Contrast this with countries that did not develop with a Christian heritage, and see how far your civil rights go there.
Civil rights, along with most human progress, has been in spite of religion, not because of it.
The notion of Universal Charity was really Jesus' revolutionary message, and it really did transform the world, causing more good as a result of it than any other single idea.
That's just your assertion.
Hitchens, by contrast, think that it is the worst thing that has ever happened to the world.
No, he thinks that it's just superstition. But he does believe that religion was our first (and worst) attempt at philosophy, and that we'd be better off with more modern systems of morals, government, and explanations for natural phenomena.
Nazi ideology was based on the master race theory, which had nothing to do with any of the major religions
So a Catholic person picks up some pagan ideas, expands on the Bible-based blood-libel, leads an army of Catholics and Lutherans under an ancient symbol that was adopted as a modified Christian cross, and takes "God is with us" as a motto for one of its elite units - and it has nothing to do with religion?
communism, which killed about 50 million people in Russia alone
Being non-religious doesn't automatically make you a good person.
most religious people have a conscience which keeps them from taking part in mass misery
And I'd say exactly the opposite. People are born with an innate human morality, and you have to do something to suppress that in order to get atrocities. One way to do that is to replace that innate morality with the psudo-morality of religion.
contrast this with "rational" ideologies which will make arbitrary divisions based on skin color, social class, etc
That has to be the worst defense of religious morality I ever heard. The right to keep the cursed "Hammites" in bondage, the divine right of kings, as well as slavery, tribalism, and mindless submission to authority in general were all based on religion. The "rational ideologies" picked up all those bad habits from religion, not the other way around.
First, Monsanto did claim their GE crops will not cross breed years ago.
I'd like a cite for that.
As for the rest of your post, you have a nice collection of one sided complaints, which is enough to get my attention. But if you want me to really believe that accidental crossing still legally counts as infringement, please get me a copy of a court's decision stating that. If, on the other hand, you just want to say that Monsanto harasses people and sometimes launches suits that are expensive to defend against, then I can't say for certain that you're wrong, but I don't want to 'convict' someone without getting their POV. At least for that claim, I think we'd need more than just an exchange on slashdot to make a strong case either way.
They also sue if your non-GM crop is contaminated by another's GM crop.
No, they don't. All of the companies and governments involved clearly say that a certain amount of crossbreeding is inevitable, and not a cause for legal action. But if you go on to encourage that trait to become the norm in your own crops, and then use the trait for your own financial gain, then the companies (and the courts) think you're deliberately making money off of their patented stuff without permission, and they have the right to sue you.
You did not sign a contract but you're sued anyway.
Yes, because you've violated someone's patent. And this isn't a Monsanto or even a GM issue - plant breeders have had legal protection for new varieties since 1930.
One farmer was accused of having Monsanto plants without permission (genetically-engineered pollen infected his naturally-growing corn, and then became GM corn).
Which wouldn't have been a problem if he hadn't deliberately bred his corn to have the GM trait as much as possible, used the GM trait to save himself time and energy, and then sold the crop. This wasn't just accidental corssbreeding.
Another farmer operates a machine that separates seed from the chaff, and he was accused of trying to steal Monsanto's seed (which has no basis on fact).
No, he told people that they could replant seed when they couldn't, and then cleaned the seed for them in preparation for planting. That is: he lied to people so that they would violate their contracts, and then made money off of helping them do so. Even after he was warned to stop.
And yet another farmer was sued just because they wanted to *suspected* her had Monsanto plants, based upon reports from his neighbors. He had not done anything wrong and the case was eventually dismissed, but it still wiped-out his personal savings.
Yes, our legal system needs reform, but this happens anytime someone gets sued and does everything they can not to cooperate with the legal process, not just when Monsanto sues.
It's similar to how RIAA companies tried to sue people with VCRs or recordable Minidiscs.
If you're talking about the people who use VCRs to make copies and then sell them, yes.
Actually those Evil Bastards do produce sterile crop seeds.
Just like everyone else that produces hybrid crops.
For those crops where they don't they might as well be, they sue you into oblivion if you save your seed for later.
Yes, because you sign a contract promising not to do that before you buy the seeds. They also sue you if you don't pay them - oh no!
Did you know those Evil Bastards own 95% of the soybean crop? That there is only 5% of the corp left that is not GMO?
Yes - they make really, really good stuff. So evil.
Just in case someone from that group of Evil Bastards is reading this: I plan on planting non GMO soy, just to keep the strain alive. I will send my heirloom seeds to anyone who wants them, free of charge. Sadly I only have a 10 sq foot area to plant, but I'm going to do it anyway, just to make a point.
Plenty of people do that. But I think you're better off leaving that kind of thing to the people that have a better grasp of what "hybrid" and "signing a contract" mean - like actual farmers.
Also you Evil Bastards: Fuck you
And then they laugh, because when people with no real understanding of a topic throw temper tantrums about how people that disagree with them are evil, that's just what people do. When you understand the difference between "hybrid seed" and "terminator seed", know why Bt corn isn't used anymore, and can explain low-lin soy to me, then I'll take your opinion seriously.
Tell that to Mr. Schmeiser. Never bought their product and was sued by Monsanto because THEY contaminated HIS field.
Almost every open pollinated field gets "contaminated", that's what "open pollination" means. And that isn't what got him in trouble - he deliberately separated out the plants with that particular trait and saved them, used them to grow crops while taking advantage of that trait, and sold them. If he hadn't gone out of his way to use the patented trait without paying for it there wouldn't have been an issue.
Sounds like you just don't want to accept that Monsanto really is as evil as they appear.
Sounds like you just want them to be evil, so you'll just take the other side's word for it, and to hell with their side of the story as well as the opinion of the courts that decided the case.
A 10-year old would have to eat two pounds of Golden Rice a day to fulfill her vitamin A needs, totally impractical.
Sure, but if she's going blind because she's 10% short on Vitamin A having a dose come from the staple crop of her region might make a big difference to her.
Doesn't dark matter have to interact via gravity in order to be responsible for the things it's claimed to be responsible for? If that's the case, why didn't it react with anything?
Right - it did react, but only gravitationally.
It's not as though the regular matter was interacting through electromagnetic, weak, or strong forces in any significant way during the collision. Gravity should have effected both types of matter equally, shouldn't it?
That's true for stars, planets, etc, but most of the baryonic matter matter in the Bullet Cluster is in the form of gas and plasma that does interact electromagnetically. Since gravitational lensing shows that the center of mass is still moving with the matter emitting visible light (stars), even though most of the rest of the mass we can detect directly (gas/plasma via X-rays) has been slowed, we can infer that there's a very massive component of the cluster we can't see that only interacted gravitationally.
There is all that the Bible has to say about the human heart, how we think we are good, but then can turn around and do things that do not qualify as good.
There is wisdom in that, but it's not a very difficult observation to make. I'd find it odd for any culture with a actual philosophy of morality not to discover that.
There is that the religious establishment in the time of Christ's coming rejected him, as predicted.
Like almost any new religion - like the ones started by Muhammad, Joseph Smith, Marshall Applewhite, L. Ron Hubbard, etc.
There are the predictions of Christ's coming in the old Testament.
Well, there's this story about a tax in the Bible that doesn't quite add up when compared to other historical records. But it does happen to make is so that a guy from Nazareth was really born in Bethlehem, so that he could be "born in the city of David", and thus fulfill a prophecy. Couldn't it be that people saw someone they thought could be their messiah, and tweaked things a bit, or at least weren't very skeptical what they heard?
You twice mention "mathematical proof", but that's not what I'm after - heck I'm not even after evidence, since most [intellectual] people admit that there's no evidence. What I want to know is how you can be convinced, when you yourself admit that there's no reason to be convinced.
As to the rest, it isn't a matter of him fooling you, it is you believing or not based on what you have in front of you.
But what do I have in front of me. Nothing!
I understand how you might not be convinced. In equal measure, I am comfortable with believing without mathematical proof of His existence.
No, you are comfortable with believing without any reason, evidence or argument of any kind.
And that's the real issue. If I came to you, certain that X was true, but when you asked why I believed that, I didn't just say that I had no proof, or merely that I completely lacked evidence, but that I didn't even have an argument in support of it, you'd think I was rather odd. Why shouldn't I think that of you under the same circumstances?
Fresh air, clean food, exercise, wide open land.
Fresh air, small amounts of a single staple food mixed with rat droppings, back-breaking labor throughout the growing season, and the tiny plot of land that you must abuse to feed your family.
Stale air, very cold or hot, cramped conditions, sexual abuse
Right, because nobody was ever raped in the fields, or died of exposure, heat stroke, animal attacks, drowning,...
Why? So you can afford a TV to watch vacuous entertainment?
So they can send their kids to school, buy a sewing machine and start their own business, eat a more balanced diet,...
I don't see it as progress.
Then you're not looking. It certainly has a lot of downsides, but there doesn't seem to be any other way to develop the kind of society that can afford to waste time romanticizing the short, hellish life that our ancestors spent the last two centuries trying to escape.
The claim is that the books are written just as he wants them to be. - 2 Timothy 3:16
That's circular reasoning.
The choice is not about good/evil the choice is about believing or not.
OK, but then what? Why would God hide the vast majority of the evidence a fact from me, and then judge me based on being fooled by Him? Then He wants me to thank Him for sacrificing Himself, to Himself, to save me from His own rage at something I didn't do, and He knew would happen ahead of time and could have prevented. I'm sorry, but every time I look more deeply at religious beliefs the more they seem to be a vast network of patches to fix holes in a quilt that wasn't there in the first place.
And from my perspective this is an argument to support a decision not to believe.
An absolute lack of evidence is a perfectly good reason for not being convinced. Right?
There is no evidence for or against, that leaves a bunch of hypotheses on the table to chose from.
True, and that kind of agnosticism seems perfectly reasonable. But you (and others) have actually chosen one of them, and when I try to find out why all I get is a variation of "it fulfills a psychological need" and "you just don't get it".
Unless the theory of evolution is 100% correct, inconclusive and conclusive, we SHOULD be teaching the criticisms of it.
I can't think of anyone who'd disagree.
the relative importance of genetic drift via mutation, theories of abiogenesis, punctuated equilibrium etc. > Exactly. Should these points be banned from classroom discussion or curriculum?
No. Just keep in mind that you can't understand the real controversies until after you understand the theory. So don't be surprised if this type of thing doesn't happen until high school.
And the problem with guys like you is that you are willing to stifle discussion based on your fear that someone may say "God" in a classroom, causing otherwise critically thinking students join a cult.
Sometimes people may overreact, but keep in mind that there's a large-scale, well-funded religious movement that has the stated goal of redefining science to accommodate their non-scientific beliefs. This isn't really about evolution vs creation, or even whether or not God can play a part in scientific explanations, but rather whether or not science will be about the rational study of the universe, or a branch of one particular type of Christian theology.
Answers in Genesis is rather frank about this in their Statement of Faith [4-6]: "By definition, no apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the scriptural record." There simply isn't any way to accommodate that without completely obliterating the basic philosophical foundations of science.
It has gotten to the point where even new discoveries that fall counter to Darwin's conclusion are being challenged because someone, somewhere might bring a Bible to class and say, "see, told ya so."
Citation, please.
Saying that Darwinian evolution can not fully explain the Cambrian explosion should not be a forbidden subject.
It isn't forbidden, it's just completely wrong. Sorry.
Ya know, I couldn't have painted a better picture of a person knowledgeable, but unwilling, to accept if I'd pulled an all-nighter. You made all the arguments I once did. But I'm really not here to talk to you: you've already decided there *IS* a god, and you want to be elsewhere.... But explain-away all you like.
All I see is someone who's weak arguments got crushed again, and who is running back to the same, sad con-man tricks that most religious people use when they get backed into a corner: I used to be like you, but now I'm so much wiser! Elevate one's own ego while lowering someone else's, and try to cover up for the weakness of one's arguments by suggesting that the other person just isn't quite smart/wise/experienced enough to "get it".
As for me, I've already been through the high life. I'm embarrased to tell you all the things I did in Chicago and my hometown before I got saved. Now I live to take care of Mom, 79. We're almost to the bathing-and-wiping phase of her care.
You obviously don't know anything about me - I've never lived anything like a "high life", nor done anything more than mildly embarrassing. And perhaps you need the support of a fantasy character to do good in life, but some of us manage to take care of the less fortunate (foster kids in my case) without that crutch.
Be sure to tell all your friends that God is just an inventive tool that makes people buy things and displays for all the idiocy they have to the 'real people'.
Religion is far more than that, and you don't have to be and idiot to believe. But a bad argument is still a bad argument even if the conclusion does turn out to be true.
Remember the Pope, throwing a Copernicus into home-arrest for suggesting we're on just one of the planets circling the sun, we're NOT the center of the universe? Bad theology.
No, that's just bad politics - suppressing the opposition is just what humans do. I would suggest that all theology is bad, though.
Then someone finds a trilobite (compound eyes, vertebrae, complete digestion system)
Trilobites don't have vertebrae.
and it's the oldest animal in the fossil records, other than the "carpet mold" of the pre-Cambrian era? Bad science.
No, it's not.
4. Judeo/Christian: "The Earth is suspended from nothing". There's your datapoint, late in Genesis. How would mankind KNOW this?
They didn't, it's just that six word out of tens of thousands happens to agree with modern science. Of course, you've conveniently left out the vast sections of text that are completely inconsistent with modern science.
http://doesgodexist.com/
I got through "A PRACTICAL MAN'S PROOF OF GOD", and it's the same story. Yes, Christian ideas on one aspect of a single topic turned out to be somewhat more accurate than what some non-Christians believed at one particular point in time. That isn't compelling evidence, especially in light of the other details on origins that the Bible didn't get right, and the vast number of unrelated things the Bible is just plain wrong about.
To the best of my knowledge, no one can prove God exists, and no one can prove that he does not.
I agree
If he were to come and prove himself to you, your only choice would be between obedience and rebellion.
OK, but what's wrong with that? Satan and the fallen angels, Judas and other "bad examples", and Moses and many of the "good examples" are given that proof. So what's the issue?
If we Christians are right, then patently, he wants our faith and belief, not knowledge.
But why? This isn't asking us to trust Him (it's asking us to trust old books), it isn't asking us to choose to be good (which we could choose just as freely with clear proof of His existence, see above). So, other than covering up for a lack of evidence, what's the purpose of this "test"?
From my perspective, this is simply the kind of rationalization people come up with when they want to make excuses for a lack of evidence. It does a good job of making believers feel like they have good reasons for their beliefs, but doesn't provide an actual good reason.
Wow...you are a selfish one..
He was a bit crude about it, and might have exaggerated the lack of choice involved, but wanting to make your own medical decisions isn't really "selfish".
What is a 15 min surgery for a man is a much bigger/riskier surgery for a woman. With much more risk of problems in later life leading to a second surgery.
You're right, that's a very important point, and something every reasonable person should consider when making this kind of decision.
Unless your a self centered child then it's not a tough choice. Real men step up.
Now that's just messed up - insulting, sexist shaming that's just a repackaged version of "shut up and do as you're told". I always hoped that that kind of BS would die off as women were treated more equally, but it seems to have simply targeted the opposite sex, traded "whore" and "virtuous lady" for "child" and "real man", and kept right on going.
Only an idiot let's his wife talk him into that.... Or is that people own their own bodies stuff only applicable to female bodies?
You can talk someone into (or out of) an abortion, I don't know why a vasectomy would be any different.
On the other hand, it is a good idea to make it clear that the person being operated on is the person who gets to make the decision, and that other people need to respect their choice.
If you're a well-to-do ivy league educated white liberal, you'll be fine. Only undesirables will be targeted.
There are several groups in the US that find well-to-do ivy league educated liberals quite undesirable, and they seem to be the ones with excess firepower...
We don't have to invent anything for an automated mine-factory as opposed to fusion plants.
Right, there are lots of fully automated, remote reparable, mine/factories that work well in vacuum lying around. More importantly, you can't just beam microwaves back to Earth, because the beam will spread out too much. Even if you used visible light, the beam's minimum angular size would be larger than Earth's apparent size from Mercury - basically useless.
Starting fusion is one thing... the NIF best guesstimates for commercial fusion is 2040.
Yes, fusion has problems, all of which are engineering problems rather than problems with physical laws. There isn't a solution to transferring usable amounts of power from one planet to another in the foreseeable future.
...in 30 years we could make quite a few round trips into space and spread out a few square kilometers of thin film PV and support mirror material.
And for a much smaller investment we could convert to nuclear with a side of solar and wind, put together a commercial breeder reactor prototype, and keep researching fusion.
Slashdot Mirror
Contrast this with countries that did not develop with a Christian heritage, and see how far your civil rights go there.
Civil rights, along with most human progress, has been in spite of religion, not because of it.
The notion of Universal Charity was really Jesus' revolutionary message, and it really did transform the world, causing more good as a result of it than any other single idea.
That's just your assertion.
Hitchens, by contrast, think that it is the worst thing that has ever happened to the world.
No, he thinks that it's just superstition. But he does believe that religion was our first (and worst) attempt at philosophy, and that we'd be better off with more modern systems of morals, government, and explanations for natural phenomena.
Nazi ideology was based on the master race theory, which had nothing to do with any of the major religions
So a Catholic person picks up some pagan ideas, expands on the Bible-based blood-libel, leads an army of Catholics and Lutherans under an ancient symbol that was adopted as a modified Christian cross, and takes "God is with us" as a motto for one of its elite units - and it has nothing to do with religion?
communism, which killed about 50 million people in Russia alone
Being non-religious doesn't automatically make you a good person.
most religious people have a conscience which keeps them from taking part in mass misery
And I'd say exactly the opposite. People are born with an innate human morality, and you have to do something to suppress that in order to get atrocities. One way to do that is to replace that innate morality with the psudo-morality of religion.
contrast this with "rational" ideologies which will make arbitrary divisions based on skin color, social class, etc
That has to be the worst defense of religious morality I ever heard. The right to keep the cursed "Hammites" in bondage, the divine right of kings, as well as slavery, tribalism, and mindless submission to authority in general were all based on religion. The "rational ideologies" picked up all those bad habits from religion, not the other way around.
First, Monsanto did claim their GE crops will not cross breed years ago.
I'd like a cite for that.
As for the rest of your post, you have a nice collection of one sided complaints, which is enough to get my attention. But if you want me to really believe that accidental crossing still legally counts as infringement, please get me a copy of a court's decision stating that. If, on the other hand, you just want to say that Monsanto harasses people and sometimes launches suits that are expensive to defend against, then I can't say for certain that you're wrong, but I don't want to 'convict' someone without getting their POV. At least for that claim, I think we'd need more than just an exchange on slashdot to make a strong case either way.
Cheers
They also sue if your non-GM crop is contaminated by another's GM crop.
No, they don't. All of the companies and governments involved clearly say that a certain amount of crossbreeding is inevitable, and not a cause for legal action. But if you go on to encourage that trait to become the norm in your own crops, and then use the trait for your own financial gain, then the companies (and the courts) think you're deliberately making money off of their patented stuff without permission, and they have the right to sue you.
You did not sign a contract but you're sued anyway.
Yes, because you've violated someone's patent. And this isn't a Monsanto or even a GM issue - plant breeders have had legal protection for new varieties since 1930.
One farmer was accused of having Monsanto plants without permission (genetically-engineered pollen infected his naturally-growing corn, and then became GM corn).
Which wouldn't have been a problem if he hadn't deliberately bred his corn to have the GM trait as much as possible, used the GM trait to save himself time and energy, and then sold the crop. This wasn't just accidental corssbreeding.
Another farmer operates a machine that separates seed from the chaff, and he was accused of trying to steal Monsanto's seed (which has no basis on fact).
No, he told people that they could replant seed when they couldn't, and then cleaned the seed for them in preparation for planting. That is: he lied to people so that they would violate their contracts, and then made money off of helping them do so. Even after he was warned to stop.
And yet another farmer was sued just because they wanted to *suspected* her had Monsanto plants, based upon reports from his neighbors. He had not done anything wrong and the case was eventually dismissed, but it still wiped-out his personal savings.
Yes, our legal system needs reform, but this happens anytime someone gets sued and does everything they can not to cooperate with the legal process, not just when Monsanto sues.
It's similar to how RIAA companies tried to sue people with VCRs or recordable Minidiscs.
If you're talking about the people who use VCRs to make copies and then sell them, yes.
Actually those Evil Bastards do produce sterile crop seeds.
Just like everyone else that produces hybrid crops.
For those crops where they don't they might as well be, they sue you into oblivion if you save your seed for later.
Yes, because you sign a contract promising not to do that before you buy the seeds. They also sue you if you don't pay them - oh no!
Did you know those Evil Bastards own 95% of the soybean crop? That there is only 5% of the corp left that is not GMO?
Yes - they make really, really good stuff. So evil.
Just in case someone from that group of Evil Bastards is reading this: I plan on planting non GMO soy, just to keep the strain alive. I will send my heirloom seeds to anyone who wants them, free of charge. Sadly I only have a 10 sq foot area to plant, but I'm going to do it anyway, just to make a point.
Plenty of people do that. But I think you're better off leaving that kind of thing to the people that have a better grasp of what "hybrid" and "signing a contract" mean - like actual farmers.
Also you Evil Bastards: Fuck you
And then they laugh, because when people with no real understanding of a topic throw temper tantrums about how people that disagree with them are evil, that's just what people do. When you understand the difference between "hybrid seed" and "terminator seed", know why Bt corn isn't used anymore, and can explain low-lin soy to me, then I'll take your opinion seriously.
Tell that to Mr. Schmeiser. Never bought their product and was sued by Monsanto because THEY contaminated HIS field.
Almost every open pollinated field gets "contaminated", that's what "open pollination" means. And that isn't what got him in trouble - he deliberately separated out the plants with that particular trait and saved them, used them to grow crops while taking advantage of that trait, and sold them. If he hadn't gone out of his way to use the patented trait without paying for it there wouldn't have been an issue.
Sounds like you just don't want to accept that Monsanto really is as evil as they appear.
Sounds like you just want them to be evil, so you'll just take the other side's word for it, and to hell with their side of the story as well as the opinion of the courts that decided the case.
If there is only one reason to oppose GM crops, it's the terminator crops feature.
So you you oppose GM crops because of a GM technology that isn't actually in any crops?
A 10-year old would have to eat two pounds of Golden Rice a day to fulfill her vitamin A needs, totally impractical.
Sure, but if she's going blind because she's 10% short on Vitamin A having a dose come from the staple crop of her region might make a big difference to her.
-To nitpick, I'm not quite sure if Apollo 13 should be counted as a "success" or not. Nobody died, but only just.
Well, if everyone died, but "only just" you'd still call that a failure, right?
But they failed to complete the mission, right?
Doesn't dark matter have to interact via gravity in order to be responsible for the things it's claimed to be responsible for? If that's the case, why didn't it react with anything?
Right - it did react, but only gravitationally.
It's not as though the regular matter was interacting through electromagnetic, weak, or strong forces in any significant way during the collision. Gravity should have effected both types of matter equally, shouldn't it?
That's true for stars, planets, etc, but most of the baryonic matter matter in the Bullet Cluster is in the form of gas and plasma that does interact electromagnetically. Since gravitational lensing shows that the center of mass is still moving with the matter emitting visible light (stars), even though most of the rest of the mass we can detect directly (gas/plasma via X-rays) has been slowed, we can infer that there's a very massive component of the cluster we can't see that only interacted gravitationally.
There is all that the Bible has to say about the human heart, how we think we are good, but then can turn around and do things that do not qualify as good.
There is wisdom in that, but it's not a very difficult observation to make. I'd find it odd for any culture with a actual philosophy of morality not to discover that.
There is that the religious establishment in the time of Christ's coming rejected him, as predicted.
Like almost any new religion - like the ones started by Muhammad, Joseph Smith, Marshall Applewhite, L. Ron Hubbard, etc.
There are the predictions of Christ's coming in the old Testament.
Well, there's this story about a tax in the Bible that doesn't quite add up when compared to other historical records. But it does happen to make is so that a guy from Nazareth was really born in Bethlehem, so that he could be "born in the city of David", and thus fulfill a prophecy. Couldn't it be that people saw someone they thought could be their messiah, and tweaked things a bit, or at least weren't very skeptical what they heard?
You twice mention "mathematical proof", but that's not what I'm after - heck I'm not even after evidence, since most [intellectual] people admit that there's no evidence. What I want to know is how you can be convinced, when you yourself admit that there's no reason to be convinced.
As to the rest, it isn't a matter of him fooling you, it is you believing or not based on what you have in front of you.
But what do I have in front of me. Nothing!
I understand how you might not be convinced. In equal measure, I am comfortable with believing without mathematical proof of His existence.
No, you are comfortable with believing without any reason, evidence or argument of any kind.
And that's the real issue. If I came to you, certain that X was true, but when you asked why I believed that, I didn't just say that I had no proof, or merely that I completely lacked evidence, but that I didn't even have an argument in support of it, you'd think I was rather odd. Why shouldn't I think that of you under the same circumstances?
Fresh air, clean food, exercise, wide open land.
Fresh air, small amounts of a single staple food mixed with rat droppings, back-breaking labor throughout the growing season, and the tiny plot of land that you must abuse to feed your family.
Stale air, very cold or hot, cramped conditions, sexual abuse ...
Right, because nobody was ever raped in the fields, or died of exposure, heat stroke, animal attacks, drowning,
Why? So you can afford a TV to watch vacuous entertainment? ...
So they can send their kids to school, buy a sewing machine and start their own business, eat a more balanced diet,
I don't see it as progress.
Then you're not looking. It certainly has a lot of downsides, but there doesn't seem to be any other way to develop the kind of society that can afford to waste time romanticizing the short, hellish life that our ancestors spent the last two centuries trying to escape.
The claim is that the books are written just as he wants them to be. - 2 Timothy 3:16
That's circular reasoning.
The choice is not about good/evil the choice is about believing or not.
OK, but then what? Why would God hide the vast majority of the evidence a fact from me, and then judge me based on being fooled by Him? Then He wants me to thank Him for sacrificing Himself, to Himself, to save me from His own rage at something I didn't do, and He knew would happen ahead of time and could have prevented. I'm sorry, but every time I look more deeply at religious beliefs the more they seem to be a vast network of patches to fix holes in a quilt that wasn't there in the first place.
And from my perspective this is an argument to support a decision not to believe.
An absolute lack of evidence is a perfectly good reason for not being convinced. Right?
There is no evidence for or against, that leaves a bunch of hypotheses on the table to chose from.
True, and that kind of agnosticism seems perfectly reasonable. But you (and others) have actually chosen one of them, and when I try to find out why all I get is a variation of "it fulfills a psychological need" and "you just don't get it".
Unless the theory of evolution is 100% correct, inconclusive and conclusive, we SHOULD be teaching the criticisms of it.
I can't think of anyone who'd disagree.
the relative importance of genetic drift via mutation, theories of abiogenesis, punctuated equilibrium etc. > Exactly. Should these points be banned from classroom discussion or curriculum?
No. Just keep in mind that you can't understand the real controversies until after you understand the theory. So don't be surprised if this type of thing doesn't happen until high school.
And the problem with guys like you is that you are willing to stifle discussion based on your fear that someone may say "God" in a classroom, causing otherwise critically thinking students join a cult.
Sometimes people may overreact, but keep in mind that there's a large-scale, well-funded religious movement that has the stated goal of redefining science to accommodate their non-scientific beliefs. This isn't really about evolution vs creation, or even whether or not God can play a part in scientific explanations, but rather whether or not science will be about the rational study of the universe, or a branch of one particular type of Christian theology.
Answers in Genesis is rather frank about this in their Statement of Faith [4-6]: "By definition, no apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the scriptural record." There simply isn't any way to accommodate that without completely obliterating the basic philosophical foundations of science.
It has gotten to the point where even new discoveries that fall counter to Darwin's conclusion are being challenged because someone, somewhere might bring a Bible to class and say, "see, told ya so."
Citation, please.
Saying that Darwinian evolution can not fully explain the Cambrian explosion should not be a forbidden subject.
It isn't forbidden, it's just completely wrong. Sorry.
Ya know, I couldn't have painted a better picture of a person knowledgeable, but unwilling, to accept if I'd pulled an all-nighter. You made all the arguments I once did. But I'm really not here to talk to you: you've already decided there *IS* a god, and you want to be elsewhere. ... But explain-away all you like.
All I see is someone who's weak arguments got crushed again, and who is running back to the same, sad con-man tricks that most religious people use when they get backed into a corner: I used to be like you, but now I'm so much wiser! Elevate one's own ego while lowering someone else's, and try to cover up for the weakness of one's arguments by suggesting that the other person just isn't quite smart/wise/experienced enough to "get it".
As for me, I've already been through the high life. I'm embarrased to tell you all the things I did in Chicago and my hometown before I got saved. Now I live to take care of Mom, 79. We're almost to the bathing-and-wiping phase of her care.
You obviously don't know anything about me - I've never lived anything like a "high life", nor done anything more than mildly embarrassing. And perhaps you need the support of a fantasy character to do good in life, but some of us manage to take care of the less fortunate (foster kids in my case) without that crutch.
Be sure to tell all your friends that God is just an inventive tool that makes people buy things and displays for all the idiocy they have to the 'real people'.
Religion is far more than that, and you don't have to be and idiot to believe. But a bad argument is still a bad argument even if the conclusion does turn out to be true.
Remember the Pope, throwing a Copernicus into home-arrest for suggesting we're on just one of the planets circling the sun, we're NOT the center of the universe? Bad theology.
No, that's just bad politics - suppressing the opposition is just what humans do. I would suggest that all theology is bad, though.
Then someone finds a trilobite (compound eyes, vertebrae, complete digestion system)
Trilobites don't have vertebrae.
and it's the oldest animal in the fossil records, other than the "carpet mold" of the pre-Cambrian era? Bad science.
No, it's not.
4. Judeo/Christian: "The Earth is suspended from nothing". There's your datapoint, late in Genesis. How would mankind KNOW this?
They didn't, it's just that six word out of tens of thousands happens to agree with modern science. Of course, you've conveniently left out the vast sections of text that are completely inconsistent with modern science.
http://doesgodexist.com/
I got through "A PRACTICAL MAN'S PROOF OF GOD", and it's the same story. Yes, Christian ideas on one aspect of a single topic turned out to be somewhat more accurate than what some non-Christians believed at one particular point in time. That isn't compelling evidence, especially in light of the other details on origins that the Bible didn't get right, and the vast number of unrelated things the Bible is just plain wrong about.
To the best of my knowledge, no one can prove God exists, and no one can prove that he does not.
I agree
If he were to come and prove himself to you, your only choice would be between obedience and rebellion.
OK, but what's wrong with that? Satan and the fallen angels, Judas and other "bad examples", and Moses and many of the "good examples" are given that proof. So what's the issue?
If we Christians are right, then patently, he wants our faith and belief, not knowledge.
But why? This isn't asking us to trust Him (it's asking us to trust old books), it isn't asking us to choose to be good (which we could choose just as freely with clear proof of His existence, see above). So, other than covering up for a lack of evidence, what's the purpose of this "test"?
From my perspective, this is simply the kind of rationalization people come up with when they want to make excuses for a lack of evidence. It does a good job of making believers feel like they have good reasons for their beliefs, but doesn't provide an actual good reason.
I can think of a LOT of places where duding a dude would get you kicked out.
Texas?
Wow...you are a selfish one..
He was a bit crude about it, and might have exaggerated the lack of choice involved, but wanting to make your own medical decisions isn't really "selfish".
What is a 15 min surgery for a man is a much bigger/riskier surgery for a woman. With much more risk of problems in later life leading to a second surgery.
You're right, that's a very important point, and something every reasonable person should consider when making this kind of decision.
Unless your a self centered child then it's not a tough choice. Real men step up.
Now that's just messed up - insulting, sexist shaming that's just a repackaged version of "shut up and do as you're told". I always hoped that that kind of BS would die off as women were treated more equally, but it seems to have simply targeted the opposite sex, traded "whore" and "virtuous lady" for "child" and "real man", and kept right on going.
Only an idiot let's his wife talk him into that. ... Or is that people own their own bodies stuff only applicable to female bodies?
You can talk someone into (or out of) an abortion, I don't know why a vasectomy would be any different.
On the other hand, it is a good idea to make it clear that the person being operated on is the person who gets to make the decision, and that other people need to respect their choice.
If you're a well-to-do ivy league educated white liberal, you'll be fine. Only undesirables will be targeted.
There are several groups in the US that find well-to-do ivy league educated liberals quite undesirable, and they seem to be the ones with excess firepower...
Got me on the energy transfer. Haven't even thought about beam spread out.
No big deal.
Regarding nuclear, I'm a big fan of breeders, let's hope governments will come to their senses soon.
Amen, brother.
We don't have to invent anything for an automated mine-factory as opposed to fusion plants.
Right, there are lots of fully automated, remote reparable, mine/factories that work well in vacuum lying around. More importantly, you can't just beam microwaves back to Earth, because the beam will spread out too much. Even if you used visible light, the beam's minimum angular size would be larger than Earth's apparent size from Mercury - basically useless.
Starting fusion is one thing ... the NIF best guesstimates for commercial fusion is 2040.
Yes, fusion has problems, all of which are engineering problems rather than problems with physical laws. There isn't a solution to transferring usable amounts of power from one planet to another in the foreseeable future.
And for a much smaller investment we could convert to nuclear with a side of solar and wind, put together a commercial breeder reactor prototype, and keep researching fusion.