Federally funded anti-Web pornography campaign run by Morality in Media, a conservative religious group
Read that over a few times.
If it doesn't make your skin crawl, then you really need to read up on your Constitution and maybe a few articles by some Founding Fathers.
Exactly. The Founding Fathers were religious people who valued religion in their personal lives. George Washington in particular thought having religion in the military was a good thing. They knew a little bit of religion never hurt anyone even though they may not all have shared exactly the same views or at least admitted doing so (Benjamin Franklin never said he was a Christian).
Thomas Paine, in his discourse on "The Study of God," forcefully asserts that it is "the error of schools" to teach sciences without "reference to the Being who is author of them: for all the principles of science are of Divine origin." He laments that "the evil that has resulted from the error of the schools in teaching [science without God] has been that of generating in the pupils a species of atheism." Paine not only believed in God, he believed in a reality beyond the visible world.
In Benjamin Franklin's 1749 plan of education for public schools in Pennsylvania, he insisted that schools teach "the necessity of a public religion . . . and the excellency of the Christian religion above all others, ancient or modern." Consider also the fact that Franklin proposed a Biblical inscription for the Seal of the United States; that he chose a New Testament verse for the motto of the Philadelphia Hospital; that he was one of the chief voices behind the establishment of a paid chaplain in Congress; and that when in 1787 when Franklin helped found the college which bore his name, it was dedicated as "a nursery of religion and learning" built "on Christ, the Corner-Stone."
Those 2 quotes came from here for those interested. Although Franklin and Paine do not talk of obscenity, the point is that contrary to what some people want us to think, our Founding Fathers viewed religion as an essential part of life.
They have passed those beliefs down through the generations. Religion in the government can be seen today such as opening Congressional sessions with prayer. Note that this is not the same thing as government in religion. It seems many liberals confuse those 2 concepts. They also forget that the Declaration of Independence states our unalienable rights are endowed by our Creator. The first sentence reads: When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. If the Founding Fathers didn't want/like religion then I have to wonder why they mention God and a Creator in our Declaration of Independence. I'm all ears for an explanation.
Use Occams razor:
Everything came about by chance, due to a near infinite number of universes, or:
A special creator dreamed it all up. On a whim. Somehow. And you aren't allowed to ask where the creator came from, as thats blasphemy.
Now which seems more likely?
You can ask where the Creator came from but that's like asking why is a circle blue. It doesn't make any sense because the Creator (God) has always existed. God is one of the absolutes (and we all know how liberals like absolutes). You trivialize the situation with your sarcasm by stating the Creator dreamed it up on a whim. He had a reason and he had a design. Finding the "how" is what theoretical/particle physists and cosmologists have been determining for a very long time now. When they come up with the answer to how the universe was made you'll have to your as to how God did it. Don't think that w/o a Creator it is easier for us to know how (or especially why) the universe came about because we still don't know. Scientists are still searching for answers. And you ask me what is more likely with my choices being something done on accident as opposed to something done on purpose? You are joking right? Just in case you aren't, I'll pick the option that shows intent as the more likely scenario.
6 And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning--the second day. (Genesis 1)
clear contradictions to what we know is so- there is space above the sky, not water.
You are comparing what the world was like when it was first created to what we see now. I obviously agree that there is no water above the sky but we hardly have room to say the Word of God is wrong and false because we weren't alive when the world was created. At that point in time maybe there was water above the sky or maybe the definition of what "sky" is in that Biblical quote is not the same as what we think of as the sky now. There is water vapor in the sky as we know it. The concept of water being above the sky could have something to do with water vapor being in the sky. It is arrogant of us to think that we can say that documentation on Creation is wrong just based on what we see and know today.
2) For a creator to create the ultimate illusion of inexistence- what does it imply? First of all, how do you love something that will hide their existence from you? Or even better, the theory that God makes science 'appear' true, but he really created the world 6,000 years ago: I heard it best described as 'childish, I'm-not-touching-you on a cosmic scale'. If such a God exists, why would you even care?
Obviously you take a cynical view of the world. I don't view God as hiding his existence from me. The mere fact the universe and its contents exist tells me he is showing his existence to us. Our earth is just the right distance from the Sun, the fact we have a compound called water allows so many things to happen on this planet it is unbelievable. The chemical and physical laws/processes that exist in this universe are beyond belief and they also happen to be beyond our 100% comprehension. You are blaming God or possibly agree with the people who consider his behavior childish? Maybe you should blame the people who have a one track mind to view scientific evidence in a way that denies that God exists in the first place. If they viewed their evidence with an open mind science wouldn't just appear true but from a believers point of view science would be true because it agrees with the Bible. They seem to purposefully view their evidence in only the ways that allow evolution to still appear true and for God to have no hand in our existence.
Just today I was reading about how ancient sea monsters were really just examples of dinosaurs living among humans with the implication that dinosaurs didn't really live over 60 million years ago. You can easily deny that by saying those who reported seeing sea monsters were lying or exaggerating but there have been many instances of "sea monsters" being seen in the 20th century (giant squids which have now been confirmed to exist). Dinosaurs all(with a few exceptions) died out suddenly but the cause of their death wasn't a meteor but very well could have been the Great Flood. And with as much water that was on this earth at that time it is very possible that once all that settled it could produce fossil deposits that look to be millions of years old based on their subterranean depth. Some animals that exist today are some of the dinosaurs that were put into the Ark. Of course, evolutionists will say this is crazy because they need to artificially insert a few million years into earth's history in order for humans to exist. Why does our dating of fossils show ages in the millions of years? Maybe our dating mechanism is flawed but that can't be. We humans invented it and we are perfect, right? You shouldn't blame God for why our science disproves/hides his existence but instead ask just how many scientists are purposefully hiding his existence using that same evidence. Peo
On the more flamebait side, when one of those nutjobs are lecturing in the main mall of your local university, try asking them what they think about crystal lattices- complex, beautiful geometrical structures which will form naturally, and ask if there was an intelligent designer forming the covalent bonds in your ice tray this morning.
I guess it never crossed your mind that a Creator set in motion all physical and chemical actions/reactions/properties/laws that we experience today. We take them for granted but why are they the way they are? Why do we have the elements we have? Why is fusion/fission even possible? What is the purpose of an electron/proton/neutrino/etc.? This goes way beyond whether evolution is true or not. By the way, at one point Carl Sagan and a couple other people calculated the odds of a man evolving and they came up with 1 in 10^2,000,000,000. Borel's law of chance states that anything more than 1 in 10^50 is basically never going to happen even given enough time. That basically shows evolution doesn't work. But I'll humor you and assume evolution is real. In that case I have to wonder why did evolution only start one time. Why isn't it constantly reinventing itself to have more than a single origin of species? Put another way, obviously there are dead ends in the species tree but why do we only have 1 big family tree of species that actually panned out?
We have been able to reverse engineer many aspects of the universe so we are coming closer to answering the what and the when but we have no freaking clue as to the why or how. Covalent and ionic bonds very well were put into existence by a Creator. I sincerely invite you to tell me some logical answer to the contrary (no Creator was involved). Before you provide your answer I will remind you to perform a mental exercise before hand. That exercise is to imagine me asking why when I see your response and to continue doing that like a small child until I am satisfied you have reached the absolute ultimate origin of why things are the way they are so we don't have to take for granted their existence anymore. You may very well surprise me and again, I sincerely would like to know the answer. We are looking for the ultimate cause for the awesome effects we are witnessing.
Evolution is a theory that has so much evidence in its favor that the IDers are essentially nutcases who can't read or reason properly. It is the IDers that try to equivocate the position by using the common parlance flavor of the word "theory" when discussing science.
And we learned today that some people are just so desperate they have to call the other side names. We also learned that no matter how much we think we know, we find out we actually can be wrong because evidence is looked at incorrectly (or not at all). We aren't humble enough to admit everything is still in question (despite being a theory we teach evolution as fact and refer to it like it has been proven) until we are proven wrong though. Then again, we aren't even humble enough to entertain the notion that our theories are wrong even when new evidence shows things don't make much sense anymore.
Also, a lot of people don't realize it... but you don't even need a bachelor's to be an ultrasonographer. Its an associate's degree.
It isn't unusual to only need an associate's degree (or certificate, or nothing at all) to use a piece of equipment but to create the equipment of course requires science and math skills that only an engineer or CS person will have. Another example: secretary (or 5 year old kid at the extreme end) using a computer but how many engineers does it take to design a motherboard and CPU? I would guess that the newer technologies require more training than the older ones (reading x-rays compared MRI scans) due to additional detail and functionality but again that is just a guess.
Assumption warning: I'm assuming you're a christian of some description. Do you think that everyone should be forced to accept your lifestyle? Christianity is against my beliefs, and if it isnt pushed on myself or others who do not welcome it then those people can do whatever they want. As it stands, many christians feel society owes them something and feel everyone should accept them and their lifestyle. Specific instances: Tax exempt churches, christian moral standards governing what shows on TV, etc etc etc etc.
I don't think society owes me anything because of my beliefs. I never said I did in case you are implying that I did. I also don't think society owes the religion as a whole anything. What I do think is that many members of society seem to target the Christian religion for no good reason in order to stifle it which violates the freedom of religion clause. If Christians fight back then they are called names and some may take it to mean that we are asking for something from society. I guess it's okay to be attacked but not okay to defend oneself. Of course, it's not the Christian way to attack first or at all so we are easy targets for those who don't have any moral fiber.
There is nothing wrong with having morals on TV (in which case you ask why the Christian set of morals right?) but because Christianity is the defacto standard in society it just happens that those morals are what society uses. No one specifically deems it that way; it just works out that way. Does thou shall not murder/steal ring a bell? But if you hadn't noticed there is a bunch of shows on TV that are violating decency laws and nothing is being done about it and the broadcasters keep pushing the limit. You can hardly say *any* moral standards are governing what's on TV in those cases (more and more shows are getting MA ratings). Besides, the Christian religion isn't being pushed on you just because moral standards based on that belief system are being used. You aren't being forced to live your life using those standards.
Being tax exempt is not specific to religious institutions. Tax exempt can apply to non-profit organizations which are what churches are so they are qualifying under non-profit status and not because they are getting special treatment for being a religious institution. If I missed addressing any of your points let me know but I tried to cover them all.
Why would you not accept homosexuality, unless you were terrified of your own homosexual inclinations?
Terrified? Remind me who the AC is again? Just because someone does not accept something does not mean the person is afraid of that something. In this case I'm not afraid of homosexual inclinations as is the typical response like yours to someone who makes a statement against homosexuality. "Homophobe" is the most popular reaction. Not very creative it seems. Is implying someone is homophobic the deepest argument you can come up with? Are homosexuals heterophobic because they don't accept heterosexuality? I don't like homosexuality. I'm not afraid of it. I don't like cauliflower but I'm not afraid of it. Homosexuality is against my beliefs and if it isn't pushed on myself or others who do not welcome it then those people can do whatever they want. As it stands, many homosexuals feel society owes them something and feel everyone should accept them and their lifestyle.
Man, but I wish this particularly claim would die. It's false. Maybe some ignorant hicks in the backwoods of Austria believed that, but damn near every person with any degree of education since Classical times has known the Earth is a sphere. Eratosthenes made an estimate, that while out, is still pretty accurate for the time, and Posidonius got an estimate that was damn near spot on. Oh, and these guys lived a couple of centuries before Christ was alleged to have been born.
Hmm, do I sense a little bias? You seem so sure that Eratosthenes and Posidonius lived at one point but for some reason you hint at your skepticism by saying Christ allegedly was born. Kind of hard to believe you when you are so obviously biased.
So what's this cosmic microwave background radiation I keep hearing about that is hovering around 2.7K and was once very very very very very hot about 14 million years ago? "Empty" space is a misnomer as even "empty" space still contains particles such as neutrinos and others that are emitted by stars. If particle physicists are correct, "empty" space is even permeated everywhere by the Higgs boson which is what gives mass to all particles (the Higgs "ocean", or field as is the proper term, is a little bit similar to the aether once thought to exist in the 19th century). Be careful with that webpage though because it mentions God which is a bad word here on Slashdot. Similar to a casino where there is always a camera watching you, in space there is always something keeping you company, even if you can't see it.
But it's not that cold in space. There's not a lot of ambient heat, but there's not a lot of conduction or convection either -- you only lose heat as fast as you radiate.
It's cold in space if you aren't near anything. If you are in "empty" space and far enough away from all objects to not feel their radiation then the temperature of space at that location will be the same temperature as the microwave background radiation which is about 2.7K. If you are in space and at the same distance to the Sun as Earth is then the temperature of space is about 280K. If you can't feel the Sun's heat but can receive ambient heat from planets then you are going to feel about 5K. That's cold.
In addition to what you said I'll add for clarification purposes that galaxies are moving away from each other at a macroscopic scale due to space itself expanding. Galaxies, as is evident from the current topic, can still move through space toward each other (or move away from each other through space as well as in space to due spacial expansion). This distinction may be mentioned in your references but I didn't view them so I wouldn't know.:)
1. All type 1a supernovae are exactly as bright when they blow up, because that's a star going a tiny bit over the Chandrasekhar limit. So basically they're all very nearly exactly the same weight stars, and blow up in the same way. So since seen brighness decays with the square of the distance, you can calculate how far it was when you see one.
I thought I'd add a little more factual knowledge to your post. I hope you don't mind. These supernovae are also known as "standard candles" and are used to gauge distance/time for other objects. Also, the Chandrasekhar limit is 1.4 times the mass of our Sun.
The last task I was on at work for the DOJ (as a contractor) produced 3 documents. The biggest was 450+ pages (lots of tables in appendices), the next one was about 280, and the smallest was about 50 pages I believe. 133 pages is nothing. We didn't have executive summaries either and our acronyms were placed at the end of the document as an appendix. I guess contractors and government employees have different document requirements. No surprise there.
Of course such an immensely complex and magnificent entity (the human brain) came about purely by accident; something which scientists cannot even hope to even copy and reproduce on purpose.
You think humans can't reproduce a human brain on purpose but yet you think that the same immensely complex and magnificient entity came about by accident? You do realize the odds of picking out the winning numbers to the Powerball lottery game, right? Now, increase those odds by an astronomical amount to get the chances of a complex entity like the brain (let alone the entire human body) spontaneously and slowly forming plus the odds of that soon-to-be brain forming within the actual entity that is to become the first human. Carl Sagan and a couple others once calculated the odds of a man evolving and came up with 10^2,000,000,000 and coincidentally Borel's Law of Chance states that when odds are more than 10^200 an event will never occur even given enough time. By the way, scientists have attempted to re-create evolutionary processes (which by your statement seems to be easier than doing something on purpose) in the lab but have failed to do that as well.
Ah, the northern Uk town of Scunthorpe has been affected by this problem for some time now. I think a "Scun" must be a rude word in American English or something.
Train your admins, train your support staff, train your users, organize the deployment and upgrades of the OS but minimise user's downtime, make sure all the third party peripherals work such as all the printers and scanners, not to mention all the different desktop hardware in use, make sure you have drivers for everything, oh and the big thing, exec don't like risk so to allay their fears you will have to pay a third party company that supports your chosen linux distro in the case you have a problem. Ouch...there goes your license cost savings.
This paragraph is referring to Linux costs but without knowing that you would be able to apply the exact same issues to Vista (and throw on Office 2007 for good measure) except of course the 3rd party associated with the Linux distribution.
I have a Core 2 Duo 6700 (not OC'ed), a cheap $50 video card, onboard audio, PCIe RAID controller with 4 drives attached to it and an additional 2 drives (all 7200) connected using SATA2 to the motherboard. At idle my battery backup software says I'm using 172 watts but I got a 500W PS because it was cheap. If I run the Mersenne prime program and keep 1 core busy my wattage jumps to 210. I'm sure if I had a high-end video card (or 2 in SLI) I'd be using at least 75% of my PS abilities but that's just a guess. At it stands now I'm not even using half of my PS.
So, when the gravitational pull of the sun lessens, its quite possible for the planets to be attracted less, and fall into further out orbits.
I would think the planets' orbital speed does not change when the sun turns into a red giant. If that is the case they won't fall into further orbits but instead just be flung into space. This would happen with just the slightest change in the sun's mass as all our properties of the solar system are finely tuned (by chance my ass).
If you do something ILLEGAL outside your home, you DESERVE to get caught.
Why do you specify 'outside your home'? Don't the laws apply just as much inside? Surely we should also install cameras inside the home. After all, if you're doing something illegal, you deserve to get caught. The cameras won't create new laws by themselves, only enforce the ones that exist. And if you're doing nothing illegal inside your home, you have nothing to worry about.
For the same reason detectives can look at your trash when it is on the street but not when it is still in your house (until they have a warrant). They do make a distinction between what is public and what is private. Sure, you can do illegal things in your house but that is also the realm of the private and they know cameras can't go there, at least that's how it is now.
Actually, this is incorrect. It will engulf the orbits. The planets themselves will just escape to wider orbits. Except Mercury, Mercury's pretty much buggered.
Since when has an object that has traditionally attracted planets to it because of its gravity been able repel planets when its size has changed to be larger? It may engulf the orbits but it is bigger and its gravity still works and would be felt stronger by the planets thus sucking them in, not repelling them.
You do realize we've had multiple warming periods (and cooling periods) in the past and as you can see, we survived those just fine because the climate corrected itself as it always does? And then you ask what if it doesn't correct itself this time? Then I say, what says it won't correct itself because it has every other time? Until it doesn't correct itself just shutup. The temperature rising is nothing new.
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Two-humped camels may or may not be extinct!
Walruses may or may not be extinct!
Jellyfish may or may not be extinct!
The common house cat may or may not be extinct!
Triceratops may or may not be extinct!
I think I know this riddle. Quantum physics right? The Uncertainty Principle?
Exactly. The Founding Fathers were religious people who valued religion in their personal lives. George Washington in particular thought having religion in the military was a good thing. They knew a little bit of religion never hurt anyone even though they may not all have shared exactly the same views or at least admitted doing so (Benjamin Franklin never said he was a Christian).
Thomas Paine, in his discourse on "The Study of God," forcefully asserts that it is "the error of schools" to teach sciences without "reference to the Being who is author of them: for all the principles of science are of Divine origin." He laments that "the evil that has resulted from the error of the schools in teaching [science without God] has been that of generating in the pupils a species of atheism." Paine not only believed in God, he believed in a reality beyond the visible world.
In Benjamin Franklin's 1749 plan of education for public schools in Pennsylvania, he insisted that schools teach "the necessity of a public religion . . . and the excellency of the Christian religion above all others, ancient or modern." Consider also the fact that Franklin proposed a Biblical inscription for the Seal of the United States; that he chose a New Testament verse for the motto of the Philadelphia Hospital; that he was one of the chief voices behind the establishment of a paid chaplain in Congress; and that when in 1787 when Franklin helped found the college which bore his name, it was dedicated as "a nursery of religion and learning" built "on Christ, the Corner-Stone."
Those 2 quotes came from here for those interested. Although Franklin and Paine do not talk of obscenity, the point is that contrary to what some people want us to think, our Founding Fathers viewed religion as an essential part of life.
They have passed those beliefs down through the generations. Religion in the government can be seen today such as opening Congressional sessions with prayer. Note that this is not the same thing as government in religion. It seems many liberals confuse those 2 concepts. They also forget that the Declaration of Independence states our unalienable rights are endowed by our Creator. The first sentence reads: When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. If the Founding Fathers didn't want/like religion then I have to wonder why they mention God and a Creator in our Declaration of Independence. I'm all ears for an explanation.
Maybe some were caught but identified incorrectly.
You can ask where the Creator came from but that's like asking why is a circle blue. It doesn't make any sense because the Creator (God) has always existed. God is one of the absolutes (and we all know how liberals like absolutes). You trivialize the situation with your sarcasm by stating the Creator dreamed it up on a whim. He had a reason and he had a design. Finding the "how" is what theoretical/particle physists and cosmologists have been determining for a very long time now. When they come up with the answer to how the universe was made you'll have to your as to how God did it. Don't think that w/o a Creator it is easier for us to know how (or especially why) the universe came about because we still don't know. Scientists are still searching for answers. And you ask me what is more likely with my choices being something done on accident as opposed to something done on purpose? You are joking right? Just in case you aren't, I'll pick the option that shows intent as the more likely scenario.
6 And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning--the second day. (Genesis 1)
clear contradictions to what we know is so- there is space above the sky, not water.
You are comparing what the world was like when it was first created to what we see now. I obviously agree that there is no water above the sky but we hardly have room to say the Word of God is wrong and false because we weren't alive when the world was created. At that point in time maybe there was water above the sky or maybe the definition of what "sky" is in that Biblical quote is not the same as what we think of as the sky now. There is water vapor in the sky as we know it. The concept of water being above the sky could have something to do with water vapor being in the sky. It is arrogant of us to think that we can say that documentation on Creation is wrong just based on what we see and know today.
2) For a creator to create the ultimate illusion of inexistence- what does it imply? First of all, how do you love something that will hide their existence from you? Or even better, the theory that God makes science 'appear' true, but he really created the world 6,000 years ago: I heard it best described as 'childish, I'm-not-touching-you on a cosmic scale'. If such a God exists, why would you even care?
Obviously you take a cynical view of the world. I don't view God as hiding his existence from me. The mere fact the universe and its contents exist tells me he is showing his existence to us. Our earth is just the right distance from the Sun, the fact we have a compound called water allows so many things to happen on this planet it is unbelievable. The chemical and physical laws/processes that exist in this universe are beyond belief and they also happen to be beyond our 100% comprehension. You are blaming God or possibly agree with the people who consider his behavior childish? Maybe you should blame the people who have a one track mind to view scientific evidence in a way that denies that God exists in the first place. If they viewed their evidence with an open mind science wouldn't just appear true but from a believers point of view science would be true because it agrees with the Bible. They seem to purposefully view their evidence in only the ways that allow evolution to still appear true and for God to have no hand in our existence.
Just today I was reading about how ancient sea monsters were really just examples of dinosaurs living among humans with the implication that dinosaurs didn't really live over 60 million years ago. You can easily deny that by saying those who reported seeing sea monsters were lying or exaggerating but there have been many instances of "sea monsters" being seen in the 20th century (giant squids which have now been confirmed to exist). Dinosaurs all(with a few exceptions) died out suddenly but the cause of their death wasn't a meteor but very well could have been the Great Flood. And with as much water that was on this earth at that time it is very possible that once all that settled it could produce fossil deposits that look to be millions of years old based on their subterranean depth. Some animals that exist today are some of the dinosaurs that were put into the Ark. Of course, evolutionists will say this is crazy because they need to artificially insert a few million years into earth's history in order for humans to exist. Why does our dating of fossils show ages in the millions of years? Maybe our dating mechanism is flawed but that can't be. We humans invented it and we are perfect, right? You shouldn't blame God for why our science disproves/hides his existence but instead ask just how many scientists are purposefully hiding his existence using that same evidence. Peo
I guess it never crossed your mind that a Creator set in motion all physical and chemical actions/reactions/properties/laws that we experience today. We take them for granted but why are they the way they are? Why do we have the elements we have? Why is fusion/fission even possible? What is the purpose of an electron/proton/neutrino/etc.? This goes way beyond whether evolution is true or not. By the way, at one point Carl Sagan and a couple other people calculated the odds of a man evolving and they came up with 1 in 10^2,000,000,000. Borel's law of chance states that anything more than 1 in 10^50 is basically never going to happen even given enough time. That basically shows evolution doesn't work. But I'll humor you and assume evolution is real. In that case I have to wonder why did evolution only start one time. Why isn't it constantly reinventing itself to have more than a single origin of species? Put another way, obviously there are dead ends in the species tree but why do we only have 1 big family tree of species that actually panned out?
We have been able to reverse engineer many aspects of the universe so we are coming closer to answering the what and the when but we have no freaking clue as to the why or how. Covalent and ionic bonds very well were put into existence by a Creator. I sincerely invite you to tell me some logical answer to the contrary (no Creator was involved). Before you provide your answer I will remind you to perform a mental exercise before hand. That exercise is to imagine me asking why when I see your response and to continue doing that like a small child until I am satisfied you have reached the absolute ultimate origin of why things are the way they are so we don't have to take for granted their existence anymore. You may very well surprise me and again, I sincerely would like to know the answer. We are looking for the ultimate cause for the awesome effects we are witnessing.
And we learned today that some people are just so desperate they have to call the other side names. We also learned that no matter how much we think we know, we find out we actually can be wrong because evidence is looked at incorrectly (or not at all). We aren't humble enough to admit everything is still in question (despite being a theory we teach evolution as fact and refer to it like it has been proven) until we are proven wrong though. Then again, we aren't even humble enough to entertain the notion that our theories are wrong even when new evidence shows things don't make much sense anymore.
It isn't unusual to only need an associate's degree (or certificate, or nothing at all) to use a piece of equipment but to create the equipment of course requires science and math skills that only an engineer or CS person will have. Another example: secretary (or 5 year old kid at the extreme end) using a computer but how many engineers does it take to design a motherboard and CPU? I would guess that the newer technologies require more training than the older ones (reading x-rays compared MRI scans) due to additional detail and functionality but again that is just a guess.
I don't think society owes me anything because of my beliefs. I never said I did in case you are implying that I did. I also don't think society owes the religion as a whole anything. What I do think is that many members of society seem to target the Christian religion for no good reason in order to stifle it which violates the freedom of religion clause. If Christians fight back then they are called names and some may take it to mean that we are asking for something from society. I guess it's okay to be attacked but not okay to defend oneself. Of course, it's not the Christian way to attack first or at all so we are easy targets for those who don't have any moral fiber.
There is nothing wrong with having morals on TV (in which case you ask why the Christian set of morals right?) but because Christianity is the defacto standard in society it just happens that those morals are what society uses. No one specifically deems it that way; it just works out that way. Does thou shall not murder/steal ring a bell? But if you hadn't noticed there is a bunch of shows on TV that are violating decency laws and nothing is being done about it and the broadcasters keep pushing the limit. You can hardly say *any* moral standards are governing what's on TV in those cases (more and more shows are getting MA ratings). Besides, the Christian religion isn't being pushed on you just because moral standards based on that belief system are being used. You aren't being forced to live your life using those standards.
Being tax exempt is not specific to religious institutions. Tax exempt can apply to non-profit organizations which are what churches are so they are qualifying under non-profit status and not because they are getting special treatment for being a religious institution. If I missed addressing any of your points let me know but I tried to cover them all.
Terrified? Remind me who the AC is again? Just because someone does not accept something does not mean the person is afraid of that something. In this case I'm not afraid of homosexual inclinations as is the typical response like yours to someone who makes a statement against homosexuality. "Homophobe" is the most popular reaction. Not very creative it seems. Is implying someone is homophobic the deepest argument you can come up with? Are homosexuals heterophobic because they don't accept heterosexuality? I don't like homosexuality. I'm not afraid of it. I don't like cauliflower but I'm not afraid of it. Homosexuality is against my beliefs and if it isn't pushed on myself or others who do not welcome it then those people can do whatever they want. As it stands, many homosexuals feel society owes them something and feel everyone should accept them and their lifestyle.
Hmm, do I sense a little bias? You seem so sure that Eratosthenes and Posidonius lived at one point but for some reason you hint at your skepticism by saying Christ allegedly was born. Kind of hard to believe you when you are so obviously biased.
So what's this cosmic microwave background radiation I keep hearing about that is hovering around 2.7K and was once very very very very very hot about 14 million years ago? "Empty" space is a misnomer as even "empty" space still contains particles such as neutrinos and others that are emitted by stars. If particle physicists are correct, "empty" space is even permeated everywhere by the Higgs boson which is what gives mass to all particles (the Higgs "ocean", or field as is the proper term, is a little bit similar to the aether once thought to exist in the 19th century). Be careful with that webpage though because it mentions God which is a bad word here on Slashdot. Similar to a casino where there is always a camera watching you, in space there is always something keeping you company, even if you can't see it.
It's cold in space if you aren't near anything. If you are in "empty" space and far enough away from all objects to not feel their radiation then the temperature of space at that location will be the same temperature as the microwave background radiation which is about 2.7K. If you are in space and at the same distance to the Sun as Earth is then the temperature of space is about 280K. If you can't feel the Sun's heat but can receive ambient heat from planets then you are going to feel about 5K. That's cold.
In addition to what you said I'll add for clarification purposes that galaxies are moving away from each other at a macroscopic scale due to space itself expanding. Galaxies, as is evident from the current topic, can still move through space toward each other (or move away from each other through space as well as in space to due spacial expansion). This distinction may be mentioned in your references but I didn't view them so I wouldn't know. :)
I thought I'd add a little more factual knowledge to your post. I hope you don't mind. These supernovae are also known as "standard candles" and are used to gauge distance/time for other objects. Also, the Chandrasekhar limit is 1.4 times the mass of our Sun.
The last task I was on at work for the DOJ (as a contractor) produced 3 documents. The biggest was 450+ pages (lots of tables in appendices), the next one was about 280, and the smallest was about 50 pages I believe. 133 pages is nothing. We didn't have executive summaries either and our acronyms were placed at the end of the document as an appendix. I guess contractors and government employees have different document requirements. No surprise there.
IIS allows 80% of crackers to break into your system with 20% of the effort of Apache. It wins converts, just not the type we want./p.
You think humans can't reproduce a human brain on purpose but yet you think that the same immensely complex and magnificient entity came about by accident? You do realize the odds of picking out the winning numbers to the Powerball lottery game, right? Now, increase those odds by an astronomical amount to get the chances of a complex entity like the brain (let alone the entire human body) spontaneously and slowly forming plus the odds of that soon-to-be brain forming within the actual entity that is to become the first human. Carl Sagan and a couple others once calculated the odds of a man evolving and came up with 10^2,000,000,000 and coincidentally Borel's Law of Chance states that when odds are more than 10^200 an event will never occur even given enough time. By the way, scientists have attempted to re-create evolutionary processes (which by your statement seems to be easier than doing something on purpose) in the lab but have failed to do that as well.
No, it's "Thor". We don't like Scandinavians.
This paragraph is referring to Linux costs but without knowing that you would be able to apply the exact same issues to Vista (and throw on Office 2007 for good measure) except of course the 3rd party associated with the Linux distribution.
I have a Core 2 Duo 6700 (not OC'ed), a cheap $50 video card, onboard audio, PCIe RAID controller with 4 drives attached to it and an additional 2 drives (all 7200) connected using SATA2 to the motherboard. At idle my battery backup software says I'm using 172 watts but I got a 500W PS because it was cheap. If I run the Mersenne prime program and keep 1 core busy my wattage jumps to 210. I'm sure if I had a high-end video card (or 2 in SLI) I'd be using at least 75% of my PS abilities but that's just a guess. At it stands now I'm not even using half of my PS.
I would think the planets' orbital speed does not change when the sun turns into a red giant. If that is the case they won't fall into further orbits but instead just be flung into space. This would happen with just the slightest change in the sun's mass as all our properties of the solar system are finely tuned (by chance my ass).
For the same reason detectives can look at your trash when it is on the street but not when it is still in your house (until they have a warrant). They do make a distinction between what is public and what is private. Sure, you can do illegal things in your house but that is also the realm of the private and they know cameras can't go there, at least that's how it is now.
Actually, this is incorrect. It will engulf the orbits. The planets themselves will just escape to wider orbits. Except Mercury, Mercury's pretty much buggered.
Since when has an object that has traditionally attracted planets to it because of its gravity been able repel planets when its size has changed to be larger? It may engulf the orbits but it is bigger and its gravity still works and would be felt stronger by the planets thus sucking them in, not repelling them.
You do realize we've had multiple warming periods (and cooling periods) in the past and as you can see, we survived those just fine because the climate corrected itself as it always does? And then you ask what if it doesn't correct itself this time? Then I say, what says it won't correct itself because it has every other time? Until it doesn't correct itself just shutup. The temperature rising is nothing new.