Ack - sorry - forgot that Americans don't know what sarcasm is. Should have used the #sarcasm tag so you knew.
Same here. Yoiu may want to reread the last two sentences. (the first one isn't really a sentence, it's just an exclamation followed by inappropriate punctuation. Feel free to ignore that one)
Are you suggesting that the founding fathers, in their infinite wisdom about so many other things, was wrong about the postal service?
No. He's suggesting that times change, and that the conventional wisdom that existed 200 years ago can be proven wrong in the future, but only with regard to the postal service. I mean, geez. Stop making straw men.
What's next, computers with dementia? Wait, computer virus has already turned computers into Alzheimer patients...:P
Why not. If you can perfectly replicate the problem, you now have a better understanding of what the problem is, and a way to test for possible solutions.
There's a tendency by humans to identify some positive trait as horribly negative. After all, the world must be fair and someone gifted must suffer for it, right?
I cannot outright reject "equalising" hypotheses, but I am slow to accept them because they may betray the motivations of the humans behind them.
The story is that these people came up with a possible explanation of how schizophrenia works, came up with a test, and found that the test created a "virtual schizophrenic". Your complaint that this explanation could show schizophrenics in a slightly more positive light doesn't seem relevant.
First of all, I hate how slashdot has screwed up their comment system. If you get an email notification, and click the link in any browser other than IE, then every time you click anything (including hyperlinks in the message), it takes you to GP./rant
I don't think X has no effect. In fact, the reason people believe in God is because they feel it has a large effect in people's lives.
Consider Newtonian Physics. Newton came up with formulas that, for the first time, modeled orbital bodies. Then we get to the 20th century and go to the moon, but we can't use Newton's equations without the X of Einstein's Space Time Relativity math. The differences are very very small but important. Only recently were we able to create an experiment that physically proved Einstein's theory. There are even smaller things, such as hidden subatomic particles, that may increase our understanding of gravity and even allow us to manipulate it someday. That X, that we don't know about, may have the biggest beneficial effect in all of human history.
God doesn't have an effect. The claims of religious people have an effect. Consider this. There are billions of people in the world who believe something that you don't, and billions who generally agree with you. We can't all be right, so we can assume that there are billions of people with false beliefs. Those beliefs have an effect on their behavior, feelings, etc...But, the fact that their god does not exist is irrelevant, because they have framed their belief as an unfalsifiable statement. As for Newton and Einstein, their primary contributions where mathematical models that can better represent how the universe works. Some implications of Einstein's theories were vindicated, but we accepted his model because it could be verified and it more accurately represented the universe than anything else. Or to put it another way, Einsteins theories gave us better answers to the questions we had, but then people came up with other questions.
So, you can ask for evidence all you want. You'll just never get it in some areas, especially where God requires belief. And, if you do get evidence, it will likely come too late.
So far, the story doesn't make sense. I don't see why a god would create people who are capable of dishonesty, and then treasure the inability to defend against that dishonesty?
We have freewill. You can choose to lie or speak the truth. People combat dishonesty by speaking the truth. I do not know anyone who treasures the "inability to defend against that dishonesty."
But you cannot choose to believe the truth. You can choose to believe what you hear, which may come from a hindu, a buddhist, a radical fundamentalist muslim, a peace-loving muslim, Fred Phelps, Pat Robertson, or one of hundreds of thousands of other beliefs. But the most treasured trait in your belief system seems to be the ability to belief something that has not been verified. Faith means trusting in something that could be a scam, or to put it another way "inability to defend against the dishonesty of your fellow man".
And why would a god be so worried about whether people believe it exists, while trying so hard to make it appear that it doesn't?
God hopes you believe and is very sad if you don't. He's not hiding, humanity has received a very long document detailing just about every subject. You may have seen His churches in your area or around the world or met some of the millions of followers. But, if you want to meet physically you're options are limited.
Have you ever seen a "Where's Waldo?" book? Intentionally giving yourself no distinguishing characteristics and then hanging out in a crowd of similar people is a form of hiding. If a god exists, he is doing exactly this, by making not just his religion indistinguishable from other religions, but also by making his particula
Part of the problem of child-rearing, from an evolutionary perspective is that it is hard to know who your family is. (I'm only talking about in nature. Jokes aside, most animals can't be certain about the father, siblings, etc...
So, it may make sense to "bond" with those nearby and treat them as family, on the off-chance that it is true.Of course, there are plenty of examples where humans can know they are an exception, but that is the exception, and most evolved traits emphasize quick-and-dirty answers.
Being a programmer at small start-up afforded me to be laid off quite frequently. Each tim this happened, I forwarded any suitable position to which I was applying to to my other laid off friends. My logic was simply this: If I don't get it, my friend will get it, and he or she will rally for my cause once inside, or in the worst case, there is one less equally capable competitor in the market.
So, your last strategy is to create a shortage of unemployed programmers, and fill that niche?
And this is the same government we want running health care?!
Yes. I personally was thinking that one Minnesota school teacher should be put in charge of all US-based health care...preferably one who is not an expert on comets.
Also, is privatized insurance so well (self) regulated that they can guarantee that no instructor will ever make an incorrect statement during class time?
Fringe? That depends. By "government takeover", do you mean single-payer, like what we have with "medicare", or do you mean "the government owns the hospitals"?
I'm curious if this "over 40" thing will change over time. In ten years, I would expect people in their fifties to know how to check email. I'm sure that by the time I get old, the world will revolve around facebook credits, and all communications will be abandoned in favor of "stickynotes" left in some door game on a social networking site ("IM? That doesn't even generate L33tL00t!"), but I would suspect the "old people can't use an ATM" meme to die out pretty soon.
I think the Wii was good for gaming, but it was never going to capture the 'gamer' market.
That's what I like about the wii. It opened a new market among non-traditional gamers. As GP posted "grandmaware, momware, littlesisterware" (although I'm not too happy about the "shovelware", though).
I don't believe in black holes. They exist because of scientific evidence that shows their orbits, masses, and light distortion properties.
I would say that I believe in the existence of gravity. Others would say "I accept gravity based on evidence", but I'll use your definition for this discussion, then.
No belief is required when the proof is readably available. So I'll restate belief. Belief is faith in things unmeasurable and or having no obvious effect.
By your previous comment, you have defined belief to exclude anything supported by any kind of evidence. So, why should I see belief as anything other than irrational?
The point is that anything with any relevance in our world will have a measurable effect, even if it is not visible to the naked eye.
That is pure opinion. It requires that I believe you can measure anything, with current technology, for it to achieve relevance.
Actually, I never said "measurable with today's technology", but if you claim to believe in an X, which never in any way effects anything, then X is irrelevant. If X affects Y, but Y cannot be proven in any way to exist or to affect anything, then X is still irrelevant.
Knowledge increases at a linear rate when compared with what we do not know, which increases at an exponential rate. For every new discovery a scientist makes, the finding will generate at least another 10 questions. As civilization advances, humanity becomes less smart as a percentage of knowledge.
Not true. If "the things we don't know" could be quantified, they would not depend on our ability to recognize them. In other words, someone who doesn't know anything about computers may not realize that they also don't know how to write a shell script, how to use microsoft office, or how to check an email. I would say that there are at least five things this person doesn't know.
What a computer is
How to write a shell script
how to use microsoft office
how to check an email
This person also doesn't know that these pieces of information exist
By learning a little about computers, someone is removing items 1 and 5 from the list. I would say that this person is not adding items 2,3,and 4.
It is a very humbling experience.
That is true. The more you know, the more aware you become of your limitations.
So, you can ask for evidence all you want. You'll just never get it in some areas, especially where God requires belief. And, if you do get evidence, it will likely come too late.
So far, the story doesn't make sense. I don't see why a god would create people who are capable of dishonesty, and then treasure the inability to defend against that dishonesty? And why would a god be so worried about whether people believe it exists, while trying so hard to make it appear that it doesn't? What we have is a story that make little sense, is supported by no evidence, and is used to control the behavior of those who believe it. To use a bastardized variation of Pascal's wager, I can either wager my freedom on a gamble that seems high risk, or wager an afterlife that may or may not exist. By choosing atheism, I am choosing not to gamble away the freedom I know I have, in hopes of a prize that may or may not exist.
"seeing is believing" is not the skeptics view. Skeptics ask for evidence, but they do not have to literally "see" something. Most of us believe in black holes, because of the way that they affect the light that passes by them. There is an observable effect, but we don't actually see it. There have been experiments in which people have been asked to pray for sick people, in hopes of determining if prayer makes someone more likely to survive a terminal illness. Had this study shown a repeatable effect, we skeptics would have had a hard time saying that the effect isn't real (although we still would be a long way from pointing out a bible and saying "that guy did it").
The point is that anything with any relevance in our world will have a measurable effect, even if it is not visible to the naked eye.
Why believe something that there cannot _ever_ be supporting evidence for?
Exactly. There can never be any supporting evidence that god does not exist, so atheists who claim with certainty that there is no god are first class fools. They go around talking about the null hypothesis and scientific process as if that somehow validates their irrational belief that there is no god, when in fact the truth of the matter is they just don't know.
Who claims with certainty that God does not exist? Some of us have opinions about how mythology comes into being, and we may have opinions about how a god fits in with the more common (but admittedly incorrect) understanding of Occam's Razor, but the only people claiming certainty are the theists.
So, if I were to laugh at a grown man who believes in leprechauns, would that make me just as silly as he? You don't need to disprove an idea to point out the absurdity of incredible beliefs unbacked by evidence.
If I were to get annoyed, because my state's economic plan involved following a rainbow and stealing his gold...
Fox news is tricky... They don't officially say any of those things. They let any random Joe call in and give that opinion. And if there is enough crazies saying the same thing then they will egg on the idea.
The difference is that CNN was not using weaselly worded statements to imply that Bush was behind 911. There were no former presidential candidates/Vice Presidential hopefuls saying "by golly, how did those airplane parts get so far away? I'm not saying he did it, but you betcha those planes couldn't melt steel", and CNN didn't give anyone like that their own show.
What do you think would happen if McCain won the election... The left will be demand that McCain couldn't be president be HE WASN'T BORN IN THE UNITED STATES. McCain was born in a US Base Panama.
I'm sure some small minority would have said that, in the same way that some small minority will believe anything. But I couldn't see the MSM clinging to this for years after the issue had been settled.
(And for the record, I wish someone would just stand up and point out that the law, itself, is racist. I can see a requirement that says that you must have spent at least twenty years living here, because a leader must understand his or her country, but the notion that someone is forever tainted by foreign soil is indefensible.)
They still have traction. Granted, this poll is from August of last year, but the real money shot is that 12% of independents think he was definitely born in another country, while 17% think he was probably born in another country.
29% is a pretty relevant chunk. Only 37% of independents are willing to say he was "definitely born in the US".
(The poll also tells numbers for GOP and DEMs, but I don't think it's relevant, as we all can predict how they'll vote).
But, FWIW, I hope you're right. I really don't care which country the president was in for the first week of his life. The whole concept of "natural born citizen" seems wrong, especially, when you look at the people who say that this disqualifies anyone with dual citizenship, or who cannot prove that both parents were citizens at the time of birth. I would hope that we can have a debate of the issues that doesn't degrade to name-calling and conspiracy theories.
Slashdot Mirror
Ack - sorry - forgot that Americans don't know what sarcasm is. Should have used the #sarcasm tag so you knew.
Same here. Yoiu may want to reread the last two sentences. (the first one isn't really a sentence, it's just an exclamation followed by inappropriate punctuation. Feel free to ignore that one)
Are you suggesting that the founding fathers, in their infinite wisdom about so many other things, was wrong about the postal service?
No. He's suggesting that times change, and that the conventional wisdom that existed 200 years ago can be proven wrong in the future, but only with regard to the postal service. I mean, geez. Stop making straw men.
What's next, computers with dementia? Wait, computer virus has already turned computers into Alzheimer patients... :P
Why not. If you can perfectly replicate the problem, you now have a better understanding of what the problem is, and a way to test for possible solutions.
There's a tendency by humans to identify some positive trait as horribly negative. After all, the world must be fair and someone gifted must suffer for it, right?
I cannot outright reject "equalising" hypotheses, but I am slow to accept them because they may betray the motivations of the humans behind them.
The story is that these people came up with a possible explanation of how schizophrenia works, came up with a test, and found that the test created a "virtual schizophrenic". Your complaint that this explanation could show schizophrenics in a slightly more positive light doesn't seem relevant.
First of all, I hate how slashdot has screwed up their comment system. If you get an email notification, and click the link in any browser other than IE, then every time you click anything (including hyperlinks in the message), it takes you to GP. /rant
I don't think X has no effect. In fact, the reason people believe in God is because they feel it has a large effect in people's lives.
Consider Newtonian Physics. Newton came up with formulas that, for the first time, modeled orbital bodies. Then we get to the 20th century and go to the moon, but we can't use Newton's equations without the X of Einstein's Space Time Relativity math. The differences are very very small but important. Only recently were we able to create an experiment that physically proved Einstein's theory. There are even smaller things, such as hidden subatomic particles, that may increase our understanding of gravity and even allow us to manipulate it someday. That X, that we don't know about, may have the biggest beneficial effect in all of human history.
God doesn't have an effect. The claims of religious people have an effect. Consider this. There are billions of people in the world who believe something that you don't, and billions who generally agree with you. We can't all be right, so we can assume that there are billions of people with false beliefs. Those beliefs have an effect on their behavior, feelings, etc...But, the fact that their god does not exist is irrelevant, because they have framed their belief as an unfalsifiable statement. As for Newton and Einstein, their primary contributions where mathematical models that can better represent how the universe works. Some implications of Einstein's theories were vindicated, but we accepted his model because it could be verified and it more accurately represented the universe than anything else. Or to put it another way, Einsteins theories gave us better answers to the questions we had, but then people came up with other questions.
So, you can ask for evidence all you want. You'll just never get it in some areas, especially where God requires belief. And, if you do get evidence, it will likely come too late.
So far, the story doesn't make sense. I don't see why a god would create people who are capable of dishonesty, and then treasure the inability to defend against that dishonesty?
We have freewill. You can choose to lie or speak the truth. People combat dishonesty by speaking the truth. I do not know anyone who treasures the "inability to defend against that dishonesty."
But you cannot choose to believe the truth. You can choose to believe what you hear, which may come from a hindu, a buddhist, a radical fundamentalist muslim, a peace-loving muslim, Fred Phelps, Pat Robertson, or one of hundreds of thousands of other beliefs. But the most treasured trait in your belief system seems to be the ability to belief something that has not been verified. Faith means trusting in something that could be a scam, or to put it another way "inability to defend against the dishonesty of your fellow man".
And why would a god be so worried about whether people believe it exists, while trying so hard to make it appear that it doesn't?
God hopes you believe and is very sad if you don't. He's not hiding, humanity has received a very long document detailing just about every subject. You may have seen His churches in your area or around the world or met some of the millions of followers. But, if you want to meet physically you're options are limited.
Have you ever seen a "Where's Waldo?" book? Intentionally giving yourself no distinguishing characteristics and then hanging out in a crowd of similar people is a form of hiding. If a god exists, he is doing exactly this, by making not just his religion indistinguishable from other religions, but also by making his particula
Ok. That guy is a douche. I'll grant you that.
Part of the problem of child-rearing, from an evolutionary perspective is that it is hard to know who your family is. (I'm only talking about in nature. Jokes aside, most animals can't be certain about the father, siblings, etc...
So, it may make sense to "bond" with those nearby and treat them as family, on the off-chance that it is true.Of course, there are plenty of examples where humans can know they are an exception, but that is the exception, and most evolved traits emphasize quick-and-dirty answers.
Being a programmer at small start-up afforded me to be laid off quite frequently. Each tim this happened, I forwarded any suitable position to which I was applying to to my other laid off friends. My logic was simply this: If I don't get it, my friend will get it, and he or she will rally for my cause once inside, or in the worst case, there is one less equally capable competitor in the market.
So, your last strategy is to create a shortage of unemployed programmers, and fill that niche?
And to put more of a political spin on this...
And this is the same government we want running health care?!
Yes. I personally was thinking that one Minnesota school teacher should be put in charge of all US-based health care...preferably one who is not an expert on comets.
Also, is privatized insurance so well (self) regulated that they can guarantee that no instructor will ever make an incorrect statement during class time?
Fringe? That depends. By "government takeover", do you mean single-payer, like what we have with "medicare", or do you mean "the government owns the hospitals"?
I'm curious if this "over 40" thing will change over time. In ten years, I would expect people in their fifties to know how to check email. I'm sure that by the time I get old, the world will revolve around facebook credits, and all communications will be abandoned in favor of "stickynotes" left in some door game on a social networking site ("IM? That doesn't even generate L33tL00t!"), but I would suspect the "old people can't use an ATM" meme to die out pretty soon.
I think the Wii was good for gaming, but it was never going to capture the 'gamer' market.
That's what I like about the wii. It opened a new market among non-traditional gamers. As GP posted "grandmaware, momware, littlesisterware" (although I'm not too happy about the "shovelware", though).
I don't believe in black holes. They exist because of scientific evidence that shows their orbits, masses, and light distortion properties.
I would say that I believe in the existence of gravity. Others would say "I accept gravity based on evidence", but I'll use your definition for this discussion, then.
No belief is required when the proof is readably available. So I'll restate belief. Belief is faith in things unmeasurable and or having no obvious effect.
By your previous comment, you have defined belief to exclude anything supported by any kind of evidence. So, why should I see belief as anything other than irrational?
The point is that anything with any relevance in our world will have a measurable effect, even if it is not visible to the naked eye.
That is pure opinion. It requires that I believe you can measure anything, with current technology, for it to achieve relevance.
Actually, I never said "measurable with today's technology", but if you claim to believe in an X, which never in any way effects anything, then X is irrelevant. If X affects Y, but Y cannot be proven in any way to exist or to affect anything, then X is still irrelevant.
Knowledge increases at a linear rate when compared with what we do not know, which increases at an exponential rate. For every new discovery a scientist makes, the finding will generate at least another 10 questions. As civilization advances, humanity becomes less smart as a percentage of knowledge.
Not true. If "the things we don't know" could be quantified, they would not depend on our ability to recognize them. In other words, someone who doesn't know anything about computers may not realize that they also don't know how to write a shell script, how to use microsoft office, or how to check an email. I would say that there are at least five things this person doesn't know.
By learning a little about computers, someone is removing items 1 and 5 from the list. I would say that this person is not adding items 2,3,and 4.
It is a very humbling experience.
That is true. The more you know, the more aware you become of your limitations.
So, you can ask for evidence all you want. You'll just never get it in some areas, especially where God requires belief. And, if you do get evidence, it will likely come too late.
So far, the story doesn't make sense. I don't see why a god would create people who are capable of dishonesty, and then treasure the inability to defend against that dishonesty? And why would a god be so worried about whether people believe it exists, while trying so hard to make it appear that it doesn't? What we have is a story that make little sense, is supported by no evidence, and is used to control the behavior of those who believe it. To use a bastardized variation of Pascal's wager, I can either wager my freedom on a gamble that seems high risk, or wager an afterlife that may or may not exist. By choosing atheism, I am choosing not to gamble away the freedom I know I have, in hopes of a prize that may or may not exist.
But he could only fly in his dream...I'm pretty sure he was famous for only having one, right?
It's a habit. I am not the GP, but I can emphasize. I also say "god damn", "jesus christ", and "bless you" (to someone who sneezes)*.
* That's in three different contexts. I don't respond to a sneeze by saying "god damn!, jesus christ!, bless you".
"seeing is believing" is not the skeptics view. Skeptics ask for evidence, but they do not have to literally "see" something. Most of us believe in black holes, because of the way that they affect the light that passes by them. There is an observable effect, but we don't actually see it. There have been experiments in which people have been asked to pray for sick people, in hopes of determining if prayer makes someone more likely to survive a terminal illness. Had this study shown a repeatable effect, we skeptics would have had a hard time saying that the effect isn't real (although we still would be a long way from pointing out a bible and saying "that guy did it").
The point is that anything with any relevance in our world will have a measurable effect, even if it is not visible to the naked eye.
Can you provide me with a quote of an atheist claiming to know for a fact that there is no god?
Ok. George Carlin said it once, but can you provide me with a non-comedian who said in all seriousness that he knows there is no god?
thank you.
and let's not forget the almighty spaghetti monster creator of all universes here.
So who created the seasons? You know, Oregano, Basil, Rosemary, and Thyme?
Exactly. There can never be any supporting evidence that god does not exist, so atheists who claim with certainty that there is no god are first class fools. They go around talking about the null hypothesis and scientific process as if that somehow validates their irrational belief that there is no god, when in fact the truth of the matter is they just don't know.
Who claims with certainty that God does not exist? Some of us have opinions about how mythology comes into being, and we may have opinions about how a god fits in with the more common (but admittedly incorrect) understanding of Occam's Razor, but the only people claiming certainty are the theists.
So, if I were to laugh at a grown man who believes in leprechauns, would that make me just as silly as he? You don't need to disprove an idea to point out the absurdity of incredible beliefs unbacked by evidence.
If I were to get annoyed, because my state's economic plan involved following a rainbow and stealing his gold...
Fox news is tricky... They don't officially say any of those things. They let any random Joe call in and give that opinion. And if there is enough crazies saying the same thing then they will egg on the idea.
The difference is that CNN was not using weaselly worded statements to imply that Bush was behind 911. There were no former presidential candidates/Vice Presidential hopefuls saying "by golly, how did those airplane parts get so far away? I'm not saying he did it, but you betcha those planes couldn't melt steel", and CNN didn't give anyone like that their own show.
What do you think would happen if McCain won the election... The left will be demand that McCain couldn't be president be HE WASN'T BORN IN THE UNITED STATES. McCain was born in a US Base Panama.
I'm sure some small minority would have said that, in the same way that some small minority will believe anything. But I couldn't see the MSM clinging to this for years after the issue had been settled.
(And for the record, I wish someone would just stand up and point out that the law, itself, is racist. I can see a requirement that says that you must have spent at least twenty years living here, because a leader must understand his or her country, but the notion that someone is forever tainted by foreign soil is indefensible.)
They still have traction. Granted, this poll is from August of last year, but the real money shot is that 12% of independents think he was definitely born in another country, while 17% think he was probably born in another country.
29% is a pretty relevant chunk. Only 37% of independents are willing to say he was "definitely born in the US".
(The poll also tells numbers for GOP and DEMs, but I don't think it's relevant, as we all can predict how they'll vote).
But, FWIW, I hope you're right. I really don't care which country the president was in for the first week of his life. The whole concept of "natural born citizen" seems wrong, especially, when you look at the people who say that this disqualifies anyone with dual citizenship, or who cannot prove that both parents were citizens at the time of birth. I would hope that we can have a debate of the issues that doesn't degrade to name-calling and conspiracy theories.
Damned good question! And it better be the long form, too, by golly.
But if it says this went down in Hawaii, I'm calling bullshit!
Thanks for making the rest of us look bad...
Asshole :)
For anyone else who missed the end of the Celebrity Apprentice because of the speech, Hope got fired.
Who needs hope when you have results?