Think about what, say, Richard Nixon, would have done with oodles and oodles of video evidence able to be manipulated post action...
I'm very pro civil liberties myself. Having the government record everything we do in public is a very good way for the government (or anyone able to hack into the system) to later on decide what you did *yesterday* is now illegal and you should be prosecuted for it.
This is why reasonable suspicion needs to be a part of *any* surveillance law.
if I'm wrong and have deluded myself into belief in a lie for my life, there's no consequence to my belief other than I've followed a lie. I am doing no harm to my fellow man.
You may not be, but plenty of other 'religious' folk seem quite hell bent on imposing their views on the rest of the world. So yes I attribute that to anyone who supports that idea. You can't have one without the other.
TO you it is the same as believing in Santa...to me it is a part of who I am.
I assert that to a 5 yr old it is quite definitely part of who they are as well.
I'm willing to revise my opinions based on evidence, and to date I have found no evidence that God does not exist.
This is the very definition of 'science' that I am in favor of. Having 'evidence' drive things, not fantastical belief systems with no supporting evidence. You seem to agree with me on this point.
And I stand by the concept that as a general rule, athiests seem to have a serious problem accepting that religious people have their beliefs, and feel the need to mock and belittle those with faith for their faith.
I heartily disagree with you. The whole point of the article was about the religious pushing their views onto others. Religious history is literally rife with them pushing their beliefs onto others. Atheists and my ilk object heartily to being forced to accommodate in our lives the beliefs of others that are clearly not based on factual evidence. Again something you say you agree with.
Science has disproved religious dogma spouted by man, but never has science disproved any religion
Religion *is* dogma spouted by man. The fail here is yours:)
I can not *prove* God exists any more than you can *prove* that God does not exist.
Actually, no, I don't have to prove he doesn't exist. He simply doesn't until you prove he does. There's no impasse here other than your (or anyone's) inability to prove what they believe.
If you don't see the connection between blind faith in something that can't be proven in any fashion, and Charles Manson's delusional followers, well I think we're done here. You can't have one without the other no matter how much you protest.
I would hope that you also understand that no where in the religious documents does it say the earth is X years old.
I specifically said that it was 'biblical scholars', those people who profess to know what the Bible actually means, who said this.
And yes, the Church I'm referring to is the generic Christian church and Catholics in particular.
The "church" as you put it, has had no problem in the past with recognizing the man has been wrong.
You mean like recognizing official 'regret' for the treatment of Galileo...in 1992? Yeah, that's downright admirable of them:) Religions used to be very similar to science. Even Islam was behind some great scientific research once upon a time. A time, when we didn't have explanations for much of the known world and science wasn't yet able to explain it - so religion happily coexisted.
Right up until science started disproving much of the religious foundations. Then they parted company and religion had to be against 'science' because it offers up a method by which things can be proven. And religion fails that method categorically.
You still didn't explain why its different than a 5 yr old believing in Santa Claus. Both are about belief in something with nothing but the word and outright lies of other people. But the nerve I struck seems to prove my point:)
You can say you respect my beliefs and I do respect your 'right' to have yours if not the beliefs themselves. But your kind has routinely called my kind heathens, pagans and made us bow to *your* beliefs. Whether you do or not, you have to be responsible for those who do so in the same name that you worship.
Go fuck your God...he/she certainly enjoys fucking with other people:)
Church vs Religion is a distinction in search of a difference. frankly. I understand that you don't want to be associated with the Church, but when you both believe in the same things its rather hard to not lump you together.
Also, please explain how not wanting to be associated with the Church is any different than being in the Church and only choosing what you wish to 'believe' from the scriptures.
the bible NOT ONCE EVER says that the Earth was formed out of nothing 6000 years ago.
You'll note I never said this. I said 'biblical scholars' said this based on study of the bible. If you're going to argue semantics, I suggest you follow them yourself.
The only place you're right...my spirituality is un-provable. I accept it on faith, and faith alone.
Except we're talking here, about allowing teachers to teach that science is flawed and 'faith' is the true path. That should scare the crap out of anyone who thinks.
I get that this shit is hard to comprehend for the athiests out there...no worries. Feel free to have your beliefs, and criticize me for mine. Your choice to make, as being spiritual is my choice to make.
The problem is that religious/spiritual beliefs are still firmly rooted in our government and laws. Until they are gone, your spiritual beliefs do impinge on my life. I fully respect your right to be spiritual and to believe on faith alone that God exists. But it's no different than a 5 yr old believing in Santa Claus.
You do realize that *most* religious people easily accept that the earth is more than ~6000 years old.
I do realize that most 'religious' people are hypocritical in their beliefs yes. The 'Church' explicitly argued the earth was only a few thousand years old for centuries until science proved them wrong. The sheer volume of religious beliefs disproved by science is staggering. The Church simply changes what they say the bible means when confronted with such evidence..
You can be religious, but if you are just taking the parts you don't find objectionable, then you aren't being true to your religion. For instance, Catholics who believe that same sex marriage is acceptable aren't true Catholics by the Church's own definition. They condemned Galileo for saying the earth revolved around the sun even though Galileo claimed it didn't violate the bible's writings.
In short, religion is not science and never will be unless God himself come down and starts providing actual evidence for his existence. Faith is admirable, even noble, but when you cherry pick what you want out of it you diminish yourself.
I think that if God does exist, he could affect the universe to create life naturally.
Agreed. Personally, I am waiting for the bible thumpers to claim that 'created in his own image' actually meant DNA based lifeforms. They're so good at changing what they say their book actually means to counter when science proves it completely false;-)
Which would put them on equal footing, wouldn't it?
Well except for the volumes and volumes of data that show species changing over time from the fossil record. Religion just has 'a book that says so' for its evidence. So not exactly 'equal' footing.
Lets also take into account that the biblical scholars say the world is just a few thousand years old. Except that the volume of evidence for evolution clearly shows that the world is *billions* of years old.
You missed my point. Even if these conditions are extremely rare, there so many chances for them that there are still likely 100,000s of such systems.
We might actually be first though, or at least among the first crop of advanced civilizations. Mostly because of the age of the universe and the time it takes to form enough of the heavier elements that make life possible.
even if we were to come up with some incredible propulsion breakthroughs, it still wouldn't help all that much. If Einstein was right, near light speed is as good as it gets. And that would still make all but our closest galactic neighbors practically inaccessible.
Space is vast and using conventional propulsion tech, you are correct.
But it also would be looking at a bird and saying we'll never fly. Technology can greatly affect what is 'possible'.
Einstein also agrees that worm holes are possible so faster than light travel *is* possible by his definition. You don't actually exceed the speed of light, but you get somewhere faster than the light would have by taking a shortcut.
Are we anywhere near that sort of ability? of course not. But so far it isn't impossible either.
The reality is that there are literally so many systems out there that even if 0.01 % of planets are like ours it is still a fantastically large number of opportunities for advanced life to occur.
The down side is that advanced civilizations are more likely to blow themselves up and never get to the interstellar stage. Or that they either already existed and died out or we will die out before they develop.
The net result is the same isolation, but it doesn't follow that we are so unique that we're the only ones that ever have or will ever exist.
I see you've bought into the Nancy Pelosi "you can create wine from water" theory of economic that claims unemployment benefits create jobs. They do not.
You are correct. They do however *save* jobs that would be otherwise lost making any economic downturn worse. You can argue that we should feel the full pain and deal with the more severe consequences. I, and frankly most of this country, would disagree with you. Its why we have the safety net we do.
See, when the unemployment increases, we impose higher UI taxes on businesses. That's money they can't use to hire more people with
Yeah, see, this is where you don't seem to understand basic economics. Business don't hire simply because you give them, or let them keep if you prefer, more money. The hire because they have demand that they see as requiring more workers to meet. The tax environment will certainly play a factor, but the if there isn't any demand, they aren't going to hire anyone.
Ask any business owner which they would prefer, lower taxes and a stalled economy, or slightly higher taxes and a stimulated economy. If you say they want the former, well you've bought the GOP koolaid that we've seen doesn't work.
As far as the 'Pelosi' theory, its putting money into things that return more money than your investment rather than something that returns only a fraction of the money you spend. The results speak for themselves. 700k jobs being lost *per month* to net job growth in less than 2 years, all while the GOP was trying to stop any sort of help at all. The stimulus wasn't big enough, that's why we're looking at a double dip.
As for 'inflammatory', you started with the 'OMG taxes are killing my freedom' crap. Please. I've actually provided facts that prove my point. You? not so much.
What I'm saying is that a complete flat tax doesn't work. You need to have a floor where you no longer tax. That itself is a 'loophole'. So once you have one, you'll have more. You still haven't provided another solution, just complaints against the current system.
As Ben Franklin said, ensuring that poverty is uncomfortable is the best way to reduce poverty. That works as long as your government isn't providing social disincentives for working and hiring workers.
Translation:
Those life sucking unemployed parasites, err, people are living high on the hog with the free benefits we give them.
This in a nutshell is the problem. You seem to think that unemployment payments even come close to covering the average families expenses, let alone saving for the future. Try it sometime, it ain't fun. Or better yet, talk to people who are unemployed and ask how much fun it is?
And more to the point, they PAID for that unemployment check through payroll taxes so it is something they *deserve* not something we are 'giving' them. And yes we've extended unemployment benefits past the original deadline. So this is definitely deficit spending. Why? Keep reading...
If you don't want to provide unemployment payments in order to 'encourage' people to go back to work, what happens when the economy tanks and there are no jobs available? Pretty soon you have the people who do still have jobs losing revenue because the unemployed stopped spending altogether. Then those people lose their jobs. Rinse repeat. It's called cascading economic effects.
Unemployment payments provide the grease that keeps the economy moving until it can start adding jobs on its own. Its why it actually creates more money in the economy than you spend.
Here's the proof that those things that 'make life easy' for the impoverished' are actually some of the best ways to stimulate the economy and get those unemployed/poor people back to work.
So what's your solution to the issue? A flat tax? Would you tax the 2 bucks I give a homeless guy? after all, he got 'income' from that right? Or is there a lower bound at which income taxes shouldn't apply anymore?
You can be a heartless bastard and say no. or you can say that some modifications to the tax rate are reasonable. Either way you lose the argument, though one has at least integrity to go with it.
PS. consumption, sales or VAT lumps you in the heartless bastard category too...
You know that basement you live in? That is taxed to favor its ownership. Like it or not the tax code is used for social purposes. If there's a health cost associated with certain types of foods/behaviors, I'm all in for taxing them to actually pay for those costs.
I don't smoke and never have and I'd really prefer that *my* health care doesn't have to pay for smokers. It would be a damn sight cheaper.
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No no. Texas was *helping* you here. They were giving your info to potential employers. Yeah that's it.
Think about what, say, Richard Nixon, would have done with oodles and oodles of video evidence able to be manipulated post action...
I'm very pro civil liberties myself. Having the government record everything we do in public is a very good way for the government (or anyone able to hack into the system) to later on decide what you did *yesterday* is now illegal and you should be prosecuted for it.
This is why reasonable suspicion needs to be a part of *any* surveillance law.
if I'm wrong and have deluded myself into belief in a lie for my life, there's no consequence to my belief other than I've followed a lie. I am doing no harm to my fellow man.
You may not be, but plenty of other 'religious' folk seem quite hell bent on imposing their views on the rest of the world. So yes I attribute that to anyone who supports that idea. You can't have one without the other.
TO you it is the same as believing in Santa...to me it is a part of who I am.
I assert that to a 5 yr old it is quite definitely part of who they are as well.
I'm willing to revise my opinions based on evidence, and to date I have found no evidence that God does not exist.
This is the very definition of 'science' that I am in favor of. Having 'evidence' drive things, not fantastical belief systems with no supporting evidence. You seem to agree with me on this point.
And I stand by the concept that as a general rule, athiests seem to have a serious problem accepting that religious people have their beliefs, and feel the need to mock and belittle those with faith for their faith.
I heartily disagree with you. The whole point of the article was about the religious pushing their views onto others. Religious history is literally rife with them pushing their beliefs onto others. Atheists and my ilk object heartily to being forced to accommodate in our lives the beliefs of others that are clearly not based on factual evidence. Again something you say you agree with.
Science has disproved religious dogma spouted by man, but never has science disproved any religion
once more with quote tags spelled right...grrr
:)
Religion *is* dogma spouted by man. The fail here is yours
Science has disproved religious dogma spouted by man, but never has science disproved any religion Religion *is* dogma spouted by man. The fail here is yours :)
I can not *prove* God exists any more than you can *prove* that God does not exist.
Actually, no, I don't have to prove he doesn't exist. He simply doesn't until you prove he does. There's no impasse here other than your (or anyone's) inability to prove what they believe.
If you don't see the connection between blind faith in something that can't be proven in any fashion, and Charles Manson's delusional followers, well I think we're done here. You can't have one without the other no matter how much you protest.
You do understand that there isn't just one church
Generally speaking the people who fail to recognize there are multiple religions are the religious themselves...
I would hope that you also understand that no where in the religious documents does it say the earth is X years old.
I specifically said that it was 'biblical scholars', those people who profess to know what the Bible actually means, who said this.
And yes, the Church I'm referring to is the generic Christian church and Catholics in particular.
The "church" as you put it, has had no problem in the past with recognizing the man has been wrong.
You mean like recognizing official 'regret' for the treatment of Galileo...in 1992? Yeah, that's downright admirable of them :) Religions used to be very similar to science. Even Islam was behind some great scientific research once upon a time. A time, when we didn't have explanations for much of the known world and science wasn't yet able to explain it - so religion happily coexisted.
Right up until science started disproving much of the religious foundations. Then they parted company and religion had to be against 'science' because it offers up a method by which things can be proven. And religion fails that method categorically.
You still didn't explain why its different than a 5 yr old believing in Santa Claus. Both are about belief in something with nothing but the word and outright lies of other people. But the nerve I struck seems to prove my point :)
:)
You can say you respect my beliefs and I do respect your 'right' to have yours if not the beliefs themselves. But your kind has routinely called my kind heathens, pagans and made us bow to *your* beliefs. Whether you do or not, you have to be responsible for those who do so in the same name that you worship.
Go fuck your God...he/she certainly enjoys fucking with other people
Also, please explain how not wanting to be associated with the Church is any different than being in the Church and only choosing what you wish to 'believe' from the scriptures.
the bible NOT ONCE EVER says that the Earth was formed out of nothing 6000 years ago.
You'll note I never said this. I said 'biblical scholars' said this based on study of the bible. If you're going to argue semantics, I suggest you follow them yourself.
The only place you're right...my spirituality is un-provable. I accept it on faith, and faith alone.
Except we're talking here, about allowing teachers to teach that science is flawed and 'faith' is the true path. That should scare the crap out of anyone who thinks.
I get that this shit is hard to comprehend for the athiests out there...no worries. Feel free to have your beliefs, and criticize me for mine. Your choice to make, as being spiritual is my choice to make.
The problem is that religious/spiritual beliefs are still firmly rooted in our government and laws. Until they are gone, your spiritual beliefs do impinge on my life. I fully respect your right to be spiritual and to believe on faith alone that God exists. But it's no different than a 5 yr old believing in Santa Claus.
You do realize that *most* religious people easily accept that the earth is more than ~6000 years old.
I do realize that most 'religious' people are hypocritical in their beliefs yes. The 'Church' explicitly argued the earth was only a few thousand years old for centuries until science proved them wrong. The sheer volume of religious beliefs disproved by science is staggering. The Church simply changes what they say the bible means when confronted with such evidence..
You can be religious, but if you are just taking the parts you don't find objectionable, then you aren't being true to your religion. For instance, Catholics who believe that same sex marriage is acceptable aren't true Catholics by the Church's own definition. They condemned Galileo for saying the earth revolved around the sun even though Galileo claimed it didn't violate the bible's writings.
In short, religion is not science and never will be unless God himself come down and starts providing actual evidence for his existence. Faith is admirable, even noble, but when you cherry pick what you want out of it you diminish yourself.
I think that if God does exist, he could affect the universe to create life naturally.
Agreed. Personally, I am waiting for the bible thumpers to claim that 'created in his own image' actually meant DNA based lifeforms. They're so good at changing what they say their book actually means to counter when science proves it completely false ;-)
Lets be fair, AC's ilk believes in all children looking exactly like their parents, being the same size and just as dumb. It's called 'incest'.
Which would put them on equal footing, wouldn't it?
Well except for the volumes and volumes of data that show species changing over time from the fossil record. Religion just has 'a book that says so' for its evidence. So not exactly 'equal' footing.
Lets also take into account that the biblical scholars say the world is just a few thousand years old. Except that the volume of evidence for evolution clearly shows that the world is *billions* of years old.
Exactly, imagine if a teacher decided to do a sex toy demonstration with 18+ yr old students.
Win XP FF 3.6.16 has the same issue.
You missed my point. Even if these conditions are extremely rare, there so many chances for them that there are still likely 100,000s of such systems.
We might actually be first though, or at least among the first crop of advanced civilizations. Mostly because of the age of the universe and the time it takes to form enough of the heavier elements that make life possible.
even if we were to come up with some incredible propulsion breakthroughs, it still wouldn't help all that much. If Einstein was right, near light speed is as good as it gets. And that would still make all but our closest galactic neighbors practically inaccessible.
Space is vast and using conventional propulsion tech, you are correct.
But it also would be looking at a bird and saying we'll never fly. Technology can greatly affect what is 'possible'.
Einstein also agrees that worm holes are possible so faster than light travel *is* possible by his definition. You don't actually exceed the speed of light, but you get somewhere faster than the light would have by taking a shortcut.
Are we anywhere near that sort of ability? of course not. But so far it isn't impossible either.
The reality is that there are literally so many systems out there that even if 0.01 % of planets are like ours it is still a fantastically large number of opportunities for advanced life to occur.
The down side is that advanced civilizations are more likely to blow themselves up and never get to the interstellar stage. Or that they either already existed and died out or we will die out before they develop.
The net result is the same isolation, but it doesn't follow that we are so unique that we're the only ones that ever have or will ever exist.
Even in tribal societies there are village elders.
even crazy ones who are eventually discovered to be complete loons and sent packing. Byebye Glenn!
I see you've bought into the Nancy Pelosi "you can create wine from water" theory of economic that claims unemployment benefits create jobs. They do not.
You are correct. They do however *save* jobs that would be otherwise lost making any economic downturn worse. You can argue that we should feel the full pain and deal with the more severe consequences. I, and frankly most of this country, would disagree with you. Its why we have the safety net we do.
See, when the unemployment increases, we impose higher UI taxes on businesses. That's money they can't use to hire more people with
Yeah, see, this is where you don't seem to understand basic economics. Business don't hire simply because you give them, or let them keep if you prefer, more money. The hire because they have demand that they see as requiring more workers to meet. The tax environment will certainly play a factor, but the if there isn't any demand, they aren't going to hire anyone.
Ask any business owner which they would prefer, lower taxes and a stalled economy, or slightly higher taxes and a stimulated economy. If you say they want the former, well you've bought the GOP koolaid that we've seen doesn't work.
As far as the 'Pelosi' theory, its putting money into things that return more money than your investment rather than something that returns only a fraction of the money you spend. The results speak for themselves. 700k jobs being lost *per month* to net job growth in less than 2 years, all while the GOP was trying to stop any sort of help at all. The stimulus wasn't big enough, that's why we're looking at a double dip.
As for 'inflammatory', you started with the 'OMG taxes are killing my freedom' crap. Please. I've actually provided facts that prove my point. You? not so much.
Or have them learn an instrument
Oh yeah, that's a ticket to a 'distraction free' workspace...lol
Sorry boss i couldn't hear you over the tuba solo...what was that?
As Ben Franklin said, ensuring that poverty is uncomfortable is the best way to reduce poverty. That works as long as your government isn't providing social disincentives for working and hiring workers.
Translation:
Those life sucking unemployed parasites, err, people are living high on the hog with the free benefits we give them.
This in a nutshell is the problem. You seem to think that unemployment payments even come close to covering the average families expenses, let alone saving for the future. Try it sometime, it ain't fun. Or better yet, talk to people who are unemployed and ask how much fun it is?
And more to the point, they PAID for that unemployment check through payroll taxes so it is something they *deserve* not something we are 'giving' them. And yes we've extended unemployment benefits past the original deadline. So this is definitely deficit spending. Why? Keep reading...
If you don't want to provide unemployment payments in order to 'encourage' people to go back to work, what happens when the economy tanks and there are no jobs available? Pretty soon you have the people who do still have jobs losing revenue because the unemployed stopped spending altogether. Then those people lose their jobs. Rinse repeat. It's called cascading economic effects.
Unemployment payments provide the grease that keeps the economy moving until it can start adding jobs on its own. Its why it actually creates more money in the economy than you spend. Here's the proof that those things that 'make life easy' for the impoverished' are actually some of the best ways to stimulate the economy and get those unemployed/poor people back to work.
So what's your solution to the issue? A flat tax? Would you tax the 2 bucks I give a homeless guy? after all, he got 'income' from that right? Or is there a lower bound at which income taxes shouldn't apply anymore?
You can be a heartless bastard and say no. or you can say that some modifications to the tax rate are reasonable. Either way you lose the argument, though one has at least integrity to go with it.
PS. consumption, sales or VAT lumps you in the heartless bastard category too...
You know that basement you live in? That is taxed to favor its ownership. Like it or not the tax code is used for social purposes. If there's a health cost associated with certain types of foods/behaviors, I'm all in for taxing them to actually pay for those costs.
I don't smoke and never have and I'd really prefer that *my* health care doesn't have to pay for smokers. It would be a damn sight cheaper.