Well if you watched Star Wars and knew it was SCIENCE fiction, you were sadly mistaken, because there was no science in Star Wars, only fantasy with a science-like wraper. If that's what you rest your case with, Star Wars, I'd be confident going to the jury if there was one here.
Except that your arguement is begging the question. We only consider natural means to be natural because we live in them and experiance them every single day. You would expect people who believe that God created the world would also believe that God created the rules by which the world runs. Thus trying to disprove God by using the rules He supposidly created as proof wouldn't be particularly wise. As someone came close to stating in another response to me, science is concerned with the how, philosophy (and it's child, religion) is concerned with the why.
Some engineering is certainly inspired by faith. If you're saying faith has given us nothing of practical use, I'd dare say you are the one who is deluded.
Your reply has been directed to the wrong person. If you take a look, no where in here have I jumped to any conclusions, positive or negative, on the existance of God. When discussing philosophy, I always take an agnostic stance. You might want to address the same people I am addressing.
Spoken like a true capitalist. Alright, what if I told you coin-operated vending machines and automatic doors? The first coin-operated vending machine was built for the purposes of dispensing holy water. The first automatic door was built to display the statues of the gods in temples. Astronomy certainly has its roots in faith, as the first astonomers were priests of various faiths across the world who charted the night sky and could predict the movements of the stars all so that they might devine the will of the gods.
Besides, artwork, song, and prose need to be inspired if they're any good, and faith is great for inspiration.
Stupid troll, anyone skeptic with half a brain has already figured it out.
Yes, but the problem still remains for those people with their brains fully intact.
Oh, and the "basic reasoning skills" involve parsimony and Occam's razor.
Which is simpler? That God, a being which defies all understanding, created the universe, or That the universe spontaneously erupted, spawning a reality ruled by causality. Many people look at this and think the former is simpler. So no, Occam's razor doesn't prove anything, it's merely a thought exercise.
How many people born today are going to grow up being astonished by air travel? How often do we see our TV as an astonishing device? We don't, we see them as mundane. There's an initial shock when they're introduced, but a few years later they are simply relegated to the mundane. Meanwhile, people still come from around the world to see Birth of Man or David.
Then what created god? And what created the thing that created god?
Ah, I see you don't understand what the definition of a prime mover is.
If god is capable of popping into existence, then so can the universe.
So that would make the universe God then. You are confusing the arguement for God's non/existance with an arguement concerning the nature of God.
The probability of natural creation of intelligence for intelligent creatures created by natural forces is 100%
Why is that? What I mean is, assuming your statement is true, why does the universe work that way? It's the one thing the God-believing will have over those who only believe in science; they can play the "why" game indefinately. At some point, science will get fed up and yell "Because it just does!"
How come anytime anything good happens some bible thumper thanks god. When anything BAD happens, they don't CURSE god.
Considering the idea of a curse would be to call upon supernatural powers to cause ill to befall the target of your curse, it would seem REALLY futile to call upon the supernatural to cause ill to befall the source of all that is supernatural. Since that was understood long ago, the tradition of trying to curse God or a god never got started. Instead, humans chose the more "practical" strategy of having God curse that which directly caused your misfortune ("God damn").
Really? And what would be the basic reasoning skills you would use to figure that out? What common sense (BTW, I've often found common sense to be heavy on the "common" and light on the "sense")? Quick! The great philosophers of the world are waiting for your wisdom! Everyone listen! LordK3nn3th is going to put an end to six thousand years of uncertainty and debate!
Faith has given us the most beautiful artwork, songs, and prose ever to have been created. Faith gives us wonder. There is no wonder in science except when our understanding of it fails.
Faith isn't immune. See, there's this thing, it's called "Philosophy." I can understand if you've never heard of it, it was only recently popularized by this guy called Socrates in Greece. Funny thing with Philosophy, there's no quantitative data, so you never wind up proving anything. It gets tiering after a while, having to never commit to even the existance of anything, so you start accepting premises as the truth as far as you're concerned, and once you do that you fall into Religion. Yes, those Athiest are no better than the Southern Baptists in respect to reason and religion.
And considering one of the definitions I've heard of God is "the aspect of the universe which defies logic" would seem to indicate that yes, science should not take to trying to disprove God. But go ahead and try to prove or disprove aspects of spirituality. I'll be sitting over here, laughing while I watch you chase your tail.
First, many XM stations are commercial free, such as Bluegrass, Folk, Showtunes, Christian Rock/Pop, Alternative, Classic Rock/ Progressive Fusion, Jazz, Blues, Dance, Disco, Reggae, New Age, and Opera. The only people I see getting screwed in the commercial department are fans of latin music and urban... oh, and hit stations too, but you can listen to that same crap on regular radio.
Secondly, Neither XM nor Sirius rely solely on the satellites. Of equal importance are the repeater stations that allow you to recieve the channel even though you don't have a direct line-of-sight with the satellite, and there the XM network is more robust, so even though there are fewer satelites you'll probably experiance fewer drop offs. XM's compression was also better than Sirius when I last checked, but Sirius did claim it was working on it's sound quality issues, so it could be fixed by now.
Well, if you want to be legal while sampling a large music selection, you either spend $10 a month for a subscription to XM and listen to hundreds of songs across a myriad of genres from unsigned artists to punk rock to electronica to blues to Indian pop (well, they got rid of that station, actually, so no more Dahler Mehndi for me), or you could take that $10 and buy ten songs from iTunes.
There is no censorship on many stations. I have XM and words like "shit" and "fuck" pop up quite often. Ben Folds was broadcasting a live concert on XM Cafe, he asked "I don't know, can you say "shit" on XM?" He wasn't bleeped, so yes, he could. In fact, you don't even get versions cut down for radio on XM. If the song is 14 minutes and 31 seconds, by God, they will broadcast the whole damn thing!
MOST MP3 players don't have harddrives, but most MP3 players DO have removable batteries, and there are a significant number of flash-based drives using standard AA batteries that are smaller than the iPod. The fact is many people, when buying an mp3 player, aren't looking to see if the battery is removable, so you can't say that there has been market preasure to produce a thin, hard-drive base mp3 player with a removable battery. After this story that may change. And I would apply for that job, except Apple wouldn't hire as I'd ruin their lovely case with an ugly latch.
It depends on the plastic used. My Sony camera has a wall between its battery and the memory stick that's even thinner than a credit card, but I've never felt like I risked breaking it, the plastic is obviously made of stuff much more rigid than what you'd find in a credit card. There's little need for a very strong wall as it won't be bearing much of a load, if any.
As you said, it's a weak argument. The Big Dig was more a city beautification project, as faster travel could have been accomplished without sinking it into the ground. Again though, with this logic every single street would have Federal funding.
For the second part of your arguement, it's a complete straw man. You are arguing from a point where you are simply you, living in Arizona, looking at a single part of a system in a vaccum. You have to be you, the omnipresent (poor word choice, but best I can come up with) American citizen, looking at the purpose of the entire system, and if you find the system to be of significant value to the nation as a whole, you then must make sure the part you are objecting to is unneccessary to that purpose.
The whole issue of subjectivity is exactly why it would be brought up in the courts and not simply axed as soon as someone pointed its finger at it and cried "PORK!" That is where a thourough examination of each project would occur.
The Interstate doesn't work because the Federal Government has jurisdiction over Interstate trade, so it is within the Federal mandate as you aren't saying "we're going to build a highway across South Dakota" you're saying "We're going to build a highway that passes through Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho and Washington as part of a large system of arteries linking the entire country." In order to work it required a central authority to coordinate the building effort. And the Interstate itself had a good sized debate and was passed in a bill that had large portions devoted to the project. Plus, except for a handful of people living in the boonies somewhere, everyone in the US directly benifits from the Interstate system darn near every day. So, you have three vital points: 1) It could not have been handled by each State on its own. 2) It was thouroughly discussed and openly passed. 3) It directly benifits most citizens of the US. You may be able to effectively argue against the Interstates in Hawaii, though, but South Dakota you'd have a tough time forcing to reimburse the Feds (assuming the system would let you go back that far, of course).
As for if I'll be this principled when it's my state's slip-and-slide, that's the absolute beauty of it! IT DOESN'T MATTER! It'll be brought before the courts (this is where we separate pork from legitimacy on a case-by-case basis) and judged whether or not it's my pet project. The population is so great that the buddy-buddy system will not garuntee pork survives as there will always be some group of "assholes" who will scrap together enough money to challenge a Federally funded project.
I'm not looking for a 100% reduction in pork, it's unrealistic and, as you alluded to, there's a good deal of gray area, but I am looking for a way individuals can DO something about government waste as opposed to simply complaining about it, being almost powerless to vote otherwise due to the two-party system. I will admit, I'm one of those people who would like to see my State get the bulk of my taxes, but I'm far from saying let's gut the Federal government with this proposal.
And I thought about that. The State would still have to pay because of one more mechanism; all Federal funds going to a State must be actively accepted by that State, preferably by someone held readily accountable, such as the governor. So, at some point the State must sign off on it, so no passing the buck.
As for how you argue against it, that's why I included the idea that the way the appropriation was passed is included in the discussion. I also included rating the cost versus the benifit. Now, no system is perfect, treat my idea more as a seive, getting rid of the blatent pork projects and those that are spiraling out of control, but letting some of the smaller, yet at least somewhat useful pork through.
If you wanted you could sue Massachusetts, but as someone from Illinois I could also sue Massachusetts for the cost of the Big Dig. The money garnered from any victory would not go to you but back to the Federal government. That you have many people from out of state driving around Boston would be something to bring up in defense of the billions of Federal money paid out (though that would be doubtful, as under that logic every street should be paid for with Federal funds).
The ones in charge of taxpayer money are going to be taxpayers, able to hold Congress responsible through the Federal Judiciary with the enforcement of the Executive branch. No diefied soverign required, just the already in place cecks and ballances.
The system we have now is broken, especially when you have Senators like Robert Byrd, who runs on being a self-described billion dollar industry for West Virginia.
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I completely ignored your point because it was completely incoherent and I couldn't make any relation to it from my previous post.
You have to show that something does not or cannot exist in order for it to be fantasy.
Nothing. Of course, science hasn't given us anything *directly* that isn't simply a product of people's creativity either.
Well if you watched Star Wars and knew it was SCIENCE fiction, you were sadly mistaken, because there was no science in Star Wars, only fantasy with a science-like wraper. If that's what you rest your case with, Star Wars, I'd be confident going to the jury if there was one here.
Except that your arguement is begging the question. We only consider natural means to be natural because we live in them and experiance them every single day. You would expect people who believe that God created the world would also believe that God created the rules by which the world runs. Thus trying to disprove God by using the rules He supposidly created as proof wouldn't be particularly wise. As someone came close to stating in another response to me, science is concerned with the how, philosophy (and it's child, religion) is concerned with the why.
Some engineering is certainly inspired by faith. If you're saying faith has given us nothing of practical use, I'd dare say you are the one who is deluded.
Your reply has been directed to the wrong person. If you take a look, no where in here have I jumped to any conclusions, positive or negative, on the existance of God. When discussing philosophy, I always take an agnostic stance. You might want to address the same people I am addressing.
Spoken like a true capitalist. Alright, what if I told you coin-operated vending machines and automatic doors? The first coin-operated vending machine was built for the purposes of dispensing holy water. The first automatic door was built to display the statues of the gods in temples. Astronomy certainly has its roots in faith, as the first astonomers were priests of various faiths across the world who charted the night sky and could predict the movements of the stars all so that they might devine the will of the gods.
Besides, artwork, song, and prose need to be inspired if they're any good, and faith is great for inspiration.
Stupid troll, anyone skeptic with half a brain has already figured it out.
Yes, but the problem still remains for those people with their brains fully intact.
Oh, and the "basic reasoning skills" involve parsimony and Occam's razor.
Which is simpler? That God, a being which defies all understanding, created the universe, or That the universe spontaneously erupted, spawning a reality ruled by causality. Many people look at this and think the former is simpler. So no, Occam's razor doesn't prove anything, it's merely a thought exercise.
How many people born today are going to grow up being astonished by air travel? How often do we see our TV as an astonishing device? We don't, we see them as mundane. There's an initial shock when they're introduced, but a few years later they are simply relegated to the mundane. Meanwhile, people still come from around the world to see Birth of Man or David.
Then what created god? And what created the thing that created god?
Ah, I see you don't understand what the definition of a prime mover is.
If god is capable of popping into existence, then so can the universe.
So that would make the universe God then. You are confusing the arguement for God's non/existance with an arguement concerning the nature of God.
The probability of natural creation of intelligence for intelligent creatures created by natural forces is 100%
Why is that? What I mean is, assuming your statement is true, why does the universe work that way? It's the one thing the God-believing will have over those who only believe in science; they can play the "why" game indefinately. At some point, science will get fed up and yell "Because it just does!"
How come anytime anything good happens some bible thumper thanks god. When anything BAD happens, they don't CURSE god.
Considering the idea of a curse would be to call upon supernatural powers to cause ill to befall the target of your curse, it would seem REALLY futile to call upon the supernatural to cause ill to befall the source of all that is supernatural. Since that was understood long ago, the tradition of trying to curse God or a god never got started. Instead, humans chose the more "practical" strategy of having God curse that which directly caused your misfortune ("God damn").
Really? And what would be the basic reasoning skills you would use to figure that out? What common sense (BTW, I've often found common sense to be heavy on the "common" and light on the "sense")? Quick! The great philosophers of the world are waiting for your wisdom! Everyone listen! LordK3nn3th is going to put an end to six thousand years of uncertainty and debate!
Faith has given us the most beautiful artwork, songs, and prose ever to have been created. Faith gives us wonder. There is no wonder in science except when our understanding of it fails.
Faith isn't immune. See, there's this thing, it's called "Philosophy." I can understand if you've never heard of it, it was only recently popularized by this guy called Socrates in Greece. Funny thing with Philosophy, there's no quantitative data, so you never wind up proving anything. It gets tiering after a while, having to never commit to even the existance of anything, so you start accepting premises as the truth as far as you're concerned, and once you do that you fall into Religion. Yes, those Athiest are no better than the Southern Baptists in respect to reason and religion.
And considering one of the definitions I've heard of God is "the aspect of the universe which defies logic" would seem to indicate that yes, science should not take to trying to disprove God. But go ahead and try to prove or disprove aspects of spirituality. I'll be sitting over here, laughing while I watch you chase your tail.
But I did in the post you responded to. So, I reiterate, you're an idiot, aren't you?
Yes, if you want to be legal you can do something illegal. You're an idiot, aren't you?
First, many XM stations are commercial free, such as Bluegrass, Folk, Showtunes, Christian Rock/Pop, Alternative, Classic Rock/ Progressive Fusion, Jazz, Blues, Dance, Disco, Reggae, New Age, and Opera. The only people I see getting screwed in the commercial department are fans of latin music and urban... oh, and hit stations too, but you can listen to that same crap on regular radio. Secondly, Neither XM nor Sirius rely solely on the satellites. Of equal importance are the repeater stations that allow you to recieve the channel even though you don't have a direct line-of-sight with the satellite, and there the XM network is more robust, so even though there are fewer satelites you'll probably experiance fewer drop offs. XM's compression was also better than Sirius when I last checked, but Sirius did claim it was working on it's sound quality issues, so it could be fixed by now.
Well, if you want to be legal while sampling a large music selection, you either spend $10 a month for a subscription to XM and listen to hundreds of songs across a myriad of genres from unsigned artists to punk rock to electronica to blues to Indian pop (well, they got rid of that station, actually, so no more Dahler Mehndi for me), or you could take that $10 and buy ten songs from iTunes.
There is no censorship on many stations. I have XM and words like "shit" and "fuck" pop up quite often. Ben Folds was broadcasting a live concert on XM Cafe, he asked "I don't know, can you say "shit" on XM?" He wasn't bleeped, so yes, he could. In fact, you don't even get versions cut down for radio on XM. If the song is 14 minutes and 31 seconds, by God, they will broadcast the whole damn thing!
MOST MP3 players don't have harddrives, but most MP3 players DO have removable batteries, and there are a significant number of flash-based drives using standard AA batteries that are smaller than the iPod. The fact is many people, when buying an mp3 player, aren't looking to see if the battery is removable, so you can't say that there has been market preasure to produce a thin, hard-drive base mp3 player with a removable battery. After this story that may change. And I would apply for that job, except Apple wouldn't hire as I'd ruin their lovely case with an ugly latch.
Whether or not such a thing exists doesn't prove that it can't be done.
It depends on the plastic used. My Sony camera has a wall between its battery and the memory stick that's even thinner than a credit card, but I've never felt like I risked breaking it, the plastic is obviously made of stuff much more rigid than what you'd find in a credit card. There's little need for a very strong wall as it won't be bearing much of a load, if any.
As you said, it's a weak argument. The Big Dig was more a city beautification project, as faster travel could have been accomplished without sinking it into the ground. Again though, with this logic every single street would have Federal funding.
For the second part of your arguement, it's a complete straw man. You are arguing from a point where you are simply you, living in Arizona, looking at a single part of a system in a vaccum. You have to be you, the omnipresent (poor word choice, but best I can come up with) American citizen, looking at the purpose of the entire system, and if you find the system to be of significant value to the nation as a whole, you then must make sure the part you are objecting to is unneccessary to that purpose.
The whole issue of subjectivity is exactly why it would be brought up in the courts and not simply axed as soon as someone pointed its finger at it and cried "PORK!" That is where a thourough examination of each project would occur.
The Interstate doesn't work because the Federal Government has jurisdiction over Interstate trade, so it is within the Federal mandate as you aren't saying "we're going to build a highway across South Dakota" you're saying "We're going to build a highway that passes through Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho and Washington as part of a large system of arteries linking the entire country." In order to work it required a central authority to coordinate the building effort. And the Interstate itself had a good sized debate and was passed in a bill that had large portions devoted to the project. Plus, except for a handful of people living in the boonies somewhere, everyone in the US directly benifits from the Interstate system darn near every day. So, you have three vital points: 1) It could not have been handled by each State on its own. 2) It was thouroughly discussed and openly passed. 3) It directly benifits most citizens of the US. You may be able to effectively argue against the Interstates in Hawaii, though, but South Dakota you'd have a tough time forcing to reimburse the Feds (assuming the system would let you go back that far, of course).
As for if I'll be this principled when it's my state's slip-and-slide, that's the absolute beauty of it! IT DOESN'T MATTER! It'll be brought before the courts (this is where we separate pork from legitimacy on a case-by-case basis) and judged whether or not it's my pet project. The population is so great that the buddy-buddy system will not garuntee pork survives as there will always be some group of "assholes" who will scrap together enough money to challenge a Federally funded project.
I'm not looking for a 100% reduction in pork, it's unrealistic and, as you alluded to, there's a good deal of gray area, but I am looking for a way individuals can DO something about government waste as opposed to simply complaining about it, being almost powerless to vote otherwise due to the two-party system. I will admit, I'm one of those people who would like to see my State get the bulk of my taxes, but I'm far from saying let's gut the Federal government with this proposal.
And I thought about that. The State would still have to pay because of one more mechanism; all Federal funds going to a State must be actively accepted by that State, preferably by someone held readily accountable, such as the governor. So, at some point the State must sign off on it, so no passing the buck.
As for how you argue against it, that's why I included the idea that the way the appropriation was passed is included in the discussion. I also included rating the cost versus the benifit. Now, no system is perfect, treat my idea more as a seive, getting rid of the blatent pork projects and those that are spiraling out of control, but letting some of the smaller, yet at least somewhat useful pork through.
If you wanted you could sue Massachusetts, but as someone from Illinois I could also sue Massachusetts for the cost of the Big Dig. The money garnered from any victory would not go to you but back to the Federal government. That you have many people from out of state driving around Boston would be something to bring up in defense of the billions of Federal money paid out (though that would be doubtful, as under that logic every street should be paid for with Federal funds).
The ones in charge of taxpayer money are going to be taxpayers, able to hold Congress responsible through the Federal Judiciary with the enforcement of the Executive branch. No diefied soverign required, just the already in place cecks and ballances.
The system we have now is broken, especially when you have Senators like Robert Byrd, who runs on being a self-described billion dollar industry for West Virginia.