Again, I see not a single shred of evidence that supports such claim. No reason at all to invoke supernatural entities. Zip. Nada. So I won't claim it is completely impossible, but then again I don't go special pleading for it. That which can be claimed without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence. Magic has often been used to to explain things we don't understand, but guess what? They all vanished once the real explanation was found. Alas, that doesn't stop people from finding new mysteries and digging in once more, special pleading that this time, surely, it can be the work of god. Whatever, dude.
The whole idea of atheist - agnostic - theist is quite simplistic. We are dealing with two orthogonal concepts: on one hand there is agnostic versus gnostic, and on the other hand there is atheist versus theist. Gnotics know, agnostics don't. Theists believe, where atheists do not. I don't believe in a god because there is no reason to. I'm agnostic because I don't have knowledge about its existence. In theory, you can be an agnostic theist or an agnostic atheist. Or you can be a gnostic theist or a gnostic atheist. In respect of a general concept of a god, I'm agnostic, although the general concept of a god is so vague that it doesn't really matter much. If you believe in a god but admit you don't know anything about god, that's a rather moot point to make. If on the other hand you arrive with a bible, I can be rather certain that it's all made up. Just take a look at all the mythologies, and that christian one doesn't really stand out. There are simpler explanations to why it came to be, and it has to do with unevolved people living in a world they don't understand, making up stories as they go.
Same here, when I wrote a letter to the catholic church to basically sod off and would they please remove me from their list of saved souls, my mom freaked out, with no apparent reason. She never goes to church, but the thought of me leaving made her behave like I've never seen before. It was as if her brain crashed.
And that's the point where I refer you to the long-term evolution experiment. It just blows your argument away. The experiment keeps extensive records (including deep-frozen sample populations), clearly showing mutation creating new variation.
Close-minded as creationists are, this will go in one ear, out the other. I don't really care. Just know your lame tricks don't work here.
I'm not an atheist because I can disprove the existence of God(s). I'm an atheist because I don't believe any of the claims theists have ever made. Your failure to understand atheism is the problem, not my disbelief.
I have a rather simple explanation: If you ask people how long it takes for the earth to orbit the sun, only about half will know the answer. Roughly 20% don't even realise that the earth orbits the sun. Let's face it people, we'll just have to accept that we live in a shithole. How are such people ever going to grasp a "complex" concept like evolution?
Yes, god can do anything to us, he can order people to be stoned to death for working on a Sabbath (the horror!!) and later admit he was wrong doing that. We are his mere play toys. Anyway, either god made a horrible mistake and only realised that later (that does not sound very omnipotent to me) or he just improvises things and uses duct tape and glue to clumsily try and make things work. Or perhaps he's just a human creation, and his character evolves as humanity evolves - that one would explain a lot.
So, this god made a covenant with the jews, but as christians we are not bound by it. So he's cool with us, never mind about the atrocious laws he ordered for those other people? Fuck that, he's still a dick.
People are very capable of killing each other for reasons that have nothing to do with religion. But these acts of aggression are of a different calibre than claiming a role of authority (based on faith), and then demonizing other people. E.g., I don't know if you're familiar with the good Friday sermon of the catholic church (the self-proclaimed greatest moral authority on Earth).
Each year, the catholic church would pray for the souls of various groups of unbelievers. After each group of disbelievers was named, the flock of churchgoers would kneel. When they turned to the Jews, they were addressed as "pro perfidis judaeis" (ahem), hoping that God may "remove the veil from their hearts" (wtf?). After this, the people were supposed *not* to kneel.
This went on until the second Vatican council (1962-1965). Just as a reminder: the second world war ended in 1945.
I was quite disturbed when I learned about this. This is indoctrinating people with hate. It's despicable beyond words. So yeah, I will always mock people who think accepting claims based on faith earns respect. It doesn't.
Great. Now entire hordes of geeks are grabbing for their light sabres, and the entire discussion will be about Star Wars, instead of TPB. Well played, MPAA.
And the site itself is just horrible. I think I finally found some competition for the most annoying website ever (it's time to add some new features, instructables.com!)
Sure, there are a number of technologies that can be developed for hauling cargo, another option is quicklaunch. No problem there at all. However that doesn't answer my question. But if there is a review of the design, I'd better first take a look at it first. Maybe they didn't cover the gen2 design? There is just one problem: there is no review to be found. If you go to the website of Sandia, and search for startram, you get 0 hits. If you google for sandia national laboratories "murder squad" you only get references to the same startram press release style article, copied over and over again on different blogs and news sites. Not a single article mentioning the review is kind enough to link to it. By now it's getting very, very suspicious. Is there even a "murder squad"? What are their other accomplishments? Are they even connected to the sandia national laboratory?
Care to explain? I'm really confused and I think I'm starting to smell a corpse in the closet.
I have some problems with the principle of the Gen 2 design. The entire thing would be lifted up to 20km using magnetism? Not that I think it is impossible to create the necessary forces, I just wonder what would happen if I came anywhere close with a small magnet. How large would the impact crater be? Same with anything made of iron, or magnetic ores. It seems just based on a back of the envelope calculation, without examining other implications.
It still constitutes an effort and resources that weren't spent on other things. Maybe things that would feed back to improve the economy instead of just sitting there as a threat to others. Sure, that's important too, but there comes a point where spending even more on defence becomes pure waste.
Anyway, all this talk about this new bomber (China being the enemy so - obviously - the US needs a new bomber and shit) is just the sales pitch. It could have been anything because it doesn't really matter. The important part is the defence contract, funnelling more money to the defence companies who desperately need it.
Clearly this shows that Douglas Adams was correct in his view that mice run this world. We can't cure ourselves, but we spend billions trying to cure mice. Can't you people see what's going on here? They have all the best medicine, we're lagging behind by decades!
And lack of asperin causes headaches? Of course not, that doesn't justify your point. Depression can be caused by all sorts of factors. Throwing it all on one big pile and claiming that depression will go away with affection is a gross, naive oversimplification.
Slashdot Mirror
That was the point I was trying to make, but maybe my sarcasm got in the way.
If I were a prison guard, I'd miss those stoners too..
Again, I see not a single shred of evidence that supports such claim. No reason at all to invoke supernatural entities. Zip. Nada. So I won't claim it is completely impossible, but then again I don't go special pleading for it. That which can be claimed without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.
Magic has often been used to to explain things we don't understand, but guess what? They all vanished once the real explanation was found. Alas, that doesn't stop people from finding new mysteries and digging in once more, special pleading that this time, surely, it can be the work of god. Whatever, dude.
It was last Monday, infidel!
The whole idea of atheist - agnostic - theist is quite simplistic. We are dealing with two orthogonal concepts: on one hand there is agnostic versus gnostic, and on the other hand there is atheist versus theist. Gnotics know, agnostics don't. Theists believe, where atheists do not. I don't believe in a god because there is no reason to. I'm agnostic because I don't have knowledge about its existence. In theory, you can be an agnostic theist or an agnostic atheist. Or you can be a gnostic theist or a gnostic atheist.
In respect of a general concept of a god, I'm agnostic, although the general concept of a god is so vague that it doesn't really matter much. If you believe in a god but admit you don't know anything about god, that's a rather moot point to make.
If on the other hand you arrive with a bible, I can be rather certain that it's all made up. Just take a look at all the mythologies, and that christian one doesn't really stand out. There are simpler explanations to why it came to be, and it has to do with unevolved people living in a world they don't understand, making up stories as they go.
Same here, when I wrote a letter to the catholic church to basically sod off and would they please remove me from their list of saved souls, my mom freaked out, with no apparent reason. She never goes to church, but the thought of me leaving made her behave like I've never seen before. It was as if her brain crashed.
And that's the point where I refer you to the long-term evolution experiment. It just blows your argument away. The experiment keeps extensive records (including deep-frozen sample populations), clearly showing mutation creating new variation.
Close-minded as creationists are, this will go in one ear, out the other. I don't really care. Just know your lame tricks don't work here.
*facepalm*
I'm not an atheist because I can disprove the existence of God(s). I'm an atheist because I don't believe any of the claims theists have ever made. Your failure to understand atheism is the problem, not my disbelief.
I have a rather simple explanation: If you ask people how long it takes for the earth to orbit the sun, only about half will know the answer. Roughly 20% don't even realise that the earth orbits the sun. Let's face it people, we'll just have to accept that we live in a shithole. How are such people ever going to grasp a "complex" concept like evolution?
Yes, god can do anything to us, he can order people to be stoned to death for working on a Sabbath (the horror!!) and later admit he was wrong doing that. We are his mere play toys. Anyway, either god made a horrible mistake and only realised that later (that does not sound very omnipotent to me) or he just improvises things and uses duct tape and glue to clumsily try and make things work. Or perhaps he's just a human creation, and his character evolves as humanity evolves - that one would explain a lot.
nonstampcollector made a funny video about this
So, this god made a covenant with the jews, but as christians we are not bound by it. So he's cool with us, never mind about the atrocious laws he ordered for those other people? Fuck that, he's still a dick.
People are very capable of killing each other for reasons that have nothing to do with religion. But these acts of aggression are of a different calibre than claiming a role of authority (based on faith), and then demonizing other people. E.g., I don't know if you're familiar with the good Friday sermon of the catholic church (the self-proclaimed greatest moral authority on Earth).
Each year, the catholic church would pray for the souls of various groups of unbelievers. After each group of disbelievers was named, the flock of churchgoers would kneel. When they turned to the Jews, they were addressed as "pro perfidis judaeis" (ahem), hoping that God may "remove the veil from their hearts" (wtf?). After this, the people were supposed *not* to kneel.
This went on until the second Vatican council (1962-1965). Just as a reminder: the second world war ended in 1945.
I was quite disturbed when I learned about this. This is indoctrinating people with hate. It's despicable beyond words. So yeah, I will always mock people who think accepting claims based on faith earns respect. It doesn't.
Oh, look, a god of the gaps argument! How cute!
Great. Now entire hordes of geeks are grabbing for their light sabres, and the entire discussion will be about Star Wars, instead of TPB. Well played, MPAA.
And the site itself is just horrible. I think I finally found some competition for the most annoying website ever (it's time to add some new features, instructables.com!)
Sure, there are a number of technologies that can be developed for hauling cargo, another option is quicklaunch. No problem there at all. However that doesn't answer my question. But if there is a review of the design, I'd better first take a look at it first. Maybe they didn't cover the gen2 design? There is just one problem: there is no review to be found. If you go to the website of Sandia, and search for startram, you get 0 hits. If you google for sandia national laboratories "murder squad" you only get references to the same startram press release style article, copied over and over again on different blogs and news sites. Not a single article mentioning the review is kind enough to link to it. By now it's getting very, very suspicious. Is there even a "murder squad"? What are their other accomplishments? Are they even connected to the sandia national laboratory?
Care to explain? I'm really confused and I think I'm starting to smell a corpse in the closet.
I have some problems with the principle of the Gen 2 design. The entire thing would be lifted up to 20km using magnetism? Not that I think it is impossible to create the necessary forces, I just wonder what would happen if I came anywhere close with a small magnet. How large would the impact crater be? Same with anything made of iron, or magnetic ores. It seems just based on a back of the envelope calculation, without examining other implications.
It still constitutes an effort and resources that weren't spent on other things. Maybe things that would feed back to improve the economy instead of just sitting there as a threat to others. Sure, that's important too, but there comes a point where spending even more on defence becomes pure waste.
Anyway, all this talk about this new bomber (China being the enemy so - obviously - the US needs a new bomber and shit) is just the sales pitch. It could have been anything because it doesn't really matter. The important part is the defence contract, funnelling more money to the defence companies who desperately need it.
Also, with the help of a calculator, I got 98 messages per day per teen. That's like what I send in a busy year.
And all this for the cheap price of .....
Clearly this shows that Douglas Adams was correct in his view that mice run this world. We can't cure ourselves, but we spend billions trying to cure mice. Can't you people see what's going on here? They have all the best medicine, we're lagging behind by decades!
And lack of asperin causes headaches? Of course not, that doesn't justify your point. Depression can be caused by all sorts of factors. Throwing it all on one big pile and claiming that depression will go away with affection is a gross, naive oversimplification.
Indeed, one of the bigger facepalm moments of /..