you know, simply making electoral reform a major issue would go a long way.
1. IRV. no more duopoly. 2. Publicly funded elections and campaigns. Give viable candidates a much more level playing field without pandering to money interests. I am not however advocating for trying to hold back private money from campaigns... impossible, really... but strict rules on how that money can be spent will always be necessary.
just those two changes could change the face of american politics significantly within a couple of election cycles.
when I have a computer that begins to even touch the complexity of the brain: when it can dream: when it can become mentally ill and think it is god: when it is based on organic material with particular methods of decay unfound in any silicon chip: in that case I will look to a computer to replicate what a brain shutdown is like. I will note that while we have made great leaps in brain activity, and it's hardly a mature science that can answer all of our questions at this point, it should be almost without question to say it bears little resemblance to what we know of as computer programs. If it were 1800 you'd be telling me I should be looking at a clock, and when it dies, it just stops, so obviously this can't be an explanation for brain death. I'm sure there is a fancy name for that fallacy, and I'm sure you know it already.
I am not interested in evidence that cannot support an argument outside of a single, potentially flawed mind. That waters down the term evidence to a level that, related to this discussion and most others, is pointless. We have billions of people claiming other billions of people are wrong about these experiences they are having. to call it "evidence" that one or the other is right, is silly, as just a small dash of rationality should show you. That should make it very clear how much weight this "evidence" should have: so close to zero as to be zero.
regarding prophecy you're right, it's not regarding rational thought on my part, as I have never chosen to waste my time studying prophecy in depth. I have chosen not to do this, because every prophecy I *have* read, has been utter trash for the reasons I have given. So why would I continue to look? I've never even seen ONE that caused me to give pause. but if you have some vast warehouse of proven prophecy, I'd be happy to scan it for even a small handful I find interesting or hard to explain beyond the "long enough timeline" argument.
The best point you have here is the lancet study, which being a skeptic I am still skeptical of their dismissal of a few of the factors involved based on some new knowledge we have about CPR and brain death, but I have to admit that while I don't particularly find it compelling, it's a lot better than just people's often contradictory interpretations of their own subjective experiences and I don't have the expertise to discount it completely.
So there is one piece of evidence. Congrats! That is one, currently still valid, piece of serious evidence. I was wrong to say there was none.
having an experience is one thing. but it is entirely irrational to assume that your experience points to the existence of an immortal, ominpotent being. that's a massive leap that is supported by no facts at all, and can only be supported by an irrational leap into 'faith'. The alternate theories to explain whatever experience you have that might even begin to point in that direction are prevalent, simple, and easy to understand in most cases.
Just because someone has a certain INTERPRETATION of the facts around them does not make it rational or weighty in any way. In the face of a complete lack of objective evidence, I fail to see why it should even be taken seriously, or why we would possible dignify the behaviour with words like "evidence".
The evidence that exists is, again, no more compelling in any fashion than my assertion that ducks talk to me, other than being more common to believe in god than it is to claim we can talk to ducks. But on the god side, We have billions claiming other billions are wrong about what they are experiencing and claiming THEIR own experience is the right one. I would certainly think that would, to a very large degree, remove any weight such "evidence" should be given. Obviously, at a minimum, billions of people are mistaken about the experiences they are having. I just think it's a billion or so more than believers of those religions do.
So magic head voices, god, and talking ducks have evidence of roughly equal weight in terms of any objective, verifiable weight. I guess I'm comfortable with that, and I'm comfortable not really considering it "evidence" in favor of the existence of a god.
I do understand your point, and it's technically valid, but at a level I think you'd have to be a linguistic or an asberger's patient to appreciate it. The Evidence is so vanishingly weak it is, for all intents and purposes, negligible. The assertions of people raised within certain belief systems notwithstanding, there is no evidence for God.
It is interesting that people dying have similar experiences. Perhaps that is even where we get the idea of an afterlife to begin with. But that is only evidence *of an afterlife* if you are being willingly credulous, it survives no serious level of consideration. Otherwise, the rantings of nearly dead people shouldn't be given any more credibility than the rantings of other people with defective brain activity, such as the schizophrenics. They all hear voices, many even share the similarity of thinking they are god. I guess they must be "evidence" too, in your paradigm, since many people are all having the same experience there.
So NDEs are as good an evidence of god as schizophrenics are. I hope you don't mind if I continue to consider that non-evidence.
I call god a Sky Fairy because that is the level of ridiculousness in the assertion. I could call him or it God, and do oftentimes since I was raised in a country with a christian tradition, but really that narrows the scope to monotheistic religions unfairly, I think. Sky Fairy is just a catchall phrase for the variety of fairy tales people call God. I could of course be more polite about it, but I don't really see any value in giving more respect to the idea than it deserves.
Your prophecies must be really great. I haven't studied prophecy so I won't attempt to debunk you with rigor. But my statement still stands, As long as the prophecy does not provide the details needed to disprove it, typically a specific time reference, it can stand forever until proven. Given your other responses, I strongly suspect that your definition of "overly vague" and mine are vastly different.
You do a great job fallaciously naming fallacies, but really, your martyrdom argument just takes the cake. You don't have to be delusional to be a martyr, you simply have to be delusional to think you're doing it for 'god's will'. I mean really, this is the most ridiculous point of all. You are simply pointing at belief as evidence, which it most obviously is not. If that is true, then the word "evidence" means nothing at all.
But if you want to nitpick to this degree, I'll simply modify the standard. There is no evidence GREATER THAN SOMEONE'S ASSERTION that god exists. There may be circumstantial and anecdotal evidence that COULD suggest there is a god if you choose to interpret it that way, but that's not evidence in any form that interests me. That's just people justifying their own credulity with similarly weak arguments.
In short, there is nothing that differentiates any form of God worship from any other belief or claim that fails to meet such basic criteria for standing a rest of basic reason. Basic reason notes that billions of people believe wrongly every day; there is no reason why god must be different.
In fact, religion already accepts this. otherwise you wouldn't need faith. You could believe in the evidence for God. But of course, no thinking person would ever do that, because there is no evidence any thinking person should accept as even approaching the bar required for credulity, much less proof.
again though, that's a nitpicking level of certainty you are shooting for before you simply state the obvious, a level to which nearly NO negative assertion can be brought to. "Shooting yourself in the head is bad". Well, who knows, maybe you'll trigger superpowers of some kind.
I hold the unprovable opinion that shooting yourself in the head to get super cognitive powers is bad. I also think there is no such thing as the tooth fairy or santa claus, or god. And while on an extremely esoteric level those are "unproven" assumptions, and I understand that, I am very, very comfortable considering them fact until any real EVIDENCE is produced to call into question those assertions.
People claiming they hear voices is not evidence in favor of magic head-voices. It's evidence, but of mental illness. without any REAL evidence, I have no reasons to suspect that people claiming God "talks to them", or making any other claims about some magic sky fairy is any more "evidential".
Hey, you know what? Ducks talk to me. Well poop, I guess now there is evidence for talking ducks. Let's argue for the next 2000 years about whether ducks can talk or not, shall we? Let's not let the total and complete lack of any hard evidence at all stop us. I just said it happened. What more do you need?
You obviously don't understand what "evidence" is.
the ramblings of people near death is not "evidence". those are called "anecdotes". Lots of people say they hear voices too... that doesn't mean their voices are REAL. They suffer from a brain disease called "Schizophrenia". When your brain is DYING it's not surprising that there are certain effects that may be similar among people. We don't need some magic sky fairy or land of the dead to explain it.
Prophecy fulfillment is simply ridiculous. Very few of them even make date range estimates, so the probability of something resembling any prophecy on a long enough timeline is nearly guaranteed, more so the more vague the prophecy Here, I'll make one now: In a dark time, some guy will rise up and destroy many nations, and force everyone in them to wear yellow hats. Now don't judge too quickly! Just because it's not happening NOW, doesn't mean it's not going to!
"willing martyrdom"?? what is that supposed to mean? The level of delusion of the people around me is evidence of god? really?
Personal experience means nothing at all in this context. You're asking flawed people with limited perception for their interpretation of events they are usually not trained to understand. I've had "religious" experiences too, and I don't even believe in God. People believe in Ouija boards too... are you insinuating that their interpretation is reliable?
How odd. Despite your claims, there really is no evidence at all. Just stuff that people who wouldn't know the scientific method it if bit them in the face ike to call "evidence". I guess if you really want to stretch it, you could call it "anecdotal evidence", but just because it uses the word "evidence" doesn't mean it really satisfies the requirement of the term.
We don't have to disprove the existence of God, for the same reason we don't have to disprove the existence of Santa Clause or the tooth Fairy. After all, just because SOME parents leave gifts to their kids and call it santa or the tooth fairy, that doesn't mean that Santa or the tooth fairy does not existence. You cannot bring them to odds of existence to 0 either, nor can you for any other crazy story I wish to make up, especially if I add an "omnipotent" qualifier to my mythical being because then whatever you came up with to disprove it I can simply counter with "well, the ominpotent being makes it that way".
In the end, there is quite simply no more reason to believe in God than there is to believe in Santa or the Tooth Fairy. The fact that billions think otherwise does not change the facts.
If you require odds of existence to be 0 before you acknowledge the very likely reality of the situation, I'm not sure what to say to that. Your world must be a very interesting place, with unicorns, tooth fairies, santa claus, "orangutans" and elves just possibly hiding behind every cloud of probability.
I, however, am quite satisfied with "I don't see any reason to believe in fairy tales that have been simply made up by other people with no evidence or reason for being".
I want the power company to tell me the pricing so I can decide what power to draw. that's "giving the utility some control" because they set the price.
I would be very willing to give the power company lots of control over my power in exchange for cheaper rates. I design heating systems that have used electric thermal storage units with just such a deal: the utility guarantees your house will be heated. But 99.99% of the time, they are charging your thermal storage when THEY have excess electricity to dump. the cost savings of this is huge because it's power they would otherwise have wasted. They make a few cents on otherwise waste power, I save a ton of money, and the peak load the next day for the heat (or cooling, with ice generators or chilled water storage) is blunted as well so the utility doesn't have to build more peak capacity which is expensive, and wasteful.
You don't sound like you understand the economics of power generation very well.
there are a few things you're not considering though.
1. each car is a battery. Now what was that nagging problem with renewables? Primarily it is that of intermittent production. which a grid full of modular batteries would be FANTASTIC at utilizing. Hell, imagine if you can tell your electric car specifically to be charged enough to drive you the 10 miles to get home after work. All day that car could be storing and RE RELEASING energy to the grid as necessary, making you money to offset the cost of the charge you need to drive home. and it would be distributed storage.
2. This isn't going to happen overnight. Cars last over 10 years in most cases. people are slow to adopt new technology. we have time to improve infrastructure.
3. of course we have to invest much more heavily in electrical production.
unfortunately for your theory, solar is in fact getting a lot better, largely because worldwide subsidies have driven the market to really invest in production and research. A critical mass of production and competition in a new market appears to be far more useful for driving innovation than a trickle of research funds.
I'm not saying all credits are good. But they can do good, it's not futility, and solar PV is a prime example of that. as GE is betting... we're getting close to a tipping point.
never mind the fact that if half our military budget is going to go to ensure access to oil producing countries (right, that's COINCIDENCE, my bad) for our oil companies, I don't feel too bad for balancing the coin just a hair with some direct subsidies for the industries getting squeezed out by a lack of sane environmental or foreign policy.
you get more BTUs up to the limit of your summertime DHW load. but then you're throwing away capacity with solar thermal.
We just built a shop last year, and if we cover the roof with not the most expensive panels we can offset about half of our office's total energy usage (heat, cooling, lights, ventilation, computers, etc) for a 3500 sq ft shop here in maine. with PV (and a very good heat pump). If you're doing low level collection thermal is great and hot water is how I make my living... but that PV array? its capacity is 20% higher.. with a roughly 10% increase in price... than it was just 1.5 years ago. things are moving in a good direction.
tax revenues pretty much always increase. there's are these thing, called inflation, population growth, productivity increases.. thing is, after tax cuts, you are increasing FROM A LOWER POINT. in other words, you're collecting less than you would have otherwise.
sound economic policy is very simple. rack up huge deficits in down times to keep the economy going. pay them down when things are going well. problem is, every republican administration since reagan has set massive record after massive record for deficit spending EVEN DURING BOOM TIMES. now when we NEED that spending, they cry about the deficit. it would be laughable if it weren't so tragic.
the stimulus spending has saved our auto industry (and in the end cost very little) though that was a republican, of course, that started it... Kudos to him. and the stimulus very certainly helped blunt the full force of this recession. Biggest boom ever to biggest bust ever, this very easily could have been the great depression, and I can say that stimulus projects were the ONLY thing keeping many engineering and construction firms afloat for the last couple of years. And those people are the people who drive the economy. They have mortgages and car payments and kids, suppliers and workers, and the cash they get flows through the economy very rapidly. Unlike tax giveaways to people who already have enough money.
I think you can: there is no moral ambiguity in eating plants others have raised, IMO. Unless you think plants have feelings, in which case, your only choice is to starve to death. so I don't think this extends forever, I think it's very clearly only applicable in a case where you are shielded from your own morality/immorality by "outsourcing" the dirty work to others.
Maybe, if the food is grown with pesticides and such and the workers are getting sick and you're fine with it because you don't have to watch THEM die to give you cheap food. But absent some kind of actual harm there, then I can only say that it's very educational to grow some food yourself, and laudable... but I can't fucking stand weeding and I'll be happy if I never grow another tomato in my god damned life. Growing up on a small farm does that to some people I guess. (before you ask, we never butchered our own animals... not sure why, really).
I understand it's a hot button issue. that doesn't make your response to it correct. Understandable, perhaps. but it's really a similar lesson to draw in either case and frankly with the tea party cohorts running around I wouldn't be upset if they were forced to evaluate their own stance on health care a bit more honestly either. two birds, one stone. I think most of us can establish we're not really ok with poor people and kids dying on the sidewalk, so all the whining about socialism is kind of moot and really the question should migrate to the practical questions you raise fairly quickly... who, how much, how often, how to administer, etc.
I don't mind someone (cough cough) having to be more careful about how they respond to hypotheticals either;) look at all the good lessons going around!
I of course would eat meat for survival. I definitely would also kill occasionally as I believe SOME meat intake is optimal for health and I have not, as of yet, seen any real examples that lead me to believe otherwise in my vegetarian/vegan friends. I've never seen so many food allergies or general ailments as I have amongst vegetarian/vegan circles. of course that may just be "use it or lose it" but hey, why risk it.
But survival is not the question for most of us, and I eat WAAAY more meat than would be nutritionally required by any measure, and so it becomes a question of "how much would you kill just for the taste of meat"? Currently I suspect my "murder quotient" is far higher than it would be if I had to face each meal eye to eye before eating it. But I don't really know until I test it. I also don't know how much I'd want the meat if I had a lot less of it around... it might be higher than I suspect now, all fat and happy on beef, pork and chicken on a daily basis.
I agree it would hard for me to test this... I don't really have time to work at a slaughterhouse, but I do live in the country and I'm sure I could go to a farm and ask to be part of the process for a weekend or something. but I do certainly think this is a problem with division of labor, not a benefit.
You are missing the entire point and going off on your own tangent. I made no assertions about current levels of healthcare or whether or not poor people are, in fact, currently dying in the street today. That is all you. My statements were hypothetical, note the important little word "if" in there a few times.
the premise I actually put forward is simple:
IF you are not ok with giving poor people health care, ONLY if you do not have to see them die in the street, that is EQUAL TO being ok with eating meat but NOT being ok with killing animals, in terms of cowardice and hypocrisy.
if you agree with either one, you are a hypocrite in that realm. If you do not have the moral fortitude to own up to the consequence of your own action in a direct sense, then you are simply a coward who needs to be insulated from the world you promote, and I have no respect for that, in myself or in anyone else.
If you eat meat now, but would not eat meat if you had to kill it yourself, you should not eat meat now because someone else does the killing for you. If you don't know if you would kill for meat, you should probably figure that out. It might, at the least, change how much meat you eat.
exactly similar would be IF... IF... IF.... you were willing to say no one should get health care they cannot pay for, but were unwilling to stick to that principle when faced with a dying kid. You'd be a monster, IMHO, if you did stick to your guns in that case, but you would not be a coward or a hypocrite. If you can imagine that you would not be able to stick to those guns, then it would be important to recognize that you do, in fact, believe that people should get health care even if they can't afford it. How, why, how much, when, none of those questions apply to my HYPOTHETICAL statement.
As far as the meat, and as I posted already, I struggle with this already myself, as I'm not sure I would eat as much meat as I do now.. or at all... if I had to face the killing of it myself directly. I haven't had the courage to face this concern of mine as of yet. I just don't rationalize my cowardice, or my hypocrisy. At least, not as successfully as some others in this thread.
you nailed it. Total cost of ownership for everything that consumes power. Including any financing payments and energy costs. At current pricing, and with a second standard assumption for energy cost inflation based on the 20 or 30 year period previous.
ESPECIALLY FOR HOMES AND BUILDINGS.
then you would not only see a much greater change in average efficiency, you'd see the market properly VALUE efficiency, because as you insinuate, the problem is poor information flow currently. as it usually is, when the market fails, as it often does.
I challenge you, then, to illustrate how the two things are different. If you are not ok with watching poor people die on the sidewalk walking into a hospital, but you also do not think we should give them health care, then you are just as hypocritical as someone who thinks it's ok to eat meat but that it's not ok to personally kill an animal.
the fact that your level of comfort with the two situations may be different doesn't make the situations themselves different.
there is meaning in it, to the person who is taking responsibility for their own actions. Division of labor is not more "meaningful". it's simply more efficient. Meaning is determined by a given person for him or herself.
I salute his convictions. I hate how easily I fall into eating factory farmed meat. which is unsustainable, unhealthy, and inhumane... and can stay that way forever, because of your high vaunted division of labor making sure that most people don't understand what they are eating. Or if they do understand, at least we don't have to actually face the reality of it when we buy our nice packaged beef products in the store. We can pretend that THIS meat wasn't so bad.
We have division of labor because specializing is helpful for many things. opting out of that structure, for whatever reason, is hardly "going off the deep end" though. If a person desires to be more connected with the essentials of his or her own existence... more power to them.
this is a pretty bullshit argument. He's not allowing others to do his murder for him, and he's making the choice to only eat meat if he's willing to kill it himself.
I have struggled with this myself, honestly. I don't want to kill animals. but I love to eat meat. I should not eat meat unless I can be ok with killing the animals. Otherwise I'm just a hypocrite.
being willing to eat meat as long as SOMEONE ELSE kills the animal is simply insulating yourself from the consequences of your own actions. That's like saying I'm fine with not giving poor people health care as long as I don't have to watch them die. It's cowardly. Facing the consequences honestly and making the decision for yourself is the most intellectually honest thing a person can do.
It's not a "desire" to kill animals. It's a desire to only be RESPONSIBLE for the death of animals you'd be willing to kill yourself in order to eat. That seems like a clear and honest litmus to me.
when it happens fast you are correct. I have a house, and a car, and a commute. these things cannot change quickly or easily.
If it happens over a ten or twenty year period... an amount of time that allows for changes in behaviour to adapt... not so bad. Purchases can be made with energy efficiency in mind... especially if you KNOW energy is going to double in price, then payback can be figured on that... to minimize the impact.
Pardon me for assuming a legal limit had something to do with safety. That said, I'm not sure why you brought up background radiation which appears to only be anywhere in the league of what we're talking about in rare circumstances, and appears to be mostly unrelated to FOOD, which is what has absorbed the radiation in Japan.
You'll also have to pardon me for not jumping on the "radiation heals cancer" bandwagon without a tad more study. I don't believe that applies to eating radioactive foodstuffs either.
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you know, simply making electoral reform a major issue would go a long way.
1. IRV. no more duopoly.
2. Publicly funded elections and campaigns. Give viable candidates a much more level playing field without pandering to money interests. I am not however advocating for trying to hold back private money from campaigns... impossible, really... but strict rules on how that money can be spent will always be necessary.
just those two changes could change the face of american politics significantly within a couple of election cycles.
when I have a computer that begins to even touch the complexity of the brain: when it can dream: when it can become mentally ill and think it is god: when it is based on organic material with particular methods of decay unfound in any silicon chip: in that case I will look to a computer to replicate what a brain shutdown is like. I will note that while we have made great leaps in brain activity, and it's hardly a mature science that can answer all of our questions at this point, it should be almost without question to say it bears little resemblance to what we know of as computer programs. If it were 1800 you'd be telling me I should be looking at a clock, and when it dies, it just stops, so obviously this can't be an explanation for brain death. I'm sure there is a fancy name for that fallacy, and I'm sure you know it already.
I am not interested in evidence that cannot support an argument outside of a single, potentially flawed mind. That waters down the term evidence to a level that, related to this discussion and most others, is pointless. We have billions of people claiming other billions of people are wrong about these experiences they are having. to call it "evidence" that one or the other is right, is silly, as just a small dash of rationality should show you. That should make it very clear how much weight this "evidence" should have: so close to zero as to be zero.
regarding prophecy you're right, it's not regarding rational thought on my part, as I have never chosen to waste my time studying prophecy in depth. I have chosen not to do this, because every prophecy I *have* read, has been utter trash for the reasons I have given. So why would I continue to look? I've never even seen ONE that caused me to give pause. but if you have some vast warehouse of proven prophecy, I'd be happy to scan it for even a small handful I find interesting or hard to explain beyond the "long enough timeline" argument.
The best point you have here is the lancet study, which being a skeptic I am still skeptical of their dismissal of a few of the factors involved based on some new knowledge we have about CPR and brain death, but I have to admit that while I don't particularly find it compelling, it's a lot better than just people's often contradictory interpretations of their own subjective experiences and I don't have the expertise to discount it completely.
So there is one piece of evidence. Congrats! That is one, currently still valid, piece of serious evidence. I was wrong to say there was none.
having an experience is one thing. but it is entirely irrational to assume that your experience points to the existence of an immortal, ominpotent being. that's a massive leap that is supported by no facts at all, and can only be supported by an irrational leap into 'faith'. The alternate theories to explain whatever experience you have that might even begin to point in that direction are prevalent, simple, and easy to understand in most cases.
Just because someone has a certain INTERPRETATION of the facts around them does not make it rational or weighty in any way. In the face of a complete lack of objective evidence, I fail to see why it should even be taken seriously, or why we would possible dignify the behaviour with words like "evidence".
The evidence that exists is, again, no more compelling in any fashion than my assertion that ducks talk to me, other than being more common to believe in god than it is to claim we can talk to ducks. But on the god side, We have billions claiming other billions are wrong about what they are experiencing and claiming THEIR own experience is the right one. I would certainly think that would, to a very large degree, remove any weight such "evidence" should be given. Obviously, at a minimum, billions of people are mistaken about the experiences they are having. I just think it's a billion or so more than believers of those religions do.
So magic head voices, god, and talking ducks have evidence of roughly equal weight in terms of any objective, verifiable weight. I guess I'm comfortable with that, and I'm comfortable not really considering it "evidence" in favor of the existence of a god.
I do understand your point, and it's technically valid, but at a level I think you'd have to be a linguistic or an asberger's patient to appreciate it. The Evidence is so vanishingly weak it is, for all intents and purposes, negligible. The assertions of people raised within certain belief systems notwithstanding, there is no evidence for God.
It is interesting that people dying have similar experiences. Perhaps that is even where we get the idea of an afterlife to begin with. But that is only evidence *of an afterlife* if you are being willingly credulous, it survives no serious level of consideration. Otherwise, the rantings of nearly dead people shouldn't be given any more credibility than the rantings of other people with defective brain activity, such as the schizophrenics. They all hear voices, many even share the similarity of thinking they are god. I guess they must be "evidence" too, in your paradigm, since many people are all having the same experience there.
So NDEs are as good an evidence of god as schizophrenics are. I hope you don't mind if I continue to consider that non-evidence.
I call god a Sky Fairy because that is the level of ridiculousness in the assertion. I could call him or it God, and do oftentimes since I was raised in a country with a christian tradition, but really that narrows the scope to monotheistic religions unfairly, I think. Sky Fairy is just a catchall phrase for the variety of fairy tales people call God. I could of course be more polite about it, but I don't really see any value in giving more respect to the idea than it deserves.
Your prophecies must be really great. I haven't studied prophecy so I won't attempt to debunk you with rigor. But my statement still stands, As long as the prophecy does not provide the details needed to disprove it, typically a specific time reference, it can stand forever until proven. Given your other responses, I strongly suspect that your definition of "overly vague" and mine are vastly different.
You do a great job fallaciously naming fallacies, but really, your martyrdom argument just takes the cake. You don't have to be delusional to be a martyr, you simply have to be delusional to think you're doing it for 'god's will'. I mean really, this is the most ridiculous point of all. You are simply pointing at belief as evidence, which it most obviously is not. If that is true, then the word "evidence" means nothing at all.
But if you want to nitpick to this degree, I'll simply modify the standard. There is no evidence GREATER THAN SOMEONE'S ASSERTION that god exists. There may be circumstantial and anecdotal evidence that COULD suggest there is a god if you choose to interpret it that way, but that's not evidence in any form that interests me. That's just people justifying their own credulity with similarly weak arguments.
In short, there is nothing that differentiates any form of God worship from any other belief or claim that fails to meet such basic criteria for standing a rest of basic reason. Basic reason notes that billions of people believe wrongly every day; there is no reason why god must be different.
In fact, religion already accepts this. otherwise you wouldn't need faith. You could believe in the evidence for God. But of course, no thinking person would ever do that, because there is no evidence any thinking person should accept as even approaching the bar required for credulity, much less proof.
again though, that's a nitpicking level of certainty you are shooting for before you simply state the obvious, a level to which nearly NO negative assertion can be brought to. "Shooting yourself in the head is bad". Well, who knows, maybe you'll trigger superpowers of some kind.
I hold the unprovable opinion that shooting yourself in the head to get super cognitive powers is bad. I also think there is no such thing as the tooth fairy or santa claus, or god. And while on an extremely esoteric level those are "unproven" assumptions, and I understand that, I am very, very comfortable considering them fact until any real EVIDENCE is produced to call into question those assertions.
People claiming they hear voices is not evidence in favor of magic head-voices. It's evidence, but of mental illness. without any REAL evidence, I have no reasons to suspect that people claiming God "talks to them", or making any other claims about some magic sky fairy is any more "evidential".
Hey, you know what? Ducks talk to me. Well poop, I guess now there is evidence for talking ducks. Let's argue for the next 2000 years about whether ducks can talk or not, shall we? Let's not let the total and complete lack of any hard evidence at all stop us. I just said it happened. What more do you need?
You obviously don't understand what "evidence" is.
the ramblings of people near death is not "evidence". those are called "anecdotes". Lots of people say they hear voices too... that doesn't mean their voices are REAL. They suffer from a brain disease called "Schizophrenia". When your brain is DYING it's not surprising that there are certain effects that may be similar among people. We don't need some magic sky fairy or land of the dead to explain it.
Prophecy fulfillment is simply ridiculous. Very few of them even make date range estimates, so the probability of something resembling any prophecy on a long enough timeline is nearly guaranteed, more so the more vague the prophecy Here, I'll make one now: In a dark time, some guy will rise up and destroy many nations, and force everyone in them to wear yellow hats. Now don't judge too quickly! Just because it's not happening NOW, doesn't mean it's not going to!
"willing martyrdom"?? what is that supposed to mean? The level of delusion of the people around me is evidence of god? really?
Personal experience means nothing at all in this context. You're asking flawed people with limited perception for their interpretation of events they are usually not trained to understand. I've had "religious" experiences too, and I don't even believe in God. People believe in Ouija boards too... are you insinuating that their interpretation is reliable?
How odd. Despite your claims, there really is no evidence at all. Just stuff that people who wouldn't know the scientific method it if bit them in the face ike to call "evidence". I guess if you really want to stretch it, you could call it "anecdotal evidence", but just because it uses the word "evidence" doesn't mean it really satisfies the requirement of the term.
We don't have to disprove the existence of God, for the same reason we don't have to disprove the existence of Santa Clause or the tooth Fairy. After all, just because SOME parents leave gifts to their kids and call it santa or the tooth fairy, that doesn't mean that Santa or the tooth fairy does not existence. You cannot bring them to odds of existence to 0 either, nor can you for any other crazy story I wish to make up, especially if I add an "omnipotent" qualifier to my mythical being because then whatever you came up with to disprove it I can simply counter with "well, the ominpotent being makes it that way".
In the end, there is quite simply no more reason to believe in God than there is to believe in Santa or the Tooth Fairy. The fact that billions think otherwise does not change the facts.
If you require odds of existence to be 0 before you acknowledge the very likely reality of the situation, I'm not sure what to say to that. Your world must be a very interesting place, with unicorns, tooth fairies, santa claus, "orangutans" and elves just possibly hiding behind every cloud of probability.
I, however, am quite satisfied with "I don't see any reason to believe in fairy tales that have been simply made up by other people with no evidence or reason for being".
I want the power company to tell me the pricing so I can decide what power to draw. that's "giving the utility some control" because they set the price.
I would be very willing to give the power company lots of control over my power in exchange for cheaper rates. I design heating systems that have used electric thermal storage units with just such a deal: the utility guarantees your house will be heated. But 99.99% of the time, they are charging your thermal storage when THEY have excess electricity to dump. the cost savings of this is huge because it's power they would otherwise have wasted. They make a few cents on otherwise waste power, I save a ton of money, and the peak load the next day for the heat (or cooling, with ice generators or chilled water storage) is blunted as well so the utility doesn't have to build more peak capacity which is expensive, and wasteful.
You don't sound like you understand the economics of power generation very well.
there are a few things you're not considering though.
1. each car is a battery. Now what was that nagging problem with renewables? Primarily it is that of intermittent production. which a grid full of modular batteries would be FANTASTIC at utilizing. Hell, imagine if you can tell your electric car specifically to be charged enough to drive you the 10 miles to get home after work. All day that car could be storing and RE RELEASING energy to the grid as necessary, making you money to offset the cost of the charge you need to drive home. and it would be distributed storage.
2. This isn't going to happen overnight. Cars last over 10 years in most cases. people are slow to adopt new technology. we have time to improve infrastructure.
3. of course we have to invest much more heavily in electrical production.
unfortunately for your theory, solar is in fact getting a lot better, largely because worldwide subsidies have driven the market to really invest in production and research. A critical mass of production and competition in a new market appears to be far more useful for driving innovation than a trickle of research funds.
I'm not saying all credits are good. But they can do good, it's not futility, and solar PV is a prime example of that. as GE is betting... we're getting close to a tipping point.
never mind the fact that if half our military budget is going to go to ensure access to oil producing countries (right, that's COINCIDENCE, my bad) for our oil companies, I don't feel too bad for balancing the coin just a hair with some direct subsidies for the industries getting squeezed out by a lack of sane environmental or foreign policy.
you get more BTUs up to the limit of your summertime DHW load. but then you're throwing away capacity with solar thermal.
We just built a shop last year, and if we cover the roof with not the most expensive panels we can offset about half of our office's total energy usage (heat, cooling, lights, ventilation, computers, etc) for a 3500 sq ft shop here in maine. with PV (and a very good heat pump). If you're doing low level collection thermal is great and hot water is how I make my living... but that PV array? its capacity is 20% higher.. with a roughly 10% increase in price... than it was just 1.5 years ago. things are moving in a good direction.
tax revenues pretty much always increase. there's are these thing, called inflation, population growth, productivity increases.. thing is, after tax cuts, you are increasing FROM A LOWER POINT. in other words, you're collecting less than you would have otherwise.
sound economic policy is very simple. rack up huge deficits in down times to keep the economy going. pay them down when things are going well. problem is, every republican administration since reagan has set massive record after massive record for deficit spending EVEN DURING BOOM TIMES. now when we NEED that spending, they cry about the deficit. it would be laughable if it weren't so tragic.
the stimulus spending has saved our auto industry (and in the end cost very little) though that was a republican, of course, that started it... Kudos to him. and the stimulus very certainly helped blunt the full force of this recession. Biggest boom ever to biggest bust ever, this very easily could have been the great depression, and I can say that stimulus projects were the ONLY thing keeping many engineering and construction firms afloat for the last couple of years. And those people are the people who drive the economy. They have mortgages and car payments and kids, suppliers and workers, and the cash they get flows through the economy very rapidly. Unlike tax giveaways to people who already have enough money.
I think the USA's capitalist society is doing a fine job of destroying itself, really. the capitalists all grew fat enough to buy the government.
I think you can: there is no moral ambiguity in eating plants others have raised, IMO. Unless you think plants have feelings, in which case, your only choice is to starve to death. so I don't think this extends forever, I think it's very clearly only applicable in a case where you are shielded from your own morality/immorality by "outsourcing" the dirty work to others.
Maybe, if the food is grown with pesticides and such and the workers are getting sick and you're fine with it because you don't have to watch THEM die to give you cheap food. But absent some kind of actual harm there, then I can only say that it's very educational to grow some food yourself, and laudable... but I can't fucking stand weeding and I'll be happy if I never grow another tomato in my god damned life. Growing up on a small farm does that to some people I guess. (before you ask, we never butchered our own animals... not sure why, really).
I understand it's a hot button issue. that doesn't make your response to it correct. Understandable, perhaps. but it's really a similar lesson to draw in either case and frankly with the tea party cohorts running around I wouldn't be upset if they were forced to evaluate their own stance on health care a bit more honestly either. two birds, one stone. I think most of us can establish we're not really ok with poor people and kids dying on the sidewalk, so all the whining about socialism is kind of moot and really the question should migrate to the practical questions you raise fairly quickly... who, how much, how often, how to administer, etc.
I don't mind someone (cough cough) having to be more careful about how they respond to hypotheticals either ;) look at all the good lessons going around!
I of course would eat meat for survival. I definitely would also kill occasionally as I believe SOME meat intake is optimal for health and I have not, as of yet, seen any real examples that lead me to believe otherwise in my vegetarian/vegan friends. I've never seen so many food allergies or general ailments as I have amongst vegetarian/vegan circles. of course that may just be "use it or lose it" but hey, why risk it.
But survival is not the question for most of us, and I eat WAAAY more meat than would be nutritionally required by any measure, and so it becomes a question of "how much would you kill just for the taste of meat"? Currently I suspect my "murder quotient" is far higher than it would be if I had to face each meal eye to eye before eating it. But I don't really know until I test it. I also don't know how much I'd want the meat if I had a lot less of it around... it might be higher than I suspect now, all fat and happy on beef, pork and chicken on a daily basis.
I agree it would hard for me to test this... I don't really have time to work at a slaughterhouse, but I do live in the country and I'm sure I could go to a farm and ask to be part of the process for a weekend or something. but I do certainly think this is a problem with division of labor, not a benefit.
You are missing the entire point and going off on your own tangent. I made no assertions about current levels of healthcare or whether or not poor people are, in fact, currently dying in the street today. That is all you. My statements were hypothetical, note the important little word "if" in there a few times.
the premise I actually put forward is simple:
IF you are not ok with giving poor people health care, ONLY if you do not have to see them die in the street, that is EQUAL TO being ok with eating meat but NOT being ok with killing animals, in terms of cowardice and hypocrisy.
if you agree with either one, you are a hypocrite in that realm. If you do not have the moral fortitude to own up to the consequence of your own action in a direct sense, then you are simply a coward who needs to be insulated from the world you promote, and I have no respect for that, in myself or in anyone else.
If you eat meat now, but would not eat meat if you had to kill it yourself, you should not eat meat now because someone else does the killing for you. If you don't know if you would kill for meat, you should probably figure that out. It might, at the least, change how much meat you eat.
exactly similar would be IF... IF... IF.... you were willing to say no one should get health care they cannot pay for, but were unwilling to stick to that principle when faced with a dying kid. You'd be a monster, IMHO, if you did stick to your guns in that case, but you would not be a coward or a hypocrite. If you can imagine that you would not be able to stick to those guns, then it would be important to recognize that you do, in fact, believe that people should get health care even if they can't afford it. How, why, how much, when, none of those questions apply to my HYPOTHETICAL statement.
As far as the meat, and as I posted already, I struggle with this already myself, as I'm not sure I would eat as much meat as I do now.. or at all... if I had to face the killing of it myself directly. I haven't had the courage to face this concern of mine as of yet. I just don't rationalize my cowardice, or my hypocrisy. At least, not as successfully as some others in this thread.
you nailed it. Total cost of ownership for everything that consumes power. Including any financing payments and energy costs. At current pricing, and with a second standard assumption for energy cost inflation based on the 20 or 30 year period previous.
ESPECIALLY FOR HOMES AND BUILDINGS.
then you would not only see a much greater change in average efficiency, you'd see the market properly VALUE efficiency, because as you insinuate, the problem is poor information flow currently. as it usually is, when the market fails, as it often does.
wow, we might need more than one technology to address more than one transportation requirement, at least for an interim period?
bag it then, might as well stay ICE for everything, for ever.
I challenge you, then, to illustrate how the two things are different. If you are not ok with watching poor people die on the sidewalk walking into a hospital, but you also do not think we should give them health care, then you are just as hypocritical as someone who thinks it's ok to eat meat but that it's not ok to personally kill an animal.
the fact that your level of comfort with the two situations may be different doesn't make the situations themselves different.
there is meaning in it, to the person who is taking responsibility for their own actions. Division of labor is not more "meaningful". it's simply more efficient. Meaning is determined by a given person for him or herself.
I salute his convictions. I hate how easily I fall into eating factory farmed meat. which is unsustainable, unhealthy, and inhumane... and can stay that way forever, because of your high vaunted division of labor making sure that most people don't understand what they are eating. Or if they do understand, at least we don't have to actually face the reality of it when we buy our nice packaged beef products in the store. We can pretend that THIS meat wasn't so bad.
We have division of labor because specializing is helpful for many things. opting out of that structure, for whatever reason, is hardly "going off the deep end" though. If a person desires to be more connected with the essentials of his or her own existence... more power to them.
this is a pretty bullshit argument. He's not allowing others to do his murder for him, and he's making the choice to only eat meat if he's willing to kill it himself.
I have struggled with this myself, honestly. I don't want to kill animals. but I love to eat meat. I should not eat meat unless I can be ok with killing the animals. Otherwise I'm just a hypocrite.
being willing to eat meat as long as SOMEONE ELSE kills the animal is simply insulating yourself from the consequences of your own actions. That's like saying I'm fine with not giving poor people health care as long as I don't have to watch them die. It's cowardly. Facing the consequences honestly and making the decision for yourself is the most intellectually honest thing a person can do.
It's not a "desire" to kill animals. It's a desire to only be RESPONSIBLE for the death of animals you'd be willing to kill yourself in order to eat. That seems like a clear and honest litmus to me.
when it happens fast you are correct. I have a house, and a car, and a commute. these things cannot change quickly or easily.
If it happens over a ten or twenty year period... an amount of time that allows for changes in behaviour to adapt... not so bad. Purchases can be made with energy efficiency in mind... especially if you KNOW energy is going to double in price, then payback can be figured on that... to minimize the impact.
Pardon me for assuming a legal limit had something to do with safety. That said, I'm not sure why you brought up background radiation which appears to only be anywhere in the league of what we're talking about in rare circumstances, and appears to be mostly unrelated to FOOD, which is what has absorbed the radiation in Japan.
You'll also have to pardon me for not jumping on the "radiation heals cancer" bandwagon without a tad more study. I don't believe that applies to eating radioactive foodstuffs either.