Thanks,

J.

I also have found it harder to accept certain topics when I consider how do I explain this to my children without them getting weirded out when they find out this comes out of that or this goes in that or your mouth or???????

More and more it is becoming a subject you can’t get away from. can you imagine a “Sexworld” store in your home town in the 60″s? (major metropolis excluded)

And hell no I don’t masturbate. I’ve got perfect vision and I plan on keeping it!

Strange Out.

But climate science is bigger than these guys. There are butt loads of papers and research published every day. “Science” is the bigger picture of making fact-based theories based on the aggregation of all of this research.

So, yes, there are bad scientists in the world, some of them politically motivated, but they don’t last because their science isn’t real. That’s why we talk about consensus. If 90 independent methods come up with the same conclusion, it’s worth more than just 1 coming up with it.

I seriously hope we discover that human can’t effect the climate in anything less than million year timescales. That would be great. I don’t think that is what the science is telling us.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100017393/climategate-the-final-nail-in-the-coffin-of-anthropogenic-global-warming/

Because it looks to me like these guys (and they are some of the most prominent scientists in the AGM “community) are in fact using “science as a tactic.” At least it appears that way to me.

By my reading it certainly looks to me like they are trying to massage data to get the desired outcome, which is not science.

They also seem to be bummed out when the warming they predicted does not seem to be occuring. Shouldn’t they be happy that the catastrophic warming they predict is not happening?

And finally, I found it interesting that one guy was complaining that the lack of warming and the questioning of their data might lead to Siemens not funding his research. I thought only the detractors, funded by oil companies, had a financial motive. Looks to me that there is at least some evidence that their funding and their livelihood depends on global warming and so they are very motivated to prove that it’s happening and that man is causing it. To me, this seems like they have a predetermined outcome and they are desperately attempting to make the “science” support that outcome.

I have relatives that have lived “on the family farm” for generations. They don’t pay attention to the news. Some don’t get a paper or listen to anything on the radio other than Glenn Beck whilst in the truck.

If more people were able to think and articulate their positions as you did we could have real dialog in this country and move forward. Unfortunately, as you said, the politicians pander to an uninformed and easily manipulated electorate to stay in power. In the meantime the right listens to comedians and the left elects them to office.

By the way, I fully supported Obama being shown in classrooms. I understand those who feel otherwise but I think they’re wrong.

I really did see the same vitriol directed toward Bush from the left as is being directed against Obama by the right, i.e., accusations of naziism, fascism, murderer, and others. Olbermann was the counterpart to Beck, etc.

We live in a time when when “our team” isn’t in office, anything goes in tearing down the other team. I abhor it and choose not to participate.

Lolife, I’ve had this conversation with you before and you’ve stated that you sometimes need to just express yourself emotionally. Understandable but not constructive.

I don’t have a problem with Mr. Olauson or anyone else speaking their point of view. It’s an incredibly close-minded, inaccurate and hostile point of view that deserves criticism. These people choose to assume the absolute worst intentions and they hope for Obama to fail. They actively work toward it! And this a President who has reached out repeatedly and sincerely to the Right. It’s paranoid and counter-productive.

You make some sound points and I can’ agree with you more on electing smart officials to run our government.

Also, paying capital gains on unrealized gains can be extremely dangerous especially since they want it now, but when you document losses you are limited to what you can enter.

Paying taxes is painful and is a necessary evil of civilized society. Unfortunatley, the electorate has forgotten that they cannot get blood from a stone. There needs to be a cap on what we’ll tax people on and look for better ways of managing the taxes.

One idea, get rid of tax money for stupid research. If I hear about another government grant to study the implications of breast implants on social mores i’m gonna go mental.

Can you share if there were any unreleased tracks that you felt were better than what he put out?

Looks like a gas!!!

: )

“If someone were to look at software you’ve developed and say “This is such an elegant, well engineered, and complete solution, it must have come together out of chance and refined itself over a great period of time.”, that would be ridiculous and disrespectful to the programmer who created it. Likewise, looking at the beautiful and intricate universe we live indicates that this awesome creation must have had a creator.”

False analogy; A has some property X, and thus B must also have property X (i.e. the universe is like a software)

“Then again the origin of the universe has not been explained scientifically either.”

Cosmological models such as the Big Bang are not perfect but such concepts as primordial nucleosynthesis explain the production of hydrogen, helium, and lithium isotopes (i.e. early elements of the universe). Baryogenesis explain baryon-antibaryon asymmetry and the substantial amounts of residual matter that make up the universe today. Cosmic microwave background radiation explain cosmic inflation and inhomogeneities. Quantum fluctuations explain energy and space. Also, you do realize that there is more than one scientific cosmological model for how the universe started (e.g. cyclic cosmology, loop quantum cosmology, brane cosmology) all explained by physics instead of some dusty old mythology book, right?

“Evolution with a species has been observed scientifically. Advocates of Darwin’s theory have hoped to find supporting progressions in the fossil records. What people have referred to as the “missing link” wouldn’t be just one skeleton buried somewhere in the vast world, it would be millions of them. Yet somehow Darwin’s theory of evolution is considered fact.”

Why is it that every creationist has a problem with the principle of speciation in the face of AMPLE evidence?
- Anagenesis and cladogenesis
- Adaptive radiation
- Horizontal gene transfer, genome infusions in endosymbioses, adaptive changes in genome size
- Biodiversity
- Speciation
- Phenotypic plasticity
- Phylogenetic trees
- Transitional fossils
- Living fossils
- Homologous structures and divergent evolution
- Vestigial structures and embryonic development
- Molecular variance
- Universal biochemical organisation
- Gene duplication
- Reassorting of alleles and genetic recombination
- Isotopic evidence from Earth’s crust

“My belief in intelligent design is based on at least these two things. The universe itself is evidence of a creator and that creator has documented it in the Bible.”

You sir are a moron.

I call BS. Pascal’s Wager is a complete false dichotomy, relying on the assumptions that there are only two true possibilities (i.e. that A) a benevolent god exists and punishes or rewards according to one’s belief or B) a benevolent god does not exist. It is also mathematically inconsistent. You can pray for a loved one to get better all you want but experiments show that they don’t get better. Peace of mind will be the only thing you’ll be getting.

I find homophobia disgusting myself. I have nothing in common with this culture which is why I am a complete outcast here, but I’d rather be an outcast than try to interact with these pricks. So yeah; fuck this completely backwards boring ass town. I can’t wait to get the fuck out of here and never look back.

Scripture and religious tradition are not proof of anything other than the collective kool-aid passed around by believers.

I will agree that many Christians do hold arbitrary and unsupported beliefs but suggesting that Christian dogma is a source of it is almost by definition absurd and in itself irrational.

I’m not on a mission of conversion. I think it is important that people think rationally — religion is a corruption of the mind in this sense. It helps keep the door open to dogmatic, arbitrary and wholly unsupported thinking

You’re practicing rhetoric not reason, and to a degree hypocrisy; The purpose of rhetoric is to persuade. The sole purpose of dogma is consistency and the prevention of arbitrary unsupported thinking.

It’s important to remember that western Christianity is inseparable from western philosophy. Western Christianity is a synthesis of Greek rationalism and Jewish faith and tradition. The Creeds and Councils of the early Church were as infused with the need to reconcile the Gospels with Plato as the scholastics of the Middle Ages were with Aristotle to Church teachings.

It’s no mere coincidence that the first passage of John – written in Greek – binds the Christian concept of the Trinity to the “reasonable universe” of the Greek Logos (Word):

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

The most dogmatic of Christians tend to be the most concerned with logical explanations for their beliefs;. Perhaps this is why Sola Fide (By Faith Alone) is a core tenet of the Protestant Reformation not Catholic thought?

Current research on the “Dead Sea Scrolls” should be fascinating to scientists and historians (of course you have to dodge the insanity of the zealots on both sides)

so, if not all books deal with the “Physical universe” you are fine with them?

One thing that those with faith have is the solice of the church and their prayers to help them through those times.

For example, your loved one is in the hospital and is feeling pain and has been for months. The hospital is filled with all the wonders that science has to offer both mechanical and medicinal.
But science cannot determine the root cause of the pain and cannot cure them of the pain. The users of this science (Doctors and surgeons and specialists of all kinds) tell you that your loved one won’t make it through the night, there’s nothing they can do.

With all the science at there disposal, there’s nothing they can do.

So, now what? For those who practice their faith they can find peace with their loved one and the local chaplin to ease their pain and in fact hope and pray for a miracle (it does happen you know)

Without those with faith the world would be a much worse place, in my opinion. The majority of those who practice (that I’ve personally met) do so to make themselves a better person. There are, in fact the extremists who ‘bible-bash’ and use religion as a basis for fear and discrimination and unfortunately they are usually the ones in the spotlight.

My personal hope is that we can all peacefully co-exist and let me believe what I want to and you believe what you want to. I personally like to cite Pascal’s Gambit because the rewards for believing outway the risks of not believing.

I admire your passion to your beliefs and even though we may disagree on certain topics, I do enjoy reading.

That is perhaps a key point. I don’t care what metaphysical nonsense people believe. My problem is when people argue with established scientific theories with it. Literally, children die from this shit when medical care is deprived and prayer is substituted. Contraception is denied to people. Science class is barraged with creation myths. You know the story.

Is that right?

Because it’s true. I don’t see how you can coddle someone to this conclusion. When we see thinking that is wrong we have to say, in the kindest and most helpful tone possible, perhaps, that it is wrong. For example, the earth is roughly 4 billion years old. If someone wants to claim it is 10,000 years old, they need to be told they are wrong. The writings of superstitious Iron Age mystics can’t be taken as credible evidence for such a theory given the overwhelming evidence for a very old earth. The two theories are unequal by a long shot.

This is an example in which we agree on the substance (the age of the earth), I suspect.

When I dismiss the Bible as “the writings of superstitious Iron Age mystics” I am not trying to be disrespectful, I’m trying to be accurate. A depiction of the authors of the Bible as holy men in direct contact with god is fanciful in any rational sense. The same is true with the notions of heaven, hell, original sin, divine conception, resurrection, Doom’s Day, and so on. They are indistinguishable from fiction.

The point is that none of it meets any of the standards that we have for considering something believable. Every religion has as much direct evidence as the ancient Greeks and Romans had for Zeus and Artemis. I’m not trying to be unkind. I’m stating an obvious fact.

But I recognize that this fact still befuddles many people. They believe in god and they believe in an afterlife and they are not at all ready to listen to what I’m saying. That’s fine. I’m not on a mission of conversion. But I think it is important that people think rationally. Religion is a corruption of the mind in this sense.

As far as your examples go:

“religious zealots who think that the “rights” of an unborn blob should trump those of a grown woman. Of that we should take scripture into account in foreign policy. Or that we should pray for people who are sick, sometimes instead of modern medical treatment. Of that some of us are damned to hell and deserve their hatred because we are godless and therefore evil. Of that we should teach creation myths to children in science class.”

I share your opinion most heartily. I think there’s a lot of bigotism and close-mindedness that charades as “faith”.

But most Christians and Hindus and Jews and New Agers I know are decent and caring people. Not to mention, most of them are well-informed, intelligent and capable of appreciating the beauty of science as well as cultivating a rich spiritual life. They make intelligent political decision and contribute to the community. I may think it’s silly to go to pray or meditate or read tarot but I’m certainly not going to make fun of their beliefs if it makes them happy.

I’m really not talking about the crusade type of thing. I’m talking about religion as a gateway drug to stupid thinking. The tenants of virtually all religions are ridiculous. Yet people walk around acting as if they are proven facts. They get mad at us when we ask them for the slightest proof. Usually they pull out an old book, written by Iron Age people who didn’t know shit about anything, least of all how the universe works.

It’s not just religion, it’s “New Age” and alternative medicine and astrology and all sorts of things that lead people to believe that any view is just as valid as any other view. That is nonsense.

I have no beef with theists, per se. I know and love many of them. But the core principles of their beliefs are arbitrary and absurd.

Examples include religious zealots who think that the “rights” of an unborn blob should trump those of a grown woman. Of that we should take scripture into account in foreign policy. Or that we should pray for people who are sick, sometimes instead of modern medical treatment. Of that some of us are damned to hell and deserve their hatred because we are godless and therefore evil. Of that we should teach creation myths to children in science class.

You might not be one of those people but this country (the USA) is full of them.

You haven’t made a case at all, BTW, that atheism is “childish and immature”. How so?

Anyway, I ask a single question:

What is “wrong” with religious belief?

You write in your previous post that “[religion and spirituality] adds up to a shit ton of wrong and dangerous thinking”

I believe a citation is needed here.

Of course, there are a number of atrocities committed in the name of religion.

Just as many, however, have been committed without religion.

If you do want to play this game, then I would suggest that a good case could be made for atheism as a major precondition for the rise of Nazism in Germany: Nietzsche, Hitler’s favourite philosopher, is nothing if not aggressively atheistic (and equally anti-Christian). But really, the cause of Nazism was not atheism per se, but nihilism inspired by misinterpretations of Nietzsche.

Furthermore, what about the countless Christians who have been persecuted under the banner of communism? The cause of the Soviet gulags and the Cambodian killing-fields was atheistic communist regimes. Indeed, some of the greatest atrocity of the twentieth century were all committed by Mao Zedong. One could argue that his atheism was the reason for the 77 million dead Chinese killed by his actions.

But, does that mean that all atheists are bad people?

That’s certainly a logical fallacy if I’ve ever seen one.

So what’s wrong with people who try to live a holy life.

They might be delusional – but you can’t prove that, can you?

And surely, you don’t mean to accuse you people like Martin Luther King Jr or Ghandi or Mother Teresa of being evil?

What’s important is not your beliefs or what you stand for. What’s important is how you help make this world a better place.

Atheist or Theist shouldn’t matter.

Thank you.

By the way, if you believe the Bible is the inspired word of God, you need to read some of its history. Here’s a shorty—The bible as we know it today is a compilation of roughly 66 books authored by at least 40 people (many anonymous) over a period of 1600 (yes…. one thousand six hundred) years. The new testament was canonized almost four hundred years after the death of Christ and many books were of uncertain authorship and many were left out (see the gospel of Mary Magdalene and the gospel of Thomas). The decision on what to put in and what to leave out was made largely by the bishop of Lyon (Irenaeus)……not God. The book was translated and transcribed at least 25000 times by different organizations with their own interests, including an incredibly powerful and corrupt holy catholic church which gave us a fine history of holy events such as the inquisition, the crusades, indulgences etc…..
All I can say is…. If you believe the bible is the divine infallible word of god knowing its history ……I have a fucking bridge to sell you. The bible is no basis for reaching any scientific conclusion.

I would guess we are in the process of discovering science, we gain insights and intelligence all the time.

and as always

If,
God is Love

and
Love is Blind

and
Ray Charles is/was Blind

therefore
Ray Charles is God