Which kind of geology do they actually use, mainstream or "Flood geology", and what does that say about which kind actually delivers the goods?
The creationists are not fazed by such trivia. God created the oil there and the coal where it is so that it looks like it was created naturally. I once spoke with a creationist and pointed out the fact that we are able to see stars that are millions of light-years away. The light that we are seeing has therefore been in transit for millions (or billions) of years. When I asked him about this his response was as immediate as it was "convincing", God created the light in transit.
There is no way you can use evidence to convince these lunatics. If you are a superstitious person who tend towards "magical" thinking, in other words, if you believe in gods, tooth fairies, Santa Clauses and other magical entities, no amount of evidence will convince you that you are wrong. Evidence is irrelevant in the lives of these people. You have to tackle them at a slightly different level. As a contrived example:
Assume the creationists are right. God created the earth and the universe as we see it. He is all mighty and all powerful. He intentionally created the universe so that it looks like it is far older. Most creationists will readily admit that he did so in a debate. In fact, in most debates you don't have to make this point, the creationist will tell you that God intentionally created the world and the universe to look really old to test our faith. Either make that point or accept it. So you are left with some facts that a creationist can easily accept: (1) God created the world. (2) He created humans with brains so that we have the ability to analyze the world. (3) God created the world so that it looks really old.
What does that make God? It makes God into a lying sack of shit not worthy any sane persons respect. Individuals, be they people or deities, who habitually lie, cheat and steal should be shunned and banned from polite society, not respected and cherished. If God is the way the creationists say he is, we should spit in his face, not dedicate beautiful buildings to him.
Please note that I am not saying that God is the way they say he is, or that he is at all. I am just presenting them with the inevitable conclusion of their absurd belief.
And don't get me started on divine entities that demand human sacrifice (God and Abraham, remember) to test faith. Oh, and remember Job, the poor dude who was the victim of a bet between God and Satan (according to that horrible book they call the bible)? The two deities have a bet and in the process they slaughter this guys family, strikes him with deceases too horrible to live with, takes away his life, property, dignity etc. Any entity that does that to a human being just because they have a bet with another entity deserves only one thing from me, my complete, total and utter contempt.
The one thing I really don't get in these debates is why it is so hard for the current generation to understand the relatively simple concept of sarcasm. Our school system is failing completely, even when it educates people in science.
So now answer this: Does this 1,000 year peak of sunspots explain global climate change?
I think the poster just pointed out the fact that you had apparently not read the article you referred. The article clearly states that increased sunspot activity means higher solar radiation output, not as you implied, lower.
Do we know that this is the cause of climate change? No, we don't. Not enough scientific investigation into this is taking place simply due to the fact that the current litany is that CO2 emissions are the main problem. Sadly this debate is far too hooked up in dogma. Dogma and science are diametrically opposite.
No, it doesn't, but the argument is far too long to deal with in a/. comment. You can read about it in many places. Whether this is good science or not is still debatable, and I am not saying I agree with it, just pointing out that your assumption about hot sun = hot climate, cold sun = cold climate is wrong. The variation in temperature on the surface of the sun doesn't mean that there is an equivalent variation in the temperature on earth. Quite the opposite could in fact be the case, but as I said, you'd have to read a little about it first.
What most of the 'global warming' controversy is centers on "are humans contributing?"
Actually, no, that isn't really what the controversy centers on. The controversy centers on to what degree humans are contributing, and of that contribution (due to the fervor of the global warming enthusiasts) what part of that contribution is caused by CO2. If only a part of global warming is caused by human activity, and only part of that is caused by CO2 emissions, then a reduction in these emissions will have a negligible, or even no effect on global warming.
the answer is absolutely undeniably: Yes
The answer is absolutely undeniably "Maybe, depends on what you are talking about".
The problem with the global warming enthusiasts is their monomanic focus on western "life-style" issues is that they are concentrating on areas that, even if implemented, will have little or no effect on the issue at hand, namely warming. This focus seems to come from the standard left-leaning political camp where all problems are caused by western consumers, and all solutions are centered around decreasing our standards of living.
The problem with the discussion is the bizarre focus that the global warming enthusiasts have for who they target for emissions reduction. Let me use illustration with made up numbers on natural vs human-caused warming, but just the same...:
Let's assume that 70% of the global warming is human caused. We know that CO2 contributes somewhere between 10 and 25% of the warming, so let's assume high and say 20%. This means that of the total global warming, somewhere around 15%, is caused by human emitted CO2 (please, I am no mathematician, if my numbers are way off, correct me politely, but the exact numbers are not that relevant). Now, interestingly, 1/3 or more of the total CO2 emissions are caused by China and other countries that are not part of the Kyoto agreement. So, for the Kyoto countries (and the US), the only ones that matter in this discussion, CO2 emissions account for about 10% of the total problem, that is all CO2 emissions put together. Just for fun, I'll ignore this fact. This means I am giving the global warming lobby more rope than they deserve.
Now, this is an interesting starting point. CO2, in the countries that are urged by the IPCC to change their behavior, is only 15% of the total warming picture. Round numbers of course. Of that 15%, less than half, but let's be generous, is caused by the burning of Petroleum. So, we are down to 7.5%. Cool. 7.5% is still a significant number. So, what is one of the pet topics of the global warming lobby? The airline industry. We have to fly less. Al Gore was booed at a meeting for flying. The airline industry, if we are generous, uses somewhere around 10% of the petroleum products in the world. So, one of the pet targets of the global warming lobby causes 0.8% or so of the global warming. Even if we ground all flights, the impact on global warming will be very close to 0. Please note that this doesn't change materially even if 100% of the global warming is caused by human activity.
I am aware that airplanes also contribute a good amount of water vapor, but that isn't my point. My point is that the targets of the global warming lobby are silly and childish. They are not asking us to make meaningful changes to our lifestyle, they are asking us to make token changes that will have little or no effect on global warming, but they'll make us all feel a lot better.
The problem with this approach is two-fold. The first one is blatantly obvious, we are not solving any problems, just making us feel better. Then second is far more problematic, and the reason I focused a little on the airline industry.
The internationalization of the world economy has had an enormous impact on the lives of the worlds population. With minor, and rather insignificant, exceptions these changes have been positive. Th
Continue to pay a premium for content for your player knowing that you'll probably have to do this firmware shuffle at least twice a year.
Why do you think that the use will have to do this "twice a year"? Do you really think that the people will hack a particular version of a particular BR/HDDVD player twice a year? Hacking WinDVD isn't that hard, it is probably harder today than it was before it was patched, but it is still probably possible given time and patience. How do you expect "the community" hack the Samsung DVD players? Twice a year?
I won't quickly give that up for a few more lines of resolution
Well, perhaps we are just seeing your ignorance here...
The problem now is the pressure that immigrants are putting on the system. If immigration tipped the scale, then immigration is the problem
Immigration didn't tip any kind of scale. The problem is that there was a policy change. Before the early '80s, immigrants were allowed in. Immigrants. After that, only "refugees" were allowed in. Is there a difference? Yes there is, the immigrants had jobs before they arrived, the "refugees" are not allowed to work for months or even years after they arrive. That is a change in policy, not in people.
If you think that our doors closed in the '70s, then I'm afraid that you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. The vast, *vast* majority of immigrants in Scandinavian countries are there as a result of family reunification, which until the late '90s was a free pass into the country
Family reunification for whom? For the refugees that have been let into the country for years. Not for the pre-1980s immigrants. The pre-1980s immigrants are doing quite well. Far better than the population in general. Why did that change? What changed in the early '80s?
BTW, even though I would have to check the numbers, I think you are seriously wrong about the sources of immigration. As far as I know the vast majority of immigrants to the Scandinavian countries still come from the other Scandinavian countries. Britain and Germany are probable also up there at the top, and so is probably also the poorer EU countries these days, countries like the Baltic states and Poland. The immigrants from non-European countries are probably relatively low on the list still, even though they are the source of the majority problems that involves immigrants.
It's obvious that this isn't a policy issue, but an issue of incompatibility with the system. This inherently means that there won't be an issue for the first few years, but as immigration increases, the problem will increase with it exponentially. That's logical.
Wrong again. The problem didn't increase from pre-1980s to post-1980s, the situation changed dramatically. The immigrants were less criminal, better employed etc than the Scandinavian population in general. They did better than us in all measurable areas. Then we stopped immigration and turned to a policy where we allowed "refugees" instead. Then suddenly immigrants became more violent and more criminal than the population in general.
If this was just a "manageable problem" when immigration was small, a problem that became unmanageable when immigration became large, then immigrants pre-1980s would have exhibited the same behavior as you see now, but on a scale so small that it would not have been a problem. They would have been more criminal than the population in general, had higher unemployment etc. That is not the case. Pre 1980s, they were less criminal than you and I (we are now the representatives of the average Scandinavian), better employed etc. This isn't a problem that became worse with increased immigration, this is a situation that changed dramatically when we changed our immigration policy.
We see a dramatic shift when we go from immigration to "refugees", and since that was the main change, perhaps we did something wrong there. It is also interesting to note that US, which did not go from immigration to "refugees" have not seen the same problem.
The reason immigrants find easier employment in the US is that they're forced into it by the system in place.
Are you dense? What is it that you are saying over? You are saying that the immigrants in the US are doing well because of "the system in place". What does "the system in place" mean? It is the policies of the government. The law of the land. The way things work. So, you are saying that the immigrants in Europe are doing poorly because they are lazy shits, but the same immigr
When you don't agree with me, what you're saying is essentially that you expect the government of a country to change the way the country works to cater to immigrants. Sorry, that's not how immigration works. Immigrants integrate into the system of the country, the system doesn't change to cater to the immigrants.
I am not saying you should change the system to "cater to immigrants", quite the opposite, you should change the system so that you stop catering to lazy shits. The reason Europe has an immigration problem is that Europe wants to put all of its immigrants on the dole. Fine. If having them on the dole is what Europe wants, then that is what Europe gets, but then you can't complain that you have a problem. You have exactly what you wanted.
As you yourself agree, immigrants themselves choose not to work. Not through any "active encouragement" as you put it.
Rubbish. Of course it is actively encouraged. When a "political refugee" arrives into a typical European country he is not allowed to work. He is forced to take social welfare. This situation lasts, depending on the country, anywhere from 6 months to several (4, 5 6) years. Forcing someone onto social welfare for this amount of time conditions them to continue on social welfare. There is your encouragement.
when our doors were wide open, and immigration, integration and getting a job was *considerably* easier and government help with employment much more readily available, the same thing happened.
No, it didn't. The Scandinavian countries have had a no-immigration policy in place since the late '70s early '80s. Immigrants who arrived prior to the implementation of the no-immigration policy did a lot better than the current immigrant population, not only that, they did better than the Scandinavian population on average.
Please tell me, if this isn't a policy issue, why didn't it become a problem until we (including me in the Scandinavians now) changed our policy on immigration?
Perhaps the immigrants should think about finding a country they appreciate and where they can actually earn their keep
They can, and they do. Remember, the US does not have these problems. Why? Any ideas? Do you think it has anything to do with the different policies in the US and Europe?
instead of barging in, settling down and then doing nothing but complain while sitting at home on welfare instead of being out looking for a job like the rest of us.
If I was allowed to stay in a country, but barred from working for 3 years after arriving, I think I would become malcontent as well. How about you? If, on the other hand, I came to a country where I knew they would allow me to work, and kick me out of the country after 6 weeks if I didn't have a job, maybe I would go looking for one.
Again, the US doesn't have this problem. Why? Do we only get the good immigrants over here?
Someone who is actively, and visually, engaged in disruptive work against a totalitarian government. Now, I do know that there are more than 100, don't get me wrong, but Europe receives thousands and thousands of "political refugees" each year. People who have never voiced opposition against any government and who have never been persecuted for anything.
Very close to 100% of the "refugees" coming to Europe are convenience "refugees". The European governments should act accordingly.
Note that the US doesn't have this number of "political refugees" coming in. Why? Because they know that there is no social welfare system in the US that will feed them.
Doesn't matter how long you've lived in Europe - What you're spreading is FUD.
FUD? Do you even know what FUD is? No, I am no spreading "FUD", but some may say I spread lies about Europe. I do not. I was born and raised in Norway. I have worked in several European countries, and I have been gainfully employed in the US for a good few years now. As opposed to most Europeans (and Americans for that matter), I have experience enough to know what I am talking about.
The high unemployment rates amongst immigrants in Europe has nothing to do with the government
It doesn't? Please educate me. How can it be that when a major news organization followed two groups of Somali immigrants, one settled in Europe (Germany) and one in Phoenix AZ, after one year out of Somalia, every family in the Phoenix group had at least one full-time employed member, while the group in Germany had zero employed people, full or part time. Did the US get all the "good" Somalis and Germany all the lazy shits? Unlikely. The Germans got the same Somalis, but they hadn't been able to get them work permits yet, in fact 6 months later (18 months after landing in Germany), most of them still were not allowed to work. At that stage they were all happy enough on the dole, and well on their way to doing what so many immigrants do in Europe, generate generation upon generation of unemployed children.
Why do people find work in the US? Well, because when you immigrate to the US, you work or you starve. Simple enough. You no work - you no eat.
A lot of them don't even bother learning the language through -free- courses offered by the government.... Simply because they don't want to.
Who cares? You don't speak the language -> you don't work. You don't work -> you and your kids starve. Simple. They'll learn. Don't put them om welfare. Remember: "Nød lærer nøgen kvinde at spinde". Wise words. In an effort to be "nice" to the immigrants, those words are forgotten and the "nice" becomes a behavior that hurts both the immigrant and the host country.
I despise the fact that people bitch and moan about the government of my country being harsh on immigration, but Denmark *is* a welfare state.
Welfare for people who get into trouble in their life is good. Once they have earned it. Stepping onto Danish ground doesn't make you deserve it. The fact that the European governments not only allow, but actively encourages their immigrant population to stay on the dole is the reason Europe has an immigration problem. Well, a major reason. The second reason is that Europe in general has a no immigration policy. Europe doesn't accept any immigrants in fact, only refugees, political refugees in general. Bad idea. Stop accepting them. They don't really exist. There are perhaps 100 real political refugees in the world, the rest of the refugees are convenience refugees. Don't accept them. If someone comes to Denmark and claims political asylum, check the person against a list of known persecuted political active figures in his country (usually less than 10). If he's not on the list, put him on the next plane back to his country. If he doesn't have papers, put him on a plane back to the country his flight came in from.
Immigrants are generally good for the country. Let them in. Let them bring their family. Let them work from the day they set foot on Danish soil. If they do not have a job within 6 weeks of arriving, ship them back out. Any immigrant accepted into Denmark should be required to have an open-ended return ticket. If he can't prove that he can support him self within 6 weeks, make him use the return ticket.
Denmark had a long history of being a friendly and tolerant nation for many decades in the past, but since the mid 90s, things have really gone downhill. Not because of the Danish government
Scotland? You are kidding right? In Glasgow the life expectancy is somewhere around the same as poor countries in Africa. The average male above age 40 has less than 30% of his own teeth left. Why would one move to Scotland?
As an immigrant living in the US, and spending a lot of time elsewhere: If you like to work and want to get ahead in the world, move to the US. You'll do well.
If you enjoy being on unemployed (and basically unemployable) on the dole, sucking the government for its last few dimes, hate working, love the fact that none of the "native" inhabitants of your new country will speak to you except for the cops, move to Europe. What is the unemployment rate of immigrants in France? 40%? 50%? And that is after the government has found "for dole" work for a large number of them.
Given the fact that the same immigrants, when they come to the US, find work, settle down, buy a house etc, this is not a problem with the immigrants but a problem with the governments of Europe.
Oh, yes, I lived the first 30 or so years of my life in Europe. I don't think I'll go back. I am writing this from Australia, perhaps my next destination.
Secondly from the dictionary. "atheism - the theory or belief that God does not exist." Oxford American Dictionary.
This is, interestingly enough, one of those few areas where the compact version of the OED is flat out wrong. Sadly I do not subscribe to the full dictionary, and it would be very interesting to read what it says. In the mean time I can recommend this article on what atheism is and is not.
BTW, Webster is a lot better in this particular area: atheism: (from Greek atheos, "godless, not believing in the existence of gods) 1a: disbelief in the existence of God or any other deity disbelieve: vt to hold not to be true or real; reject or withhold belief in. ti to withhold or reject belief.
In this case Webster is right on the money. Disbelief in God where disbelief is to reject belief (which is not the same as to reject the existence of).
If I say I think that an atheist is an absurd stance then yes that should be left out of public because it's derogatory to others.
Sigh. So you don't even know what the term "absurd" means? Why don't we take a look in Merriam Webster... absurd - having no rational or orderly relationship to human life - please note the word "rational". The fact that you think that my characterization of religion as absurd is derogatory just shows how sensitive you are about the subject. The fact is that any religion, per definition, is absurd. Absurd is just a word with a specific meaning, the fact that you find it derogatory is a problem for you, but there is no rational basis for you finding it derogatory. It is just a description. Accurate too. A religious belief is absurd, per definition. I am not voicing an opinion.
Killing people because they don't share the same religion.
Huh??? I'm sorry, I don't follow you. Are you trying to imply that the US invaded Iraq because the people of Iraq are of a different religion than the people of the US? What on earth gave you that idea?
So congress can not create a religion where does it say Congress must belief that God does not exist.
Sigh. Why is this always so difficult with you religious people. Let me try to take it really slow for you, so that perhaps you understand. Atheism is not the "belief that god does not exist", atheism is the "lack of belief in god". Do you understand the difference? Congress can have no system of religion, none whatsoever. That means that Congress as an institution has to be a-religious, note, they can not be anti-religious, just a-religious, as in "have no religion". It does not have to decide that there is no god, it just has to act according to the constitution, which says they have to be a-religious, or atheist if you want.
Again, an atheist can't say: "There is no god", only "I have no belief in God". Even Dawkins, who is the most vocal of atheists these days, clearly says that he can not positively say that there is no gods. Dawkins is a scientists and knows that a negative can not be proven.
An atheist has the same relationship with gods as he has with invisible pink unicorns, he simply doesn't run around believing in them. It would not be sensible for an atheist to say that there is for sure no invisible pink unicorns, but believing in them is absurd, as in "having no rational relationship to human life".
OK maybe not intolerant but insulting not the less. Calling somebodies faith absurd is insulting.
It is a statement of value based on my opinion. Sadly stating ones opinion has become taboo in this country lately. I lament that fact.
As I asked before, what part of the US as a state do you think is not atheist?
Iraq war. Muslim crusades (I mean war of terror sorry)
You have listed two items that are probably not based on religion at all. Why would that make the US a theist state? Also, given the fact that these are actions taken based on executive privilege, not based on a policy of the state as such, they do not say anything at all about the state.
The fact that the basis of our freedom comes from a Creator
So the fact that our constitution and the works related to this explicitly states that the US is an atheist state doesn't bother you at all. Perhaps that should not surprise me. Religious people tend to cling to their superstitions no matter what input they get from reality.
Oh, and BTW, the Declaration of Independence is not part of US law, so what it says really doesn't define what the US, as an entity, is.
Most religions have room for some level of tolerance where it seems you do not
Did you find any lack of tolerance in my statements? Did you find any place where I argued that religious people should not allowed to continue their behavior? I think you have some problem understanding the concept of "tolerance".
I think you should read Ben Franklin and Jefferson's notes on considering the difference between public and private religion.
I have, which is why I say that these guys would puke when politicians of today argue for more religion in the public space. I have no problem with religion in the private space, the state as such is, and should always be, non-religious however, or atheist if you wish. That is in our constitution.
Because US is not and never will be an atheist state
Of course it is. What about the US as a state is not atheist? The state as such is a-religious, that is the only way it can protect the free worship of all religions in the country. As I asked before, what part of the US as a state do you think is not atheist?
The USA was NEVER an atheist state! It was founded on freedom of religion
Sorry, but you are 100% wrong. Atheism is a significant foundation of the US. The US is an a-religious state, which is the only way to guarantee freedom of religious worship for everybody who lives within it. This does not mean that it's citizens or even leaders are atheist, just that the state as an institution is.
I am actually a little surprised you protest this, since it is self-evident from our constitution and related documents.
I feel a profound peace and much higher sense of connectedness to the world and my fellow man after church. That is good enough for me.
I am happy for you that it works for you, but I also feel profoundly sorry that you need to delve into the halls of mysticism and absurdity to find meaning in your life. Wouldn't it be better if you could find purpose an meaning without inventing an all-good, punishing, caring and eternal-damnation-creating Santa Claus pulling the strings from behind that curtain and those mirrors?
That's why the early Christian church grew from one insignificant death to envoloping the Roman Empire despite continuous persecutions
Sigh. No, that is not why Christianity grew. On the other hand, any scholar or someone just interested in the topic knows a lot about why Christianity grew. You obviously don't know anything about it. It didn't really have any thing with its morals at all, but it did have a lot to do with the problem of polytheism in societies that were developing more and more advanced thought systems.
A slight oversimplification would say something like: Christianity is what you get when you spread monotheistic Judaism into the intellectual systems of Greece at around that time. Christianity was, as is most of this stuff, an accident of time, not the result of some divine dude taking human form.
The funny thing is that your misplaced sarcasm, with zero content, masks entirely the fact that you could not point to a single new thought in Christianity of the time, which kinda proves my point, now doesn't it?
The Humanist ethics considered the norm in Western Countries are the direct outgrowth of Christian morals
BZZZT! Wrong! This is a common belief within the Christian societies though, and Christians love to believe this. There is very close to zero effect of the Christian believes in our law and moral systems however. Most of it pre-dates Christianity by a significant margin.
One of the fun things to as Christians about when they argue as above is to ask them to quantify it. How many of the 10 commandments and the teachings of Jesus has ended up as law in the country where you live? The answer is, interestingly enough, a wholly insignificant amount.
If I can come up with a scientific test that proves or disproves the existance of a supernatural being.
You can't come up with a scientific test that disproves something unless that something is extremely specific and contains something that is self-contradictory. There are many versions of God that can be disproved. The concept "God" or "a supernatural being" is far to vague to disprove.
It is also not possible for you to come up with a test that proves that there are no blue swans with yellow spots in the forest. The swans go invisible if you look at them btw. You can't prove they exist. You can also not prove that in my carpet there are no small green goblins, less than 1 micron tall, that are highly intelligent and also able to move away from any person looking for them with such speed that you can not find them.
Believing in blue, invisible, yellow-spotted swans or green goblins in the carpet is something we leave behind as we grow out of childhood. For some reason that is not the case with our belief in God. Given the fact that there is no substantial difference between these belief systems, that is rather bizarre. Most Christians are even able to drop their faith in Santa Claus, but God lingers until they die. As the article states, this being a physical defect seems reasonable.
Then why do athiests attempt to stop religious believes
Why do you think they do? Of course teaching children to believe in something that is fundamentally illogical and absurd is harmful to their mental development, that should be self evident. Parents should be allowed to mentally hold back their kids in this way, that is the prerogative of the parents. Schools on the other hand should not be allowed to expose small children to such nonsense however.
What about remove the In God we trust movement
These are just people who would like our politicians to look at the constitution and the other documents that are the basis of USA as a state. Remember, The US was created as an atheist state, and the constant drive to add religion to our public life would make our founding fathers vomit in disgust. In fact, every time some religious nut politician invokes the phrase "founding fathers", if Jefferson was able to watch, it would be puke city.
Why is it that people in the US have not yet been able to come to terms with the fact that the US is an atheist state?
Oh, and the "under God" part was added to the pledge in 1954, and it was a retarded addition that Eisenhower should have pissed on, not signed.
What religious people seem to fail to comprehend is that atheism is not a religious belief, it is the lack of religious belief.
Wrong. You describe something known as "agnosticism"... For all x, not God(x)
BZZZT! Wrong! An atheist is not someone who has the belief that there is no divine entities. At least not a scientific atheist. You can not prove the non-existence of anything.
An atheist has the same relationship to God as he has to blue swans with yellow spots and green beaks with teeth in the forests who goes invisible when you look at them (and that are therefore incredibly difficult to find). You can't prove that such beings do not exist, but the very question of their existence is just a little silly. Of course there may be a god, as there may well be swans in the forest with the afore mentioned characteristics, but it seems rather far fetched.
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The creationists are not fazed by such trivia. God created the oil there and the coal where it is so that it looks like it was created naturally. I once spoke with a creationist and pointed out the fact that we are able to see stars that are millions of light-years away. The light that we are seeing has therefore been in transit for millions (or billions) of years. When I asked him about this his response was as immediate as it was "convincing", God created the light in transit.
There is no way you can use evidence to convince these lunatics. If you are a superstitious person who tend towards "magical" thinking, in other words, if you believe in gods, tooth fairies, Santa Clauses and other magical entities, no amount of evidence will convince you that you are wrong. Evidence is irrelevant in the lives of these people. You have to tackle them at a slightly different level. As a contrived example:
Assume the creationists are right. God created the earth and the universe as we see it. He is all mighty and all powerful. He intentionally created the universe so that it looks like it is far older. Most creationists will readily admit that he did so in a debate. In fact, in most debates you don't have to make this point, the creationist will tell you that God intentionally created the world and the universe to look really old to test our faith. Either make that point or accept it. So you are left with some facts that a creationist can easily accept: (1) God created the world. (2) He created humans with brains so that we have the ability to analyze the world. (3) God created the world so that it looks really old.
What does that make God? It makes God into a lying sack of shit not worthy any sane persons respect. Individuals, be they people or deities, who habitually lie, cheat and steal should be shunned and banned from polite society, not respected and cherished. If God is the way the creationists say he is, we should spit in his face, not dedicate beautiful buildings to him.
Please note that I am not saying that God is the way they say he is, or that he is at all. I am just presenting them with the inevitable conclusion of their absurd belief.
And don't get me started on divine entities that demand human sacrifice (God and Abraham, remember) to test faith. Oh, and remember Job, the poor dude who was the victim of a bet between God and Satan (according to that horrible book they call the bible)? The two deities have a bet and in the process they slaughter this guys family, strikes him with deceases too horrible to live with, takes away his life, property, dignity etc. Any entity that does that to a human being just because they have a bet with another entity deserves only one thing from me, my complete, total and utter contempt.
The one thing I really don't get in these debates is why it is so hard for the current generation to understand the relatively simple concept of sarcasm. Our school system is failing completely, even when it educates people in science.
According to Wikipedia it is between 9 and 26%.
I think the poster just pointed out the fact that you had apparently not read the article you referred. The article clearly states that increased sunspot activity means higher solar radiation output, not as you implied, lower.
Do we know that this is the cause of climate change? No, we don't. Not enough scientific investigation into this is taking place simply due to the fact that the current litany is that CO2 emissions are the main problem. Sadly this debate is far too hooked up in dogma. Dogma and science are diametrically opposite.
No, it doesn't, but the argument is far too long to deal with in a /. comment. You can read about it in many places. Whether this is good science or not is still debatable, and I am not saying I agree with it, just pointing out that your assumption about hot sun = hot climate, cold sun = cold climate is wrong. The variation in temperature on the surface of the sun doesn't mean that there is an equivalent variation in the temperature on earth. Quite the opposite could in fact be the case, but as I said, you'd have to read a little about it first.
Actually, no, that isn't really what the controversy centers on. The controversy centers on to what degree humans are contributing, and of that contribution (due to the fervor of the global warming enthusiasts) what part of that contribution is caused by CO2. If only a part of global warming is caused by human activity, and only part of that is caused by CO2 emissions, then a reduction in these emissions will have a negligible, or even no effect on global warming.
The answer is absolutely undeniably "Maybe, depends on what you are talking about".
The problem with the global warming enthusiasts is their monomanic focus on western "life-style" issues is that they are concentrating on areas that, even if implemented, will have little or no effect on the issue at hand, namely warming. This focus seems to come from the standard left-leaning political camp where all problems are caused by western consumers, and all solutions are centered around decreasing our standards of living.
The problem with the discussion is the bizarre focus that the global warming enthusiasts have for who they target for emissions reduction. Let me use illustration with made up numbers on natural vs human-caused warming, but just the same...:
Let's assume that 70% of the global warming is human caused. We know that CO2 contributes somewhere between 10 and 25% of the warming, so let's assume high and say 20%. This means that of the total global warming, somewhere around 15%, is caused by human emitted CO2 (please, I am no mathematician, if my numbers are way off, correct me politely, but the exact numbers are not that relevant). Now, interestingly, 1/3 or more of the total CO2 emissions are caused by China and other countries that are not part of the Kyoto agreement. So, for the Kyoto countries (and the US), the only ones that matter in this discussion, CO2 emissions account for about 10% of the total problem, that is all CO2 emissions put together. Just for fun, I'll ignore this fact. This means I am giving the global warming lobby more rope than they deserve.
Now, this is an interesting starting point. CO2, in the countries that are urged by the IPCC to change their behavior, is only 15% of the total warming picture. Round numbers of course. Of that 15%, less than half, but let's be generous, is caused by the burning of Petroleum. So, we are down to 7.5%. Cool. 7.5% is still a significant number. So, what is one of the pet topics of the global warming lobby? The airline industry. We have to fly less. Al Gore was booed at a meeting for flying. The airline industry, if we are generous, uses somewhere around 10% of the petroleum products in the world. So, one of the pet targets of the global warming lobby causes 0.8% or so of the global warming. Even if we ground all flights, the impact on global warming will be very close to 0. Please note that this doesn't change materially even if 100% of the global warming is caused by human activity.
I am aware that airplanes also contribute a good amount of water vapor, but that isn't my point. My point is that the targets of the global warming lobby are silly and childish. They are not asking us to make meaningful changes to our lifestyle, they are asking us to make token changes that will have little or no effect on global warming, but they'll make us all feel a lot better.
The problem with this approach is two-fold. The first one is blatantly obvious, we are not solving any problems, just making us feel better. Then second is far more problematic, and the reason I focused a little on the airline industry.
The internationalization of the world economy has had an enormous impact on the lives of the worlds population. With minor, and rather insignificant, exceptions these changes have been positive. Th
Why do you think that the use will have to do this "twice a year"? Do you really think that the people will hack a particular version of a particular BR/HDDVD player twice a year? Hacking WinDVD isn't that hard, it is probably harder today than it was before it was patched, but it is still probably possible given time and patience. How do you expect "the community" hack the Samsung DVD players? Twice a year?
Well, perhaps we are just seeing your ignorance here...
Immigration didn't tip any kind of scale. The problem is that there was a policy change. Before the early '80s, immigrants were allowed in. Immigrants. After that, only "refugees" were allowed in. Is there a difference? Yes there is, the immigrants had jobs before they arrived, the "refugees" are not allowed to work for months or even years after they arrive. That is a change in policy, not in people.
Family reunification for whom? For the refugees that have been let into the country for years. Not for the pre-1980s immigrants. The pre-1980s immigrants are doing quite well. Far better than the population in general. Why did that change? What changed in the early '80s?
BTW, even though I would have to check the numbers, I think you are seriously wrong about the sources of immigration. As far as I know the vast majority of immigrants to the Scandinavian countries still come from the other Scandinavian countries. Britain and Germany are probable also up there at the top, and so is probably also the poorer EU countries these days, countries like the Baltic states and Poland. The immigrants from non-European countries are probably relatively low on the list still, even though they are the source of the majority problems that involves immigrants.
Wrong again. The problem didn't increase from pre-1980s to post-1980s, the situation changed dramatically. The immigrants were less criminal, better employed etc than the Scandinavian population in general. They did better than us in all measurable areas. Then we stopped immigration and turned to a policy where we allowed "refugees" instead. Then suddenly immigrants became more violent and more criminal than the population in general.
If this was just a "manageable problem" when immigration was small, a problem that became unmanageable when immigration became large, then immigrants pre-1980s would have exhibited the same behavior as you see now, but on a scale so small that it would not have been a problem. They would have been more criminal than the population in general, had higher unemployment etc. That is not the case. Pre 1980s, they were less criminal than you and I (we are now the representatives of the average Scandinavian), better employed etc. This isn't a problem that became worse with increased immigration, this is a situation that changed dramatically when we changed our immigration policy.
We see a dramatic shift when we go from immigration to "refugees", and since that was the main change, perhaps we did something wrong there. It is also interesting to note that US, which did not go from immigration to "refugees" have not seen the same problem.
Are you dense? What is it that you are saying over? You are saying that the immigrants in the US are doing well because of "the system in place". What does "the system in place" mean? It is the policies of the government. The law of the land. The way things work. So, you are saying that the immigrants in Europe are doing poorly because they are lazy shits, but the same immigr
I am not saying you should change the system to "cater to immigrants", quite the opposite, you should change the system so that you stop catering to lazy shits. The reason Europe has an immigration problem is that Europe wants to put all of its immigrants on the dole. Fine. If having them on the dole is what Europe wants, then that is what Europe gets, but then you can't complain that you have a problem. You have exactly what you wanted.
Rubbish. Of course it is actively encouraged. When a "political refugee" arrives into a typical European country he is not allowed to work. He is forced to take social welfare. This situation lasts, depending on the country, anywhere from 6 months to several (4, 5 6) years. Forcing someone onto social welfare for this amount of time conditions them to continue on social welfare. There is your encouragement.
No, it didn't. The Scandinavian countries have had a no-immigration policy in place since the late '70s early '80s. Immigrants who arrived prior to the implementation of the no-immigration policy did a lot better than the current immigrant population, not only that, they did better than the Scandinavian population on average.
Please tell me, if this isn't a policy issue, why didn't it become a problem until we (including me in the Scandinavians now) changed our policy on immigration?
They can, and they do. Remember, the US does not have these problems. Why? Any ideas? Do you think it has anything to do with the different policies in the US and Europe?
If I was allowed to stay in a country, but barred from working for 3 years after arriving, I think I would become malcontent as well. How about you? If, on the other hand, I came to a country where I knew they would allow me to work, and kick me out of the country after 6 weeks if I didn't have a job, maybe I would go looking for one.
Again, the US doesn't have this problem. Why? Do we only get the good immigrants over here?
Someone who is actively, and visually, engaged in disruptive work against a totalitarian government. Now, I do know that there are more than 100, don't get me wrong, but Europe receives thousands and thousands of "political refugees" each year. People who have never voiced opposition against any government and who have never been persecuted for anything.
Very close to 100% of the "refugees" coming to Europe are convenience "refugees". The European governments should act accordingly.
Note that the US doesn't have this number of "political refugees" coming in. Why? Because they know that there is no social welfare system in the US that will feed them.
FUD? Do you even know what FUD is? No, I am no spreading "FUD", but some may say I spread lies about Europe. I do not. I was born and raised in Norway. I have worked in several European countries, and I have been gainfully employed in the US for a good few years now. As opposed to most Europeans (and Americans for that matter), I have experience enough to know what I am talking about.
It doesn't? Please educate me. How can it be that when a major news organization followed two groups of Somali immigrants, one settled in Europe (Germany) and one in Phoenix AZ, after one year out of Somalia, every family in the Phoenix group had at least one full-time employed member, while the group in Germany had zero employed people, full or part time. Did the US get all the "good" Somalis and Germany all the lazy shits? Unlikely. The Germans got the same Somalis, but they hadn't been able to get them work permits yet, in fact 6 months later (18 months after landing in Germany), most of them still were not allowed to work. At that stage they were all happy enough on the dole, and well on their way to doing what so many immigrants do in Europe, generate generation upon generation of unemployed children.
Why do people find work in the US? Well, because when you immigrate to the US, you work or you starve. Simple enough. You no work - you no eat.
Who cares? You don't speak the language -> you don't work. You don't work -> you and your kids starve. Simple. They'll learn. Don't put them om welfare. Remember: "Nød lærer nøgen kvinde at spinde". Wise words. In an effort to be "nice" to the immigrants, those words are forgotten and the "nice" becomes a behavior that hurts both the immigrant and the host country.
Welfare for people who get into trouble in their life is good. Once they have earned it. Stepping onto Danish ground doesn't make you deserve it. The fact that the European governments not only allow, but actively encourages their immigrant population to stay on the dole is the reason Europe has an immigration problem. Well, a major reason. The second reason is that Europe in general has a no immigration policy. Europe doesn't accept any immigrants in fact, only refugees, political refugees in general. Bad idea. Stop accepting them. They don't really exist. There are perhaps 100 real political refugees in the world, the rest of the refugees are convenience refugees. Don't accept them. If someone comes to Denmark and claims political asylum, check the person against a list of known persecuted political active figures in his country (usually less than 10). If he's not on the list, put him on the next plane back to his country. If he doesn't have papers, put him on a plane back to the country his flight came in from.
Immigrants are generally good for the country. Let them in. Let them bring their family. Let them work from the day they set foot on Danish soil. If they do not have a job within 6 weeks of arriving, ship them back out. Any immigrant accepted into Denmark should be required to have an open-ended return ticket. If he can't prove that he can support him self within 6 weeks, make him use the return ticket.
Scotland? You are kidding right? In Glasgow the life expectancy is somewhere around the same as poor countries in Africa. The average male above age 40 has less than 30% of his own teeth left. Why would one move to Scotland?
As an immigrant living in the US, and spending a lot of time elsewhere: If you like to work and want to get ahead in the world, move to the US. You'll do well.
If you enjoy being on unemployed (and basically unemployable) on the dole, sucking the government for its last few dimes, hate working, love the fact that none of the "native" inhabitants of your new country will speak to you except for the cops, move to Europe. What is the unemployment rate of immigrants in France? 40%? 50%? And that is after the government has found "for dole" work for a large number of them.
Given the fact that the same immigrants, when they come to the US, find work, settle down, buy a house etc, this is not a problem with the immigrants but a problem with the governments of Europe.
Oh, yes, I lived the first 30 or so years of my life in Europe. I don't think I'll go back. I am writing this from Australia, perhaps my next destination.
This is, interestingly enough, one of those few areas where the compact version of the OED is flat out wrong. Sadly I do not subscribe to the full dictionary, and it would be very interesting to read what it says. In the mean time I can recommend this article on what atheism is and is not .
BTW, Webster is a lot better in this particular area:
atheism: (from Greek atheos, "godless, not believing in the existence of gods) 1a: disbelief in the existence of God or any other deity
disbelieve: vt to hold not to be true or real; reject or withhold belief in. ti to withhold or reject belief.
In this case Webster is right on the money. Disbelief in God where disbelief is to reject belief (which is not the same as to reject the existence of).
Sigh. So you don't even know what the term "absurd" means? Why don't we take a look in Merriam Webster... absurd - having no rational or orderly relationship to human life - please note the word "rational". The fact that you think that my characterization of religion as absurd is derogatory just shows how sensitive you are about the subject. The fact is that any religion, per definition, is absurd. Absurd is just a word with a specific meaning, the fact that you find it derogatory is a problem for you, but there is no rational basis for you finding it derogatory. It is just a description. Accurate too. A religious belief is absurd, per definition. I am not voicing an opinion.
Huh??? I'm sorry, I don't follow you. Are you trying to imply that the US invaded Iraq because the people of Iraq are of a different religion than the people of the US? What on earth gave you that idea?
Sigh. Why is this always so difficult with you religious people. Let me try to take it really slow for you, so that perhaps you understand. Atheism is not the "belief that god does not exist", atheism is the "lack of belief in god". Do you understand the difference? Congress can have no system of religion, none whatsoever. That means that Congress as an institution has to be a-religious, note, they can not be anti-religious, just a-religious, as in "have no religion". It does not have to decide that there is no god, it just has to act according to the constitution, which says they have to be a-religious, or atheist if you want.
Again, an atheist can't say: "There is no god", only "I have no belief in God". Even Dawkins, who is the most vocal of atheists these days, clearly says that he can not positively say that there is no gods. Dawkins is a scientists and knows that a negative can not be proven.
An atheist has the same relationship with gods as he has with invisible pink unicorns, he simply doesn't run around believing in them. It would not be sensible for an atheist to say that there is for sure no invisible pink unicorns, but believing in them is absurd, as in "having no rational relationship to human life".
It is a statement of value based on my opinion. Sadly stating ones opinion has become taboo in this country lately. I lament that fact.
You have listed two items that are probably not based on religion at all. Why would that make the US a theist state? Also, given the fact that these are actions taken based on executive privilege, not based on a policy of the state as such, they do not say anything at all about the state.
So the fact that our constitution and the works related to this explicitly states that the US is an atheist state doesn't bother you at all. Perhaps that should not surprise me. Religious people tend to cling to their superstitions no matter what input they get from reality.
Oh, and BTW, the Declaration of Independence is not part of US law, so what it says really doesn't define what the US, as an entity, is.
Did you find any lack of tolerance in my statements? Did you find any place where I argued that religious people should not allowed to continue their behavior? I think you have some problem understanding the concept of "tolerance".
I have, which is why I say that these guys would puke when politicians of today argue for more religion in the public space. I have no problem with religion in the private space, the state as such is, and should always be, non-religious however, or atheist if you wish. That is in our constitution.
Of course it is. What about the US as a state is not atheist? The state as such is a-religious, that is the only way it can protect the free worship of all religions in the country. As I asked before, what part of the US as a state do you think is not atheist?
Sorry, but you are 100% wrong. Atheism is a significant foundation of the US. The US is an a-religious state, which is the only way to guarantee freedom of religious worship for everybody who lives within it. This does not mean that it's citizens or even leaders are atheist, just that the state as an institution is.
I am actually a little surprised you protest this, since it is self-evident from our constitution and related documents.
That was not my intention.
I am happy for you that it works for you, but I also feel profoundly sorry that you need to delve into the halls of mysticism and absurdity to find meaning in your life. Wouldn't it be better if you could find purpose an meaning without inventing an all-good, punishing, caring and eternal-damnation-creating Santa Claus pulling the strings from behind that curtain and those mirrors?
Sigh. No, that is not why Christianity grew. On the other hand, any scholar or someone just interested in the topic knows a lot about why Christianity grew. You obviously don't know anything about it. It didn't really have any thing with its morals at all, but it did have a lot to do with the problem of polytheism in societies that were developing more and more advanced thought systems.
A slight oversimplification would say something like: Christianity is what you get when you spread monotheistic Judaism into the intellectual systems of Greece at around that time. Christianity was, as is most of this stuff, an accident of time, not the result of some divine dude taking human form.
The funny thing is that your misplaced sarcasm, with zero content, masks entirely the fact that you could not point to a single new thought in Christianity of the time, which kinda proves my point, now doesn't it?
BZZZT! Wrong! This is a common belief within the Christian societies though, and Christians love to believe this. There is very close to zero effect of the Christian believes in our law and moral systems however. Most of it pre-dates Christianity by a significant margin.
One of the fun things to as Christians about when they argue as above is to ask them to quantify it. How many of the 10 commandments and the teachings of Jesus has ended up as law in the country where you live? The answer is, interestingly enough, a wholly insignificant amount.
You can't come up with a scientific test that disproves something unless that something is extremely specific and contains something that is self-contradictory. There are many versions of God that can be disproved. The concept "God" or "a supernatural being" is far to vague to disprove.
It is also not possible for you to come up with a test that proves that there are no blue swans with yellow spots in the forest. The swans go invisible if you look at them btw. You can't prove they exist. You can also not prove that in my carpet there are no small green goblins, less than 1 micron tall, that are highly intelligent and also able to move away from any person looking for them with such speed that you can not find them.
Believing in blue, invisible, yellow-spotted swans or green goblins in the carpet is something we leave behind as we grow out of childhood. For some reason that is not the case with our belief in God. Given the fact that there is no substantial difference between these belief systems, that is rather bizarre. Most Christians are even able to drop their faith in Santa Claus, but God lingers until they die. As the article states, this being a physical defect seems reasonable.
Why do you think they do? Of course teaching children to believe in something that is fundamentally illogical and absurd is harmful to their mental development, that should be self evident. Parents should be allowed to mentally hold back their kids in this way, that is the prerogative of the parents. Schools on the other hand should not be allowed to expose small children to such nonsense however.
These are just people who would like our politicians to look at the constitution and the other documents that are the basis of USA as a state. Remember, The US was created as an atheist state, and the constant drive to add religion to our public life would make our founding fathers vomit in disgust. In fact, every time some religious nut politician invokes the phrase "founding fathers", if Jefferson was able to watch, it would be puke city.
Why is it that people in the US have not yet been able to come to terms with the fact that the US is an atheist state?
Oh, and the "under God" part was added to the pledge in 1954, and it was a retarded addition that Eisenhower should have pissed on, not signed.
BZZZT! Wrong! An atheist is not someone who has the belief that there is no divine entities. At least not a scientific atheist. You can not prove the non-existence of anything.
An atheist has the same relationship to God as he has to blue swans with yellow spots and green beaks with teeth in the forests who goes invisible when you look at them (and that are therefore incredibly difficult to find). You can't prove that such beings do not exist, but the very question of their existence is just a little silly. Of course there may be a god, as there may well be swans in the forest with the afore mentioned characteristics, but it seems rather far fetched.
Sounds like your parents never taught you anything about sarcasm.