I'd expect to read that "nothing productive" happened during the medieval period from a self-proclaimed "Enlightened" thinker. But I'm a little surprised to hear it from a person with a Christian sig. Please google for Scholasticism.
I wasn't aware that any one person got to speak authoritatively about what environmentalism is and is not. I'm sure a lot of people calling themselves environmentalists would agree with you. Then there are the folks who have made it into a religion, and who don't think it would be so bad after all if people went suddenly extinct.
Not that it matters, but what you call environmentalism, I would call conservationism.
I think it's a little ambiguous. We don't know how many legal downloaders have also downloaded music illegally. It could mean that 75% of music listeners download their music. It could also mean that only 40% do, or any value in between 40% and 75%.
Actually the number of people who haven't downloaded music at all could be as high as 60%. It's possible that all of the 35% group are also members of the 40% group. I don't think the article makes it clear.
No, not really. While it's true that a home theater system can be used for those other things, I was specifically addressing what appeared to be a financial justification for owning a home theater system.
(Although I admit that I ripped off a response, and now I think that his intended meaning was probably more like the second thing I mentioned - it's unseemly, insulting, or whatever to pay good money to be advertised to.)
I think a reason like, "Home theater is cool because it makes Xbox and TV rock!" is fine if that's what you want. A reason like, "I save $9.50 when I watch a movie on my big screen!" doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
I own a small TV I got for free from my parents because it has a few problems they weren't willing to live with. I don't really know what size it is because I don't care. I'm guessing it's around 20 inches. To get a "home theater" system, I'd have to lay down hundreds and hundreds, perhaps thousands and thousands of dollars.
On the other hand, I can pay $9.50 (it's actually a little cheaper where I live) and see a movie in a theater. More like $5 for a matinee.
Assuming a "home theater" system costs $1000 (which would be a really cheap setup), that's the equivalent of 105 movies in the theater. I doubt I've seen that many in my entire life.
But maybe you mentioned the money just out of "principle." You don't have to lower yourself to pay to watch commercials.
So show up late to the theater and skip them. Don't complain that you won't be able to find a seat. If the movie is that new, you won't be watching it (legally) on your mammoth television, anyway. (If you are watching it illegally, it'll be crappy.) Plus, I might be wrong about this, but a lot of rental DVDs have ads on them too. I probably just have a cheap piece of junk for a player, but it won't let me skip them.
I really enjoyed college. I'd do it again in a second. I definitely don't look at it like some suffering I did to "get ahead" in the "real world."
As a result of my having a university education, I was basically handed a well-paying job upon graduating (I'm a chemical engineer). Right out of the gate, I was making more than my dad and most of his blue-collar friends.
I consider my education to have made it much easier for me to get into a job where (I'll be honest) I don't work half as hard as my dad, I rarely get dirty, and I get treated with respect.
When I see people with no education who are very financially successful or are in positions of authority, I am not resentful of them. On the contrary, I am usually impressed. It takes a lot of hard work to become successful without some university's stamp of approval on you.
You realize that religious people have been murdered in the pursuit of getting rid "this religious sillyness" don't you?
How about you take your own advice? Instead of denigrating a way of thinking that the majority of people in this world find valuable (as though you have all the answers!), realize we're all just human beings, and that ideologies of any kind (even humanism) can be dangerous.
You wouldn't be the first person to leave a petty non-response to my sig, and I doubt you'll be the last. You aren't even close to being the funniest. It really upsets some people.
Public wireless is like roads and street lights. Like roads, public wireless access enables economic development. When a road is paved, houses and businesses spring up around it. When an urban area has street lighting, business and civic life continues into the night.
With a couple of important differences.
1. Were it not for government involvement, it's hard to see why streetlights or roads would have been built. It's doubtful that the interstate highway system we have now would have emerged if it had been left up to corporations to come up with how to make them profitable.
2. Internet infrastructure already exists. It's possible to get at least dialup almost everywhere. In my smallish, very rural town of 12,000 people, I can get three different kinds of broadband. And I don't live in a suburb, by the way. The nearest more sizable town is 50 miles away and has a population of 100k. After that, the Dallas/Ft Worth area is about 3 hours. Even my parents, who live on a farm 15 miles from the nearest town, can get wireless.
I grudgingly disagree with the ban, but only because I think as much power as possible ought to stay local. If muni wireless came up in my town, I'd vote against it. It's an encroachment of the government into the business interests of citizens without any good reason. It effectively makes the government an instant monopoly.
No, but the distinction is somewhat fine. "Hard" or "strong" atheists deny that God exists. This sort of atheist is in short supply, at least among educated people. "Soft" or "weak" atheists disbelieve in God because there is inadequate evidence to justify belief (and they further claim that their disbelief is the default position). As I understand it, agnostics (from the Greek word for "ignorance") claim that it is impossible to rationally decide either of these questions.
I'm suprised by this statement, because it suggests you know something most contemporary defenders of atheism admit to not knowing - whether or not God actually exists. These days, most atheists worth listening to define atheism not as a belief in the non-existence of God (which in spite of your claim is difficult or perhaps impossible to prove), but as a lack of belief in God.
Actually, what's been obscured in this case is not the shape of the earth, but what Christians said about it. There is no doubt that some Christians believed in a flat earth, but there is also no doubt that most did not. The flat earth myth (which many of us were exposed to as children - The story that Columbus had difficulty securing funding because of left-over medieval Christian superstitions has been pretty thoroughly debunked) is mostly the result of overly zealous 19th century writers eager to proclaim and demonstrate the triumph of rationalism over a caricature of religious thinking.
See also many accounts of Galileo's mistreatment for examples of similarly motivated distortion.
The Neuros II player has a feature called (I think) HiSi which does this for free. And it plays oggs. And it's entirely open source, firmware and hardware included. (except I think they are having some troubles with TI at the moment, and the firmware source is temporarily unavailable for download.)
Don't know whether HiSi actually works, because I never use my player to listen to the radio, but it's still kind of cool if you want it.
And no, I don't work for them. I'm just a pleased owner.
I did not claim that Christianity was true. Contrary to what you wrote, I claimed that many rational, intelligent people believe it. If critical thinking is exemplified by anyone, it's by those whose thinking skills are constantly examined, criticised, and corrected. There are many Christian philosophers who fit this description. The mere existence of professional Christian philosophers who write articles for refereed journals, hold professorships in secular universities, and etc, is to me good evidence against your claim (or what your claim inmplies, really) that Christians are only Christians because they utterly lack critical thinking skills. Even if I were completely unable to respond to your post above, there would still be good reason to believe that at this point in time, even if Christianity is completely false, it is not so obviously false that everyone with critical thinking skills is compelled to agree about that. So, your claim is brazen and unwarranted unless you are putting forth some novel and decisive new arguments against Christianity (which you aren't).
I'm not going to just blindly believe a book that claims to have all the answers. These books were ultimately penned by man, with his own, local and historical preconceptions tainting his views and translations of the events.
Relatively few intellectually sophisticated Christians would suggest that you should. Interestingly, the few who are so fideistic believe very little of what the bible actually says. Most theologically conservative Christians are very interested in evidence for the reliability of the Bible.
Also, I think everyone is fully aware of the fact that men wrote the scriptures, and that those men were influenced by their language, culture, experiences, and so on. That affects how we exegete the bible, but it doesn't force us to one conclusion or another about its accuracy or whether its ultimate origin was divine.
I'd much rather follow no god than to waste my life on a false one.
I hope that's true of every honest person.
My own turning point was when I asked a devout Christian friend "if you led a good life but did not follow their religion, would you go to heaven?". The answer, no, as you would get from most religions to this question, made me not want to know their god frankly.
That's an interesting story in light of this conversation. Are you sure your rejection of God is based here on critical thinking, or does it have more to do with your preferences and feelings?
If god is what you say he is, then worship is unnecessary and to be honest hypocrisy.
How so? I suspect what you are arguing here is that, if God is really God, he doesn't need us to worship him. He should have high enough self-esteem to get along without constant praise and encouragment from the likes of us.
But surely self-esteem issues aren't the only reason for praise. People write poetry about sunsets.
What if there is a moral obligation to love what is good?
However, those views don't get people cash onto the collection plate, so the religious that did not enforce worship died out.
That may be the case. I'm going to grant that it is for the time being, because I can't see how it has much bearing on whether Christianity is true.
When I realised that modern religion itself came to be as a result of evolution (the ultimate irony), I lost any faith I had left.
Once again, a far from decisive claim, even if true in the sense that you mean. It's no secret that Christianity has "evolved" and is to this day "evolving" to be at last completed at the end of time. There's a reason Christians talk all the time about "salvation history." God works in time.
The successful religions are successful for good reasons, not because they are accurate. For example, Catholosism promotes having lots of children. Textbook darwinnian evolution!
While it's easy to dismiss certain Christian academics because they are part of a fringe element (I'm thinking of intelligent design theorists who are Christians), in the area of philosophy, Christians (even very theologically conversative Christians) are well represented.
You may be justified in believing that philosophers who are Christian theists are mistaken and irrational on that point, but it seems a little overly brazen to claim that "it is clear to someone was only the slightest bit of critical thinking that the classical religions are folk-tales that have gotten out of hand." I don't think reputable universities hand out doctorates in philosophy (which is, among other things, the study of critical thinking itself) to people who clearly have no critical thinking skills.
For a pure, single phase substance, two intensive variables specify all others. If a molar or specific volume and pressure are specified, the temperature is set. You don't get to choose it, too.
Every job or position is just as hard as every other.
I think what you intended to say was something like, "There's honor in any job done well" or "Being an IT worker doesn't make you a better person than a garbage truck driver." (Those two statements I can agree with entirely.)
That, or you are employing what is to me a very non-intutive definition of the word "hard."
I think that one reason (though far from the only reason, of course) that I get paid $$$ as a chemical engineer while a high school drop out gets paid minimum wage working at McDonalds is that my job is a little harder. Just about anyone could work at McDonalds. Not an overwhelming number of people could do my job proficiently, or even make it through the training/education required. Maybe I'm saying that because I am a snob. But that doesn't mean I'm wrong.
Space exploration and space science should be carried out on peaceful, scientific grounds only.
Science is more a method than a "ground" or reason for doing something. When we ask "Why should we do science?" we are asking a philosophical question, not a scientific one.
Science is still science whether the real goal is the simple expansion of understanding ("science for the sake of science") or the militarization of space.
The other thing very nearby Amarillo that a lot of people seem to like is the Palo Duro Canyon. It's certainly not the grand canyon, but it's also nothing to shake a stick at. It's reputed to be the second largest canyon in the US.
The Bell-Textron facility you are talking about has more than a couple of Ospreys. They make them there.:)
I know these things because I grew up nearby Amarillo (about 50 miles away) and did a summer internship at the nuclear weapons facility you mention (Pantex). They do more than store them there, by the way. They do maintenance on them, and they also do a bit of research on high explosives. It's a pretty large complex. Here's a google satellite pic.
Anyway, I agree more or less with you assessment. Amarillo is a fairly non-descript town.
Are you telling me that in a world with hand-held weapons that can supposedly level/vaporize small mountains you are going to pull out your bat'leth or lightsaber and duke it out hand to hand?
There's practically no advantage to carrying a blaster if you are a Jedi.
If you are fighting another Jedi, he could easily whip out a lightsaber and deflect your shot back at you.
If you are fighting a non-Jedi, ideally you are defending yourself. That being the case, you wouldn't shoot first (Unlike Han). Your opponent is either close up, making him easy to cut in half, or far away and using a blaster which effectively means that you are, too (Deflection, remember).
Also thinking about defense, a blaster has no defensive capabilities besides "Kill him before he kills you." Not the ideal strategy for adherents to a peace-loving religion.
It's harder to think of practical reasons for Klingons carrying melee weapons, but it's also harder to think of why there *should* be practical reasons. Klingons are screwed up in a lot of ways when it comes to fighting and war. Could it be similar to modern hunters using black powder rifles or bows even though better technology is available?
If i gave our solar system as an example of specific complexity without design, someone could simply say it was designed... If i used a human being as dito, someone could claim it was designed... One of those boring-looking rocks with fancy crystals inside? Same thing.
An argument for the design of the solar system could perhaps be made on the basis of specified complexity, but I don't see how.
For parts of the human body like blood clotting and our eyes, it's been made.
But for crystals in a rock, almost certainly not. Crystals are a great example of what specified complexity is not.
What's really confusing to me is why you bring any of those things up. I specifically said that one way of falsifying Dembski's criterion for design involves objects or information that we know *in advance* weren't designed.
It's not an argument to say that SOME things can't be used to falsify Dembski's criterion. I agree that some things can't - most notably, things (like the solar system, human body, or a random geode) that we don't know the origin of with certainty. You need to show that NO objects or information can be used to falsify Dembski's theory, not some.
And comparing say evolution to radioactive decay isn't any good,
I did not compare evolution and radioactive decay. I was trying to suggest a method to falsify the specified complexity test. The specified complexity test can be applied to anything, including measurments of radioactive decay. That's good, because it means that if we can find examples from any source that show the test to be unreliable, it must also be unreliable when used in biology and the test falls apart.
evolution isn't just random, it's random with a filter and a feedback-loop applied to it. As such it can exhibit much greater "specific complexity" without being designed.(Still won't stop anyone from claiming design with impunity from disproof)
Whether a purely natural process of filtered randomness with a feedback loop is capable of producing the degree of specified complexity we observe is really at the center of the argument. You don't get to assume the conclusion.
I'm not going to respond to any more posts, so you can have the last word if you want it. I recommend that you check out a book or a website or something that describes specified complexity in mathematical terms because (and I apologize if this isn't the case) your last post makes me think you are using the phrase without really knowing what it means.
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I'd expect to read that "nothing productive" happened during the medieval period from a self-proclaimed "Enlightened" thinker. But I'm a little surprised to hear it from a person with a Christian sig. Please google for Scholasticism.
I wasn't aware that any one person got to speak authoritatively about what environmentalism is and is not. I'm sure a lot of people calling themselves environmentalists would agree with you. Then there are the folks who have made it into a religion, and who don't think it would be so bad after all if people went suddenly extinct.
Not that it matters, but what you call environmentalism, I would call conservationism.
Well, for one thing, no one would be modded +5 insightful for pointing out that the force is fake.*
You may draw your own conclusions about the significance of this fact.
*now that i've posted this, I fully expect the gp to be modded +5 insightful.
I think it's a little ambiguous. We don't know how many legal downloaders have also downloaded music illegally. It could mean that 75% of music listeners download their music. It could also mean that only 40% do, or any value in between 40% and 75%.
Actually the number of people who haven't downloaded music at all could be as high as 60%. It's possible that all of the 35% group are also members of the 40% group. I don't think the article makes it clear.
No, not really. While it's true that a home theater system can be used for those other things, I was specifically addressing what appeared to be a financial justification for owning a home theater system.
(Although I admit that I ripped off a response, and now I think that his intended meaning was probably more like the second thing I mentioned - it's unseemly, insulting, or whatever to pay good money to be advertised to.)
I think a reason like, "Home theater is cool because it makes Xbox and TV rock!" is fine if that's what you want. A reason like, "I save $9.50 when I watch a movie on my big screen!" doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
Do you pay for your friends when you go the movies? Will your friends help pay for your home theater system?
The original post specifically said $9.50, not $57.
I own a small TV I got for free from my parents because it has a few problems they weren't willing to live with. I don't really know what size it is because I don't care. I'm guessing it's around 20 inches. To get a "home theater" system, I'd have to lay down hundreds and hundreds, perhaps thousands and thousands of dollars.
On the other hand, I can pay $9.50 (it's actually a little cheaper where I live) and see a movie in a theater. More like $5 for a matinee.
Assuming a "home theater" system costs $1000 (which would be a really cheap setup), that's the equivalent of 105 movies in the theater. I doubt I've seen that many in my entire life.
But maybe you mentioned the money just out of "principle." You don't have to lower yourself to pay to watch commercials.
So show up late to the theater and skip them. Don't complain that you won't be able to find a seat. If the movie is that new, you won't be watching it (legally) on your mammoth television, anyway. (If you are watching it illegally, it'll be crappy.) Plus, I might be wrong about this, but a lot of rental DVDs have ads on them too. I probably just have a cheap piece of junk for a player, but it won't let me skip them.
I look at it the opposite way.
I really enjoyed college. I'd do it again in a second. I definitely don't look at it like some suffering I did to "get ahead" in the "real world."
As a result of my having a university education, I was basically handed a well-paying job upon graduating (I'm a chemical engineer). Right out of the gate, I was making more than my dad and most of his blue-collar friends.
I consider my education to have made it much easier for me to get into a job where (I'll be honest) I don't work half as hard as my dad, I rarely get dirty, and I get treated with respect.
When I see people with no education who are very financially successful or are in positions of authority, I am not resentful of them. On the contrary, I am usually impressed. It takes a lot of hard work to become successful without some university's stamp of approval on you.
You realize that religious people have been murdered in the pursuit of getting rid "this religious sillyness" don't you?
How about you take your own advice? Instead of denigrating a way of thinking that the majority of people in this world find valuable (as though you have all the answers!), realize we're all just human beings, and that ideologies of any kind (even humanism) can be dangerous.
You wouldn't be the first person to leave a petty non-response to my sig, and I doubt you'll be the last. You aren't even close to being the funniest. It really upsets some people.
Public wireless is like roads and street lights. Like roads, public wireless access enables economic development. When a road is paved, houses and businesses spring up around it. When an urban area has street lighting, business and civic life continues into the night.
With a couple of important differences.
1. Were it not for government involvement, it's hard to see why streetlights or roads would have been built. It's doubtful that the interstate highway system we have now would have emerged if it had been left up to corporations to come up with how to make them profitable.
2. Internet infrastructure already exists. It's possible to get at least dialup almost everywhere. In my smallish, very rural town of 12,000 people, I can get three different kinds of broadband. And I don't live in a suburb, by the way. The nearest more sizable town is 50 miles away and has a population of 100k. After that, the Dallas/Ft Worth area is about 3 hours. Even my parents, who live on a farm 15 miles from the nearest town, can get wireless.
I grudgingly disagree with the ban, but only because I think as much power as possible ought to stay local. If muni wireless came up in my town, I'd vote against it. It's an encroachment of the government into the business interests of citizens without any good reason. It effectively makes the government an instant monopoly.
No, but the distinction is somewhat fine. "Hard" or "strong" atheists deny that God exists. This sort of atheist is in short supply, at least among educated people. "Soft" or "weak" atheists disbelieve in God because there is inadequate evidence to justify belief (and they further claim that their disbelief is the default position). As I understand it, agnostics (from the Greek word for "ignorance") claim that it is impossible to rationally decide either of these questions.
Which of these properties do you have in mind?
But, it's fairly clear he does not exist.
I'm suprised by this statement, because it suggests you know something most contemporary defenders of atheism admit to not knowing - whether or not God actually exists. These days, most atheists worth listening to define atheism not as a belief in the non-existence of God (which in spite of your claim is difficult or perhaps impossible to prove), but as a lack of belief in God.
Actually, what's been obscured in this case is not the shape of the earth, but what Christians said about it. There is no doubt that some Christians believed in a flat earth, but there is also no doubt that most did not. The flat earth myth (which many of us were exposed to as children - The story that Columbus had difficulty securing funding because of left-over medieval Christian superstitions has been pretty thoroughly debunked) is mostly the result of overly zealous 19th century writers eager to proclaim and demonstrate the triumph of rationalism over a caricature of religious thinking.
See also many accounts of Galileo's mistreatment for examples of similarly motivated distortion.
The Neuros II player has a feature called (I think) HiSi which does this for free. And it plays oggs. And it's entirely open source, firmware and hardware included. (except I think they are having some troubles with TI at the moment, and the firmware source is temporarily unavailable for download.)
Don't know whether HiSi actually works, because I never use my player to listen to the radio, but it's still kind of cool if you want it.
And no, I don't work for them. I'm just a pleased owner.
I did not claim that Christianity was true. Contrary to what you wrote, I claimed that many rational, intelligent people believe it. If critical thinking is exemplified by anyone, it's by those whose thinking skills are constantly examined, criticised, and corrected. There are many Christian philosophers who fit this description. The mere existence of professional Christian philosophers who write articles for refereed journals, hold professorships in secular universities, and etc, is to me good evidence against your claim (or what your claim inmplies, really) that Christians are only Christians because they utterly lack critical thinking skills. Even if I were completely unable to respond to your post above, there would still be good reason to believe that at this point in time, even if Christianity is completely false, it is not so obviously false that everyone with critical thinking skills is compelled to agree about that. So, your claim is brazen and unwarranted unless you are putting forth some novel and decisive new arguments against Christianity (which you aren't).
I'm not going to just blindly believe a book that claims to have all the answers. These books were ultimately penned by man, with his own, local and historical preconceptions tainting his views and translations of the events.
Relatively few intellectually sophisticated Christians would suggest that you should. Interestingly, the few who are so fideistic believe very little of what the bible actually says. Most theologically conservative Christians are very interested in evidence for the reliability of the Bible.
Also, I think everyone is fully aware of the fact that men wrote the scriptures, and that those men were influenced by their language, culture, experiences, and so on. That affects how we exegete the bible, but it doesn't force us to one conclusion or another about its accuracy or whether its ultimate origin was divine.
I'd much rather follow no god than to waste my life on a false one.
I hope that's true of every honest person.
My own turning point was when I asked a devout Christian friend "if you led a good life but did not follow their religion, would you go to heaven?". The answer, no, as you would get from most religions to this question, made me not want to know their god frankly.
That's an interesting story in light of this conversation. Are you sure your rejection of God is based here on critical thinking, or does it have more to do with your preferences and feelings?
If god is what you say he is, then worship is unnecessary and to be honest hypocrisy.
How so? I suspect what you are arguing here is that, if God is really God, he doesn't need us to worship him. He should have high enough self-esteem to get along without constant praise and encouragment from the likes of us.
But surely self-esteem issues aren't the only reason for praise. People write poetry about sunsets.
What if there is a moral obligation to love what is good?
However, those views don't get people cash onto the collection plate, so the religious that did not enforce worship died out.
That may be the case. I'm going to grant that it is for the time being, because I can't see how it has much bearing on whether Christianity is true.
When I realised that modern religion itself came to be as a result of evolution (the ultimate irony), I lost any faith I had left.
Once again, a far from decisive claim, even if true in the sense that you mean. It's no secret that Christianity has "evolved" and is to this day "evolving" to be at last completed at the end of time. There's a reason Christians talk all the time about "salvation history." God works in time.
The successful religions are successful for good reasons, not because they are accurate. For example, Catholosism promotes having lots of children. Textbook darwinnian evolution!
I agree that that's true in many case
While it's easy to dismiss certain Christian academics because they are part of a fringe element (I'm thinking of intelligent design theorists who are Christians), in the area of philosophy, Christians (even very theologically conversative Christians) are well represented.
You may be justified in believing that philosophers who are Christian theists are mistaken and irrational on that point, but it seems a little overly brazen to claim that "it is clear to someone was only the slightest bit of critical thinking that the classical religions are folk-tales that have gotten out of hand." I don't think reputable universities hand out doctorates in philosophy (which is, among other things, the study of critical thinking itself) to people who clearly have no critical thinking skills.
For a pure, single phase substance, two intensive variables specify all others. If a molar or specific volume and pressure are specified, the temperature is set. You don't get to choose it, too.
This is called the Gibbs Phase Rule.
Every job or position is just as hard as every other.
I think what you intended to say was something like, "There's honor in any job done well" or "Being an IT worker doesn't make you a better person than a garbage truck driver." (Those two statements I can agree with entirely.)
That, or you are employing what is to me a very non-intutive definition of the word "hard."
I think that one reason (though far from the only reason, of course) that I get paid $$$ as a chemical engineer while a high school drop out gets paid minimum wage working at McDonalds is that my job is a little harder. Just about anyone could work at McDonalds. Not an overwhelming number of people could do my job proficiently, or even make it through the training/education required. Maybe I'm saying that because I am a snob. But that doesn't mean I'm wrong.
Space exploration and space science should be carried out on peaceful, scientific grounds only.
Science is more a method than a "ground" or reason for doing something. When we ask "Why should we do science?" we are asking a philosophical question, not a scientific one.
Science is still science whether the real goal is the simple expansion of understanding ("science for the sake of science") or the militarization of space.
The other thing very nearby Amarillo that a lot of people seem to like is the Palo Duro Canyon. It's certainly not the grand canyon, but it's also nothing to shake a stick at. It's reputed to be the second largest canyon in the US.
:)
The Bell-Textron facility you are talking about has more than a couple of Ospreys. They make them there.
I know these things because I grew up nearby Amarillo (about 50 miles away) and did a summer internship at the nuclear weapons facility you mention (Pantex). They do more than store them there, by the way. They do maintenance on them, and they also do a bit of research on high explosives. It's a pretty large complex. Here's a google satellite pic.
Anyway, I agree more or less with you assessment. Amarillo is a fairly non-descript town.
I can't believe I'm responding to this. :)
Are you telling me that in a world with hand-held weapons that can supposedly level/vaporize small mountains you are going to pull out your bat'leth or lightsaber and duke it out hand to hand?
There's practically no advantage to carrying a blaster if you are a Jedi.
If you are fighting another Jedi, he could easily whip out a lightsaber and deflect your shot back at you.
If you are fighting a non-Jedi, ideally you are defending yourself. That being the case, you wouldn't shoot first (Unlike Han). Your opponent is either close up, making him easy to cut in half, or far away and using a blaster which effectively means that you are, too (Deflection, remember).
Also thinking about defense, a blaster has no defensive capabilities besides "Kill him before he kills you." Not the ideal strategy for adherents to a peace-loving religion.
It's harder to think of practical reasons for Klingons carrying melee weapons, but it's also harder to think of why there *should* be practical reasons. Klingons are screwed up in a lot of ways when it comes to fighting and war. Could it be similar to modern hunters using black powder rifles or bows even though better technology is available?
If i gave our solar system as an example of specific complexity without design, someone could simply say it was designed... If i used a human being as dito, someone could claim it was designed... One of those boring-looking rocks with fancy crystals inside? Same thing.
An argument for the design of the solar system could perhaps be made on the basis of specified complexity, but I don't see how.
For parts of the human body like blood clotting and our eyes, it's been made.
But for crystals in a rock, almost certainly not. Crystals are a great example of what specified complexity is not.
What's really confusing to me is why you bring any of those things up. I specifically said that one way of falsifying Dembski's criterion for design involves objects or information that we know *in advance* weren't designed.
It's not an argument to say that SOME things can't be used to falsify Dembski's criterion. I agree that some things can't - most notably, things (like the solar system, human body, or a random geode) that we don't know the origin of with certainty. You need to show that NO objects or information can be used to falsify Dembski's theory, not some.
And comparing say evolution to radioactive decay isn't any good,
I did not compare evolution and radioactive decay. I was trying to suggest a method to falsify the specified complexity test. The specified complexity test can be applied to anything, including measurments of radioactive decay. That's good, because it means that if we can find examples from any source that show the test to be unreliable, it must also be unreliable when used in biology and the test falls apart.
evolution isn't just random, it's random with a filter and a feedback-loop applied to it. As such it can exhibit much greater "specific complexity" without being designed.(Still won't stop anyone from claiming design with impunity from disproof)
Whether a purely natural process of filtered randomness with a feedback loop is capable of producing the degree of specified complexity we observe is really at the center of the argument. You don't get to assume the conclusion.
I'm not going to respond to any more posts, so you can have the last word if you want it. I recommend that you check out a book or a website or something that describes specified complexity in mathematical terms because (and I apologize if this isn't the case) your last post makes me think you are using the phrase without really knowing what it means.