I never said it wouldn't be bad. I just said they didn't have evil intent. That's a very big difference. Although I seriously doubt the information they are collecting will be of interest to anyone but marketers, pretty much anything can/will be abused.
So my question is why. At least I know, I wouldn't collect that amount of data just for kicks.
It's not difficult. They want that stuff so they can sell you things in an efficient way. Mass advertisements are inherently inefficient. If you can somehow target advertisements based on someone's personal preferences (or most likely broad generalizations) then you have a higher chance of actually selling them something. If they sell more (or help others sell more), it results in them making more money. If they have more information about your browsing/viewing/purchasing habits, they will be more successful. This may result in bad things (data leaks, loss of privacy, etc.) but I assure you that Google doesn't have any nefarious intentions with that data.
Well I don't think either post said that, but I'll bite. Both Star Wars and Serenity walk the outer line of sci-fi pretty well. However, Star Wars uses the force as a large plot device when essentially it's nothing but magic. We get a bunch of crap about mitochlorians later on, but it's magic plain and simple. Star Wars is just a simple transfer of a classic story into outer space. There's nothing really unique about the story that would classify it as sci-fi, other than the fact that they're using spaceships and lightsabers (which don't make any sense). Serenity (IMHO of course) doesn't resort to the magic card, and treats the science elements as something more than a plot device.
That being said, if you don't include Star Wars as sci-fi you probably have to knock out Serenity as well, because it's a pretty narrow line. Serenity is still pretty light on the scientific elements when compared to some of the other movies in the list.
Depending on the audience you ask, you're going to get wildly different answers. "General" audiences are obviously going to choose something like Star Wars or Serenity, because they're on the "pop" side of sci-fi. Film buffs are likely to choose something like 2001 or Blade Runner. If you're an action fan, you might go for something like Terminator or the Matrix. I'm not a big of the Star Wars films, but it's pretty hard to hate the original series because it's a very tried and true type of story that is executed well.
Anytime a poll like this comes along, it has little to do with actual artistic merits. Since all of the options in the poll are of a certain quality level, the film that the most people like will end up winning, which isn't the same as saying it's the best film. I know a few people who would probably consider A Clockwork Orange the best sci-fi movie ever, but there are probably more people that thought it was terrible. Something divisive like that won't win; a middle of the road movie will.
I'll just leave the Star Wars v. Serenity thing alone, as I'm sure people will be beating that argument to death. I do think that it's easy to make the point that Serenity is as good a movie as the original Star Wars, though. It obviously didn't have the same cultural impact, but I thought it was a very entertaining movie with a bit more depth to it than SW (although most likely because it had full TV season behind it).
I don't know what country you're from, but on the chance you are Canadian, European, or from down under, I offer this bit of evidence.
You now can refrain from any and all attempts to ridicule Americans, lest you recoil in horror at the reminder that your country sent a dancing, irritating, anthropomorphic frog singing a mashup of the Beverly Hills Cop theme, a cheesy eurotrash dance beat, and some guy making moped sounds to the top of the charts. Shame on you all.
The real questions is why do people see such a harsh division between MS and Apple? I realize they are in very similar markets, but if both companies are turning a profit and fulfilling their customers needs then why is everyone so fanatical about it? They both offer products that cater to different people. I don't yell at someone and call him/her an idiot for driving a Volvo because I like Honda or Toyota more. I don't go on the internet and try to convert people to use Black and Decker tools. You don't see people raging about the poor taste of General Mills cereal and trying to convert people to Kellogg's.
If you like Apple, buy a Mac and shut the hell up. If you like Windows, then that's great. I don't give a shit. This whole conversation is ridiculous. They're both quality products and well-run companies.
Do you know ANYthing about the stock market? Did you not read the article about those stock market mass email spamming ventures. The stock price goes up 5-10% (I forget the exact number) just because someone sends out a bunch of email!!! The stock market is COMPLETELY about "buzz".
That's the worst argument you could've made. For one, those are almost entirely pink sheets stocks (sometimes valued in the pennies) where any interest at all creates a jump in value. Anybody who tries to follow the "hot" companies that have "buzz" in the stock market will lose their shirt. Meanwhile, people that make intelligent decisions grounded in quantitative metrics make money. That's why the stock market burst earlier this decade, because people didn't give a shit about actual business principles and were just chasing the next hot thing.
But, thanks to the insane operating requirements for Vista, that $500 laptop will run like a dog... in fact, I would imagine that it would practically be unusable with only 512 meg of RAM that it probably comes with.
Maybe you should stop imagining and actually use Vista before you trash it? It runs OK with 512MB memory, even with all the flashy stuff turned on. Even if it didn't, you can upgrade RAM for a reasonable amount (certainly less than $600). 512MB of memory as a requirement for a modern operating system is hardly ridiculous. XP's limit was 128MB and that came out six years ago. Apple's lowest machine comes with 512MB (although if they were selling OSX by itself, I think 256MB as the requirement would be a fair estimate). In a year or so you won't even be able to buy a computer with less than 1GB memory off the shelf. Vista is not going to kill the cheap laptop market. Either you're an idiot or you're trolling.
As an ungodly young American who comes from a "nontraditional" home, please shut up. You don't know what you're talking about. It's just yet another version of "the current generation is going to hell" argument. Similar arguments can, and have, been made as far back as we can remember. The same people who are yelling about the decline in the "traditional family" are the same ones bringing about the conditions that are concentrating wealth in the hands of fewer individuals. It's a red herring. Some things need to change, but overall we're doing just fine, thank you.
Oh, and I hate to be the one to break it to you, but what constitutes a family has been changing constantly since the industrial revolution. Do you really think that having a mom, dad, and two kids in the same home is the way it's always been? The nuclear family was the norm for an extremely short time, if it could be considered the norm for any period of time at all.
As for people being consumerists and obsessed with current trends of what is cool and doing stupid things with their time, you could make the same argument about any first world country. What about America makes it particularly susceptible to moral decay because of these things, as opposed to the other countries who do similar things?
There is obviously no evidence that the mutations which gave rise to speciations were "random" and not in some way directed, naturally or supernaturally, or otherwise forced in some particular direction.
Well, apparently you have your own definition about what is obvious. An *overwhelming* amount of evidence points to genetic mutations being random. Your claims have no scientific basis. None whatsoever. What you are saying is pure speculation, with absolutely no proof to back it up. Saying "sometime in the future our views may change" is not good enough. Go read a biology textbook, and stop trying to make a scientific justification for your faith. It doesn't work.
I was also referring to having to flip the record to hear the other side, but yeah, point taken. As someone who largely grew up in the CD era though, I feel less likely to skip from song to song on a record. As an analogy, I tend to change the channel on a TV with a remote control more than on a TV with an old-fashioned dial, even if they're both fairly simple.
Maybe it's the music snob in me, but I tend to think that the only bands that really need marketing to survive are those that aren't much good to begin with, or want to be bigger, faster than good music will get you on its own. In the first case the marketing is counterproductive (blocks air-time and brain space that could be used by better bands), and in the second it seems like all the advertisement does is turn a band with potential into a one-hit-wonder that goes on to release a couple mediocre follow-ups and then implode. Even a great band can never match the insane expectations set by a marketing-driven surge of popularity, because 3/4 of the crowd will move on to the next new face, and the label will push for a repeat instead of letting the music mature.
Yes, it is the music snob in you. To use an irrefutable example, just look at The Beatles. Just because they were marketed out the ass and probably thrust into the spotlight a little early doesn't make them a poor band. What it did do is expose them to a larger audience. Most people in the US wouldn't have known about The Beatles without marketing, no matter how good they were. Look at a band like The Kinks, who weren't marketed in the US and have almost no name recognition among average people here, even if they were just as good as The Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Who, etc. So yes, good bands will probably survive and endure without marketing, but that doesn't necessarily make it a bad thing. Most of the great artists of all time were over-marketed. To stay with the British theme, the bands I listed above probably wouldn't have even formed if it wasn't for American blues and rock and roll being sold to them by the record companies. Just because the record companies try and push complete shit a lot of the time doesn't mean that the concept of marketing and selling music itself is bad.
I know you're joking, but actually the entire creation of the umbrella term "R&B" music was to sell black music to white audiences. The music known as R&B used to be sold as "race music." It was made by and for black audiences. Some exec saw the opportunity to sell this music to a larger audience, but didn't think white people would buy "race music" so he changed the name. Oh, and the original R&B music actually *was* rhythm and blues. Most music sold today as R&B music is more like neo-soul/funk than the original R&B.
A similar thing has happened with the "urban" music genre. There's not really a musical distinction between urban music and other genres, it's just a marketing distinction for music made (mostly) by African-Americans for African-Americans.
LP's make you feel like you're listening to the whole album as a complete whole. You can't easily skip from track to track, so you're "forced" to listen to the whole thing. That provides a unique experience for the people that want it. Records are really a pain in the ass if you only want to listen to one or two songs. That's why 45's are dead while LP's have a very healthy, if extremely small, market.
I personally just wish it was optional. I can understand why people want to use iTunes to organize their music, but my music is already organized the way I want it. Whenever I rip a CD, it goes into the/artist/album directory and that's where it stays. It's very simple and easy to organize and navigate. It's pretty redundant to have iTunes doing work that I've already done. I also have most of my music on a couple external hard drives, so iTunes has very weird issues with trying to find songs that it thinks are there but have been moved or are on a disconnected drive. In the end, I just installed Rockbox. Even with its quirks it was much easier for what I wanted to do.
I have always been interested in how Christianity (or any religion - but Christianity is a relatively new one, so the evidence is fresher) grew to become what is has when the basic tenets are so obviously false
Once again, only from an empirical standpoint can Christianity be considered false. Christian theology is very sound. You may disagree with it, but that is a matter of faith and opinion, not one of truth or falsehood.
I disagree with your point that rational consistency is not important. Christianity was dominant for so long (and still is) because intelligent, rational people believe it. Most of the smartest and influential people in Western history have been Christian. If there were glaring contradictions within the fundamental beliefs of Christians, you could be fairly certain that they would've been pointed out by now. In fact, some of the most famous and influential theologians (St. Augustine for example) were willing converts to Christianity. St. Aquinas, probably the most influential Christian theologian, was famous for bringing an empirical view to Christianity from Aristotle. He certainly would have been intelligent enough to point out fundamental flaws in Christianity if there were any.
Remember that science doesn't search for truth. It does not deal at all with metaphysical possibilities. It only seeks to explain natural phenomenon. Simply because you choose not to believe (as I assume you do) in Christianity does not make Christians stupid, or their beliefs false. If you have any criticisms of the theology, you are welcome to bring them forward. Theologians are actually fairly open minded individuals; they tend to accept legitimate criticism. You will find that nothing about fundamental Christian beliefs can be proved false, therefore calling them "obviously false" is very ridiculous.
As a disclaimer, I am not religious and certainly don't consider myself Christian. I personally believe that the physical world is the only thing that exists, and the only thing we need concern ourselves with. That doesn't mean I'm not wrong, however, and I fully accept that possibility as real.
As far as the argument that "well, god wasn't there, then", you can flip that around by trying to experimentally prove that god DOES exist, and that will fail because god won't ever be there either.
That's somewhat correct, which is why science doesn't accept that God exists. I'm not trying to make the argument that God exists. I'm just saying that a belief in God doesn't cause any logical or rational contradictions. Even if there is no God you can't disprove the statement "God doesn't exist." It's simply not possible. However, if God *does* exist, then it is possible to prove it (through God revealing himself in some way). A lot of people believe this has happened, and that's certainly possible. I'm extremely skeptical about the existence of God as well, but if it wasn't even rationally consistent then it certainly wouldn't be as prevalent of a belief.
Well, no, you just claim that the laws of nature are the will of God or that God simply isn't acting at the specific time and place you are observing. You absolutely can't empirically prove a negative statement such as "God doesn't exist" because that would require you to have complete knowledge of the entire universe for all of time. That is the reason why science only accepts those beliefs which have evidence supporting their existence and which can be disproved. Otherwise everything from FSM to extraterrestrial intelligence to bigfoot would be considered real simply for the inability to disprove them.
Religion (usually) is also be based on reason, which is not quite the same as saying it is based on faith. Just because something is not empirical does not mean it can't be proved and disproved logically. The idea of God is logically sound and will *never* be disproved, simply because it's not logically possible to do so. The question is whether or not we know or can infer enough about the "beginning" of the universe to be able to prove it scientifically. It's entirely possible that we will never know enough to prove one theory or the other, which is why OP referred to it as similar to religion.
sorry, but most atheletes, specifically the pound each other type are not the brightest.
Sure, but most *people* aren't particularly smart. Since most sports don't necessitate having a large amount of intelligence, you see a range similar to what you'd find in the rest of society. It has nothing to do with athletic people being stupid, it's just that intelligence doesn't influence your success in sports as much as in "regular" society. Even looking at different sports you are likely to find large differences. In baseball, where intelligence gives you a significant advantage, you are more likely to find extremely smart people than in something like sprinting, where intelligence doesn't give you an edge at all. In football (American), for instance, the offensive lineman tend to be more intelligent than the running backs, because their job is more dependent on it.
There are many, many accounts - not just in that Archive - of experiences which are inconsistent with a world in which something like ESP isn't existent.
Data is not the plural of anecdote. Show some empirical evidence for ESP in a reproducible experiment and scientists will believe it. Until then it will be rightfully treated as the work of babbling idiots.
Seriously, at least in the US if you are afraid of the police, stop and ask why? Chances are it's either irrational, or you know you're doing something that you should not.
Or you're poor, racial minority, etc. When I was growing up (small town in Nevada) a kid was beat up and put in the hospital by a police officer. The reason? He was skateboarding on public property and gave the officer some lip. The officer of course claimed he was threatened, but this was a thirteen year old kid who was completely unarmed. He broke both his arms with a billy club, and the kid was knocked unconscious. The only punishment for the officer was two weeks suspension with pay. The kid was an asshole, and certainly provoked the officer, but the officer just snapped. After that I (who skateboarded) was scared shitless of the cops, and with good reason, although I'd never done anything illegal.
I've also been stopped at drunk driving "checkpoints" and each time I was loud and irate (and sober). Why? They have absolutely no reason to stop me if there's no reason to believe I've been drinking. The slow erosion of our freedoms (especially when driving) is terrible, and fuck you for allowing them to continue it in the name of public safety. Fuck you even more for claiming that law enforcement only targets those people who deserve it, only because you yourself have never been on the receiving end of police "justice".
However, pulling spinach from the shelves *all over the nation* because 10 people died of food poisoning is a severe over-reaction, IMHO. I think there needs to be a healthy balance between "Something must be done" and an acceptance of life.
In general, you may have a point, but the spinach example is ridiculous. We had a product that was known to contain E. coli and was making large amounts of people sick (I think a couple hundred reported cases). What were they supposed to do, let a known infected product stay on the market and get more people sick? What good is the FDA (or USDA) if they don't actually do anything when they find a problem? I'd be pretty pissed if the government let contaminated food stay on the shelves.
As for people taking anti-depressants "because their lives aren't perfect," I think that shows an amazing amount of ignorance on your part. Clinical depression requiring medication is not the same thing as feeling down because you are overworked. Most people that are on medication for depression have a serious mental illness and need medical help. Attitudes like yours do nothing but perpetuate a false stereotype.
Science and engineering may not lead to utopia, but more often than not it improves the situation. Saying "C'est la vie" and pretending there isn't anything wrong only helps when a situation is completely beyond your control, which shouldn't be very often.
I only need one map to tell me why the US doesn't have a more significant national rail system, and it has nothing to do with emissions (sorry for the poor quality, it's the best I could find).
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I never said it wouldn't be bad. I just said they didn't have evil intent. That's a very big difference. Although I seriously doubt the information they are collecting will be of interest to anyone but marketers, pretty much anything can/will be abused.
It's not difficult. They want that stuff so they can sell you things in an efficient way. Mass advertisements are inherently inefficient. If you can somehow target advertisements based on someone's personal preferences (or most likely broad generalizations) then you have a higher chance of actually selling them something. If they sell more (or help others sell more), it results in them making more money. If they have more information about your browsing/viewing/purchasing habits, they will be more successful. This may result in bad things (data leaks, loss of privacy, etc.) but I assure you that Google doesn't have any nefarious intentions with that data.
Well I don't think either post said that, but I'll bite. Both Star Wars and Serenity walk the outer line of sci-fi pretty well. However, Star Wars uses the force as a large plot device when essentially it's nothing but magic. We get a bunch of crap about mitochlorians later on, but it's magic plain and simple. Star Wars is just a simple transfer of a classic story into outer space. There's nothing really unique about the story that would classify it as sci-fi, other than the fact that they're using spaceships and lightsabers (which don't make any sense). Serenity (IMHO of course) doesn't resort to the magic card, and treats the science elements as something more than a plot device.
That being said, if you don't include Star Wars as sci-fi you probably have to knock out Serenity as well, because it's a pretty narrow line. Serenity is still pretty light on the scientific elements when compared to some of the other movies in the list.
Depending on the audience you ask, you're going to get wildly different answers. "General" audiences are obviously going to choose something like Star Wars or Serenity, because they're on the "pop" side of sci-fi. Film buffs are likely to choose something like 2001 or Blade Runner. If you're an action fan, you might go for something like Terminator or the Matrix. I'm not a big of the Star Wars films, but it's pretty hard to hate the original series because it's a very tried and true type of story that is executed well.
Anytime a poll like this comes along, it has little to do with actual artistic merits. Since all of the options in the poll are of a certain quality level, the film that the most people like will end up winning, which isn't the same as saying it's the best film. I know a few people who would probably consider A Clockwork Orange the best sci-fi movie ever, but there are probably more people that thought it was terrible. Something divisive like that won't win; a middle of the road movie will.
I'll just leave the Star Wars v. Serenity thing alone, as I'm sure people will be beating that argument to death. I do think that it's easy to make the point that Serenity is as good a movie as the original Star Wars, though. It obviously didn't have the same cultural impact, but I thought it was a very entertaining movie with a bit more depth to it than SW (although most likely because it had full TV season behind it).
I don't know what country you're from, but on the chance you are Canadian, European, or from down under, I offer this bit of evidence.
You now can refrain from any and all attempts to ridicule Americans, lest you recoil in horror at the reminder that your country sent a dancing, irritating, anthropomorphic frog singing a mashup of the Beverly Hills Cop theme, a cheesy eurotrash dance beat, and some guy making moped sounds to the top of the charts. Shame on you all.
The real questions is why do people see such a harsh division between MS and Apple? I realize they are in very similar markets, but if both companies are turning a profit and fulfilling their customers needs then why is everyone so fanatical about it? They both offer products that cater to different people. I don't yell at someone and call him/her an idiot for driving a Volvo because I like Honda or Toyota more. I don't go on the internet and try to convert people to use Black and Decker tools. You don't see people raging about the poor taste of General Mills cereal and trying to convert people to Kellogg's.
If you like Apple, buy a Mac and shut the hell up. If you like Windows, then that's great. I don't give a shit. This whole conversation is ridiculous. They're both quality products and well-run companies.
FYI, he was being sarcastic.
That's the worst argument you could've made. For one, those are almost entirely pink sheets stocks (sometimes valued in the pennies) where any interest at all creates a jump in value. Anybody who tries to follow the "hot" companies that have "buzz" in the stock market will lose their shirt. Meanwhile, people that make intelligent decisions grounded in quantitative metrics make money. That's why the stock market burst earlier this decade, because people didn't give a shit about actual business principles and were just chasing the next hot thing.
Maybe you should stop imagining and actually use Vista before you trash it? It runs OK with 512MB memory, even with all the flashy stuff turned on. Even if it didn't, you can upgrade RAM for a reasonable amount (certainly less than $600). 512MB of memory as a requirement for a modern operating system is hardly ridiculous. XP's limit was 128MB and that came out six years ago. Apple's lowest machine comes with 512MB (although if they were selling OSX by itself, I think 256MB as the requirement would be a fair estimate). In a year or so you won't even be able to buy a computer with less than 1GB memory off the shelf. Vista is not going to kill the cheap laptop market. Either you're an idiot or you're trolling.
As an ungodly young American who comes from a "nontraditional" home, please shut up. You don't know what you're talking about. It's just yet another version of "the current generation is going to hell" argument. Similar arguments can, and have, been made as far back as we can remember. The same people who are yelling about the decline in the "traditional family" are the same ones bringing about the conditions that are concentrating wealth in the hands of fewer individuals. It's a red herring. Some things need to change, but overall we're doing just fine, thank you.
Oh, and I hate to be the one to break it to you, but what constitutes a family has been changing constantly since the industrial revolution. Do you really think that having a mom, dad, and two kids in the same home is the way it's always been? The nuclear family was the norm for an extremely short time, if it could be considered the norm for any period of time at all.
As for people being consumerists and obsessed with current trends of what is cool and doing stupid things with their time, you could make the same argument about any first world country. What about America makes it particularly susceptible to moral decay because of these things, as opposed to the other countries who do similar things?
Well, apparently you have your own definition about what is obvious. An *overwhelming* amount of evidence points to genetic mutations being random. Your claims have no scientific basis. None whatsoever. What you are saying is pure speculation, with absolutely no proof to back it up. Saying "sometime in the future our views may change" is not good enough. Go read a biology textbook, and stop trying to make a scientific justification for your faith. It doesn't work.
I was also referring to having to flip the record to hear the other side, but yeah, point taken. As someone who largely grew up in the CD era though, I feel less likely to skip from song to song on a record. As an analogy, I tend to change the channel on a TV with a remote control more than on a TV with an old-fashioned dial, even if they're both fairly simple.
Yes, it is the music snob in you. To use an irrefutable example, just look at The Beatles. Just because they were marketed out the ass and probably thrust into the spotlight a little early doesn't make them a poor band. What it did do is expose them to a larger audience. Most people in the US wouldn't have known about The Beatles without marketing, no matter how good they were. Look at a band like The Kinks, who weren't marketed in the US and have almost no name recognition among average people here, even if they were just as good as The Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Who, etc. So yes, good bands will probably survive and endure without marketing, but that doesn't necessarily make it a bad thing. Most of the great artists of all time were over-marketed. To stay with the British theme, the bands I listed above probably wouldn't have even formed if it wasn't for American blues and rock and roll being sold to them by the record companies. Just because the record companies try and push complete shit a lot of the time doesn't mean that the concept of marketing and selling music itself is bad.
I know you're joking, but actually the entire creation of the umbrella term "R&B" music was to sell black music to white audiences. The music known as R&B used to be sold as "race music." It was made by and for black audiences. Some exec saw the opportunity to sell this music to a larger audience, but didn't think white people would buy "race music" so he changed the name. Oh, and the original R&B music actually *was* rhythm and blues. Most music sold today as R&B music is more like neo-soul/funk than the original R&B.
A similar thing has happened with the "urban" music genre. There's not really a musical distinction between urban music and other genres, it's just a marketing distinction for music made (mostly) by African-Americans for African-Americans.
LP's make you feel like you're listening to the whole album as a complete whole. You can't easily skip from track to track, so you're "forced" to listen to the whole thing. That provides a unique experience for the people that want it. Records are really a pain in the ass if you only want to listen to one or two songs. That's why 45's are dead while LP's have a very healthy, if extremely small, market.
I personally just wish it was optional. I can understand why people want to use iTunes to organize their music, but my music is already organized the way I want it. Whenever I rip a CD, it goes into the /artist/album directory and that's where it stays. It's very simple and easy to organize and navigate. It's pretty redundant to have iTunes doing work that I've already done. I also have most of my music on a couple external hard drives, so iTunes has very weird issues with trying to find songs that it thinks are there but have been moved or are on a disconnected drive. In the end, I just installed Rockbox. Even with its quirks it was much easier for what I wanted to do.
Once again, only from an empirical standpoint can Christianity be considered false. Christian theology is very sound. You may disagree with it, but that is a matter of faith and opinion, not one of truth or falsehood.
I disagree with your point that rational consistency is not important. Christianity was dominant for so long (and still is) because intelligent, rational people believe it. Most of the smartest and influential people in Western history have been Christian. If there were glaring contradictions within the fundamental beliefs of Christians, you could be fairly certain that they would've been pointed out by now. In fact, some of the most famous and influential theologians (St. Augustine for example) were willing converts to Christianity. St. Aquinas, probably the most influential Christian theologian, was famous for bringing an empirical view to Christianity from Aristotle. He certainly would have been intelligent enough to point out fundamental flaws in Christianity if there were any.
Remember that science doesn't search for truth. It does not deal at all with metaphysical possibilities. It only seeks to explain natural phenomenon. Simply because you choose not to believe (as I assume you do) in Christianity does not make Christians stupid, or their beliefs false. If you have any criticisms of the theology, you are welcome to bring them forward. Theologians are actually fairly open minded individuals; they tend to accept legitimate criticism. You will find that nothing about fundamental Christian beliefs can be proved false, therefore calling them "obviously false" is very ridiculous.
As a disclaimer, I am not religious and certainly don't consider myself Christian. I personally believe that the physical world is the only thing that exists, and the only thing we need concern ourselves with. That doesn't mean I'm not wrong, however, and I fully accept that possibility as real.
That's somewhat correct, which is why science doesn't accept that God exists. I'm not trying to make the argument that God exists. I'm just saying that a belief in God doesn't cause any logical or rational contradictions. Even if there is no God you can't disprove the statement "God doesn't exist." It's simply not possible. However, if God *does* exist, then it is possible to prove it (through God revealing himself in some way). A lot of people believe this has happened, and that's certainly possible. I'm extremely skeptical about the existence of God as well, but if it wasn't even rationally consistent then it certainly wouldn't be as prevalent of a belief.
Well, no, you just claim that the laws of nature are the will of God or that God simply isn't acting at the specific time and place you are observing. You absolutely can't empirically prove a negative statement such as "God doesn't exist" because that would require you to have complete knowledge of the entire universe for all of time. That is the reason why science only accepts those beliefs which have evidence supporting their existence and which can be disproved. Otherwise everything from FSM to extraterrestrial intelligence to bigfoot would be considered real simply for the inability to disprove them.
Religion (usually) is also be based on reason, which is not quite the same as saying it is based on faith. Just because something is not empirical does not mean it can't be proved and disproved logically. The idea of God is logically sound and will *never* be disproved, simply because it's not logically possible to do so. The question is whether or not we know or can infer enough about the "beginning" of the universe to be able to prove it scientifically. It's entirely possible that we will never know enough to prove one theory or the other, which is why OP referred to it as similar to religion.
Sure, but most *people* aren't particularly smart. Since most sports don't necessitate having a large amount of intelligence, you see a range similar to what you'd find in the rest of society. It has nothing to do with athletic people being stupid, it's just that intelligence doesn't influence your success in sports as much as in "regular" society. Even looking at different sports you are likely to find large differences. In baseball, where intelligence gives you a significant advantage, you are more likely to find extremely smart people than in something like sprinting, where intelligence doesn't give you an edge at all. In football (American), for instance, the offensive lineman tend to be more intelligent than the running backs, because their job is more dependent on it.
Data is not the plural of anecdote. Show some empirical evidence for ESP in a reproducible experiment and scientists will believe it. Until then it will be rightfully treated as the work of babbling idiots.
Or you're poor, racial minority, etc. When I was growing up (small town in Nevada) a kid was beat up and put in the hospital by a police officer. The reason? He was skateboarding on public property and gave the officer some lip. The officer of course claimed he was threatened, but this was a thirteen year old kid who was completely unarmed. He broke both his arms with a billy club, and the kid was knocked unconscious. The only punishment for the officer was two weeks suspension with pay. The kid was an asshole, and certainly provoked the officer, but the officer just snapped. After that I (who skateboarded) was scared shitless of the cops, and with good reason, although I'd never done anything illegal.
I've also been stopped at drunk driving "checkpoints" and each time I was loud and irate (and sober). Why? They have absolutely no reason to stop me if there's no reason to believe I've been drinking. The slow erosion of our freedoms (especially when driving) is terrible, and fuck you for allowing them to continue it in the name of public safety. Fuck you even more for claiming that law enforcement only targets those people who deserve it, only because you yourself have never been on the receiving end of police "justice".
In general, you may have a point, but the spinach example is ridiculous. We had a product that was known to contain E. coli and was making large amounts of people sick (I think a couple hundred reported cases). What were they supposed to do, let a known infected product stay on the market and get more people sick? What good is the FDA (or USDA) if they don't actually do anything when they find a problem? I'd be pretty pissed if the government let contaminated food stay on the shelves.
As for people taking anti-depressants "because their lives aren't perfect," I think that shows an amazing amount of ignorance on your part. Clinical depression requiring medication is not the same thing as feeling down because you are overworked. Most people that are on medication for depression have a serious mental illness and need medical help. Attitudes like yours do nothing but perpetuate a false stereotype.
Science and engineering may not lead to utopia, but more often than not it improves the situation. Saying "C'est la vie" and pretending there isn't anything wrong only helps when a situation is completely beyond your control, which shouldn't be very often.
I only need one map to tell me why the US doesn't have a more significant national rail system, and it has nothing to do with emissions (sorry for the poor quality, it's the best I could find).