high-school student
:-)
I think we all know what you were trying to say there, but you really should have previewed it first.
tic
In any case, there is currently no unified theory that explains the connection of the spiritual realm ("soul") and physical world.
Perhaps because there's absolutely no evidence of the former?
tic