http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/020402/Loc_navyseal.shtml

http://docriojaseal.tripod.com/justinseal.htm

The fact some of these guys are so young makes me depressed in a way, but in another way... im glad it's them and not me doing this at 17.

And as you can read above, life spares no one the curveballs. Not even the elite.

This is a pretty big answer, so I've split it in chunks with their own headline.

We may have some common ground, but it is smaller than you've indicated. I said I was inclined to think that the universe always existed somehow, but this does not spread to other ideas - I don't think that we existed always or that something other than the universe existed always. My assumption here is actually not reasonable, but I make it because it has no descernable effect on my daily life.

Re: Believers are just as logical as non-believers
For purely principle reasons it is obvious that the scientific method cannot directly prove nor disprove God, but there is a difference in the two. We can gather evidence that indicate, if not directly proves/disproves something. Take the Loch Ness Monster. While we cannot directly disprove it unless we do an exhaustive search of the lake, we can take the many observations and searches as "evidence" or at least conjecture that the monster probably does not exist. If someone thinks that the monster does exist for whatever reason, it is their responsibility to prove that it does, not everyone else's to prove that it does not. So, while there may not be directly contradicting evidence to God's existence there is plenty of evidence that makes more sense if he does not, in addition the religion around this God has plenty of "plot holes" about God, which also leads us to think that it does not make sense. For instance, if God is the God of Young Earth Creationists, then there absolutely IS evidence that he does not exists. You'll agree to this, right? Whenever Science gets closer, it seems that God conveniently retreats into the unknown areas, which again is the God in the Gaps. I think that people who believe in God ARE less logical or reasonable than those who do not.

Which is the reasonable assumption to make, when there is absolutely no evidence for or against something?

I have not seen any evidence that contradicts the existence of fairies, but I have neither seen evidence that support it; which should I assume? There are three possible assumptions:

1) I'm fairy-agnostic - they may or may not exist, but I make no assumptions one way or the other.
2) Fairies probably do not exist, because if they did, evidence that supported their existence would have come about, and as such I can assume that they do not exist.
3) Fairies probably exist, because there has been found no evidence against them.

I would in general choose the second option, because if things exist they tend to show themselves - somehow. I think that people who take the third option of believing that fairies exists are making an unreasonable assumption, because there is neither evidence that supports it, nor traces of evidence such as fairy-droppings, fairy houses or something similar. Do you follow my logic that people who believe in this way are less reasonable/logical?

Your definition of your God and my arguments against him
* God is perfect (a perfect being).
* God is not bound by time and space in the same way we are.
* God does not break "natural laws".
* God has always existed, in one form or another.
* God created all created things, but not all things.

This is the definition you provided, and I will base my arguments on that.

There are some words that need further specification.

"Perfect" is a very big, vague and subjective word. Do you mean that God is infallible or all knowing? It must include that he cannot be perfected in any way: become any better.

"Natural laws" is also a bit vague. Your example, the principle that nothing comes from nothing, is a logical argument, but natural laws are something else. Newtons law, Einsteins theory of relativety, how temperature spreads, gravity: those are natural laws, but if God is not bound by time/space then he obviously is not bound by gravity. I think the point here is that you mean God does not engage in logical paradoxes: "Can God make a toast so hot that he himself couldn't eat it?" But if he is perfect, then he must and by being perfect he proves that he cannot exist.

God created all created things? Well, that can be true, but if nothing is created that is explained away. I doubt you'll be satisfied by that answer though, so I'll argue that this again breaks your definitions. What did he create all created things from? Nothing? Was God created? You'll obviously argue no, because then he needs a creator of his own and we'll have en infinite regress. But if God was not created, did he come from nothing?

"God has always existed in one form or another, as have we. We were "something" before we were "created.""
The first part can only be answered, perhaps, if he exists. Concerning humans, you are of course technically correct, but not in the way that you think. "We" are who we are, I am me and you are you. "We" have never existed in any other form in any reality. Our bodies, however, is merely a collection of atoms, which of course always were something before they were coagulated and rearranged into the meta-structure that is our bodies. it is this way with all things, the atoms and molecules have always existed somehow, but have been shaped into the arrangments they have now by our environement.

I was obviously not created by God, I naturally grew in my mother womb as a direct result of massive cell-generation which started with the combination of sperm and egg. This was a rearrangement of atoms from food and energy into matter, namely my body ("me"). Nothing created me, I naturally grew.

Curveballs and God-theory
By curveballs I just meant that it was tough questions.

The two first explanations are exactly more logical than the God-theory because the God-theory falls back on either 1 or 2 at some point. The God-theory is a non-explanation for the existance of the universe, because it just moves the question one step - instead of asking "how did the universe come into existence", it is "how did God come into existence, so he could created the universe". And if we use the same explanation for god, that he was created by a super-god, then it becomes "How did super-god come into existence, so that he could create God who could create the universe" this is an infinite regress and is a non-explanation for anything. It must be grounded somehow, which both the other explanations do.

I submit again that the three explanations may not be exhaustive, because the Universe is far more mysterious than we can scientifically explain at this point, so there may be some fourth explanation that covers it. In any case, the God-theory does not explain it.

Faith and logic
There are parts of the bible which are directly opposed to one another? How do you interpret your way out of those? Genesis directly contradicts reality, how do you interpret your way out of that?
In my mind interpreting an answer from the Bible is just picking and choosing which parts fit your point of view and ignoring the parts that don't fit. This is a Bad Thing.

"You said that the fact that we have never had empirical evidence to disprove the existence of God "does seem to show a tendency.""
That's not true. I said that the distinct lack of evidence for the existence of God show a tendency. As I explained above, if the evidence for and against something both is zero, then the reasonable assumption is that it does not exist.


In reply to this comment by thepinky:
[snip]
In reply to this comment by gwiz665:
[snip]
In reply to this comment by thepinky:
[snip]
In reply to this comment by gwiz665:
[snip]
In reply to this comment by thepinky:
[snip]
In reply to this comment by gwiz665:
[snip]

Saddam was not a terrorist, to say he is a terrorist is a logically fallacy, that would make Bush a terrorist as well for invading two sovergien nations. Also does that make the US a terrorist nation to be the only country in the world to use nuclear weapons offensively? Imagine that! Any day those guys could nuke someone! The horror! We must invade now!

The case for WMDs in Iraq was built because of the Bush Administration desire to go to war in Iraq riding off the 9/11 attacks, since it was not possible to rationally argue for it in anyway the WMD case was built relying mostly on the information of a single informant code named 'Curveball':

Curveball was the pseudonym given by the Central Intelligence Agency to Rafid Ahmed Alwan an Iraqi citizen who defected from Iraq in 1999, claiming that he had worked as a chemical engineer at a plant that manufactured mobile biological weapon laboratories as part of an Iraqi weapons of mass destruction program. Alwan's allegations were subsequently shown to be false by the Iraq Survey Group's final report published in 2004. Despite warnings from the German Federal Intelligence Service regarding the authenticity of the claims, the US Government utilized them to build a rationale for military action in the lead up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, including in the 2003 State of the Union address, where President Bush said "we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs", and Colin Powell's presentation to the UN Security Council, which contained a computer generated image of a mobile biological weapons laboratory. On November 4, 2007, 60 Minutes revealed Curveball's real identity. Former CIA official Tyler Drumheller summed up Curveball as "a guy trying to get his green card essentially, in Germany, and playing the system for what it was worth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curveball_(informant)

This all lead up to Colin Powell's presentation at the UN, utterly destroying any shred of credibility of both Powell and the CIA. The case for war was cherry picked. After the war various study groups were formed to solidify the case for WMDs, the admission that no WMDs were found or any found were from depleted 1990 Gulf War stocks was much to damaging for the Administration which argued that Iraq had nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, so various counter study groups were formed since there was political motivation to build a legitimated case for war in Iraq:

On January 23, 2004, the head of the ISG, David Kay, resigned his position, stating that he believed WMD stockpiles would not be found in Iraq. "I don't think they existed," commented Kay. "What everyone was talking about is stockpiles produced after the end of the last Gulf War and I don't think there was a large-scale production program in the nineties."

In a briefing to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Kay criticized the pre-war WMD intelligence and the agencies that produced it, saying "It turns out that we were all wrong, probably in my judgment, and that is most disturbing."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Survey_Group

This of course all makes sense, the administration couldn't come from the invasion say it was catastrophically mistaken in gathering intelligence pre-invasion, so various counter arguments were created everything ranging from Iraq had to be invaded because it had skilled labor in the WMD industry, to that knowledge could seep into Syria and Iran (which it of course did due to the Iraqi dispora).

However all this was damage control, and the administration skillfully changed the narrative now to freedom and democracy in Iraq as well as "We're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here".

The worsening of the war also diverted public attention, but it is telling that most of the media avoided exploring this topic like it was the black plague, the usual patriotic attacks along the line of "Our troops are dying and questioning their sacrifice even if no WMDs are found, is unpatriotic." Never mind that they wouldn't need to die considering international pressure during UN discussions around January 2003 would lead to eventual opening up of Iraq to serious inspections, but war was on the agenda months before, when US was preparing to go to war with Afghanistan, it was already preparing for war in Iraq.

I can attest to this personally since I was in Kuwait at the time, the build up of man power and arms was well underway even before December/January. The administration decided to act unilaterally, the UN and coalition thing were just smoke and mirrors to create some sort of legitimacy to what was basically an unprovoked invasion.

But the facts are clear The Iraq Survey group under Charles Duelfer said Iraq's nuclear capability had decayed and not grown since the 1991 war. This was reported in October 2004, "Report concludes no WMD in Iraq", of course as I said the narrative was being actively changed by then the Administration said that the report showed "intent" so it was good we attacked then when we did. Which is about as logically as saying the US has intent to nuke someone else because it happens to possess nuclear weapons and has done it before thus we should invade and disarm it.

No problem, and sorry I got a bit pissed off about it. I shouldn't have, I just get tired of the process I guess. Every time I start in a new place I've got to convince a new group that I'm neither left nor right, conservative nor liberal. I'm pretty fed up with partisan politics in general and just down to checking the results and going with what works. Checking the results we don't seem to do much these days, on any side.

It's not that I don't like or trust this guy in particular, it's more than this is the way the process works these days. Tax breaks for the rich were sold under claims of foreclosed farms due to inheritance tax. Problem was that when asked to source or prove it they couldn't come up with a single example. None.

Iraq was sold as self defense, people today still argue that it was bad intelligence rather than lies but don't bother to explain things like how Curveball turned from a source we had never properly met and those who did handle said was mentally unstable, but when Powell spoke to the UN the info he gave was that the single source had turned into a claim of multiple sourced and confirmed.

We've got media consolidation, was supposed to increase the variety of programming but what we ended up with is 200 channels of garbage that all looks the same and is all run out of the same dozen or so corporate offices. We think what we think these days because for the last few decades some of those most in need of being controlled themselves controlled our only means of news and communication.

We've got the drug war, who could argue that? At least at first, it was about protecting the kids after all. After a 6 times growth in the prison/jail population that's now left us as the single most imprisoned nation in the world both per capita and in raw numbers with a 6-8 times *increase* in the death rates of cocaine and heroin, now things aren't so clear anymore.

We're too easily impressed by ideas that *sound* good and we don't watch the details, again and again we end up wishing that we had watched them. In the early 1900's psychology found its way into advertising and after the politicians found how well it worked it found its way into politics as well, these days manipulation is most of what both "sides" do. Even the supposed good guys have to play the game simply because the other side does, eventually all are corrupted by the process. Watch the details, they don't mention too much that they really should and hide one aspect behind others. If overseas action is the only or even main goal here then why is it expected to "obliterate" Posse Comitatus?

It shouldn't be there, period. The rest I didn't have a problem with, just that angle, and for foreign use I see no reason for it to be there in the first place. If he thinks it should be then he's got to explain it better than that and define any limits that would remain. Obliterated doesn't imply any left. Posse Comitatus restricts the use of the military against American citizens, we're going to need better reasons to get rid of it I'd think. Even if we trusted him and how he wants to use it, he isn't going to control it. Bush will, Hillary will, or whoever comes after them will.

It's not a matter of can we trust this individual with it. It's a matter of can we trust the worst we can expect to hold that office with it and are there appropriate checks in place to stop abuse. That's why in the past it required Congressional approval, but we're chipping those checks away. Precedent isn't partisan and once we allow a line to be crossed a little bit we have less reason to stop them from crossing it at all. The law is as much precedent as what's on the books and we've been setting some bad ones. Yeah, it does worry me, the future of this nation isn't bright the direction we're going these days.

you might want to impeach cheney first though

take action:
The one click form on this page will send your personal message to all your members of Congress, with your vote on the the question "Should Vice President Cheney be impeached?"
http://www.usalone.com/cheney_impeachment.php

Why?

Lying to congress and the American people:
* Lie #1 - Uranium from Niger - Bush said "The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." in his State of the Union Address. The documents supporting that statement were forged.
* Lie #2 - Iraq and 9/11 - Bush led people to believe that Iraq was involved with 9/11 by repeatedly linking them in his speeches. This was so effective that at one point 70% of Americans actually believed Saddam was behind 9/11. Bush has since admitted that this was not true.
* Lie #3 - Congress Knew - Bush has stated that Congress had access to all the same information that the White House had. Thus he should not be blamed for making the mistake of going to war. But Bush was briefed many times about the falsehood of various stories and this information never reached Congress. [ZNet]
* Lie #4 - Aluminum Tubes - Bush, Cheney, Rice and Powell said that some aluminum tubes Iraq attempted to buy were intended for use in a uranium centrifuge to create nuclear weapons. These were the only physical evidence he had against Iraq. But it turns out this evidence had been rejected by the Department of Energy and other intelligence agencies long before Bush used them in his speeches. [NYTimes] [MotherJones] [CNN]
* Lie #5 - Iraq and Al Qaeda - Bush still insists that there was a "relationship" between Iraq and Al Qaeda. But the 9/11 Commission released a report saying, among other things, that there was no "collaborative relationship" between Al Qaeda and Iraq. The nature of the relationship seems to be that Al Qaeda asked for help and Iraq refused. Al Qaeda was opposed to Saddam Hussein because Saddam led a secular government instead of an Islamic government. [ZNet] [CNN] On 9/8/06 a Senate panel reported there was no relationship. [ABC]
* Lie #6 - Weapons of Mass Destruction - Bush insisted that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction but his "evidence" consisted mostly of forged documents, plagiarized student papers, and vague satellite photos. The United Nations was on the ground in Iraq and could find nothing. After extensive searches Bush was finally forced to admit that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction.
* Lie #7 - Mobile Weapons Labs - Bush and his team repeatedly claimed that Iraq possessed mobile weapons labs capable of producing anthrax. Colin Powell showed diagrams of them at his speech before the UN to justify invading Iraq. These claims originated from Curveball, a discredited Iraqi informer who fed Bush many of the stories related to WMD. On May 29, 2003, two small trailers matching the description were found in Iraq. A team of bio-weapons experts examined the trailers and concluded they were simply designed to produce hydrogen for weather balloons. But, for over a year, Bush claimed these were part of Iraq's bio-weapons program. The expert's report was suppressed and only recently made public. [WashPost] [ABC]