Way too seriously? Or you mean, people who appreciate the finer details? I find people who think others "take it too seriously" just don't appreciate things enough.

Now, there are snobs and pretentiousness abounding. But that doesn't mean those of use who actually understand the meaning, history and complexity of certain things, such as sushi or coffee, doesn't mean your lack of understanding and appreciation devalues anything for us. Quite the contrary.

You'd probably be the one to say my spending $4,000 on a cheap mountain bike is pretentious or taking it way too seriously, but unless you're "serious" about what you enjoy, you can't appreciate the differences it makes. Aside from that, you may as well just blend everything together into a mush and drink it through a straw. Don't want to get too serious about eating my food after all.

Fear fap. (fapfapfapfapfapfapfpafpafapfpafapfapfapfapfapfapfap) Come on. Study economics and history and you will know exactly how the government is going to "fix" the debt. It's called intentional devaluation of the national currency. Followed by massive digital printing of money to cover all international debt. Following repayment, the government will use a substitute currency or simply "erase" the serial numbers issued to foreign powers, thereby revaluing the physical and digital currency held by National assets (citizens). This is a one day solution that will most likely be used. Of course this is just my educated opinion, but it is a significantly less problematic one than preparing for civil war or rebellion against the Fed. If you are worried about the currency devaluation hurting you in your retirement options or investments, buy land.

I am a father of a certain number of children. Let's just say more than your average. It is very common for people to approach me and ask how many children I plan on having. When the question is returned to them (if they have a child/children) they nearly always respond with, "Oh, I'm DONE having children! I'm not going to have ANY MORE. No way!" They say that with their own children standing right there. Whether they realize it or not, they are telling their existing children that they do not want to have to deal with any more people like THEM. It's a great insult and devalues, whether consciously or subconsciously, the child's existence.

But that's all negative thinking, like you said. Here's the positive: Children are AWESOME (when you love them)! Have more! :-D

Well, you mention the unborn, yet on the main the thinking in environmental circles is that we have too many humans and that the Earth is unable to support them. Therefore, abortion (over 70 million unborn children murdered in the US since the 70s) is to be embraced, and even more extreme methods of population control are not only openly pondered, but have resulted in mass sterilization programs which have been mercilessly implemented in third world countries. Here are some of the greater atrocities committed in the name of preserving "mother earth":

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-population-control-holocaust

Among the intellectual elite, human lives are reduced to being paid the same consideration as one might the lowly cockroach. Contrary to your assertion, it is the Christian who affirms the sanctity of life and the inherent value of every person, whereas it is the opponents of Christianity that affirm infanticide:

Dawkins approves of infanticide

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFWt9cj3uj4

If you would reread my prior comment, you will see that I am in agreement with @RFlagg that we should be good stewards of the Earth. However, the mania of the environmentalists is to devalue human life and subordinate it to their misguided notions of preservation. The sickness of this world is sin, and the only one who can cure it is God. This world will continue to degenerate until the Lord returns because it is in rebellion against its Creator:

2 Chronicles 7:14

if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

"The best way to devalue a currency is to stop believing in it."

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Sure, happy to provide my view on it - and hopefully this won't piss too many people off.

First off - when you say it was working wonderfully - I would have to ask, for who? Although Lucky and I see eye-to-eye with the community most of the time - there are some things in which we have a different perspective.

That's because, although VideoSift is a community first, it's also an engine. An engine for creating good content that people want to view. By "people" I mean The vast holi poli of the Interwebs. I've mentioned it before, but 95% of our viewers are not Sifters.

I'm going to be frank and say that this is the dirty little secret of VideoSift. We rely on those people to pay the bills. We rely on this silent 95%, who don't have a voice here, but still come here every day to load the front page and see what's new and good as voted by the excellent curators here.

Promote is a good tool, but it concentrates the power of taste maker in a very small minority of all Sifters. When the silent majority comes to the front page and sees a bunch of promotes by 2 or 3 people taking up most of the front page - it devalues all of the other hard working content, much of it from new or less connected Sifters.

I'm not against promote. I just want it to be a tool that is balanced and used effectively. Especially to surface unusual or under-appreciated content.

TLDR: The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one or the few - and I have been and will always be, your friend Jim Eric.

I agree with you that Israel has taken away the freedoms of the people in Palestine, however I feel that that freedom was lost by the people because of their continued backing of Hamas and Hamas's continued attacks against Israel.
I think that both parties are at fault to some degree, but I also believe the burden of the blame rests with Hamas and their continued requests for the destruction of Israel. To answer your questions directly:
1b. Do you disagree with any of, "The core Hamas themselves are (generally speaking) just haters like WBC or the KKK and they get support now from the citizens because they're all collectively being severely oppressed by Israel." ?
I agree that Hamas are just hater racists. I believe that they have integrated themselves into the Palestinian people with a hate and blame based marketing campaign that has the Palestinian children learning how to kill Jews in class. This campaign is reinforced by some of the policies of the Israeli government as an unintended consequence. I have consistently seen any positive developments towards peace wind up being corrupted by the outrageous demands of Hamas that they will not settle for anything but the complete elimination of Israel and the refusal to recognize the Israeli state.

"2b. Do you think, if a free Palestinian state were created with the 1946 borders, that Hamas would retain enough support from the people to continue fighting with Israel, which would keep their lives constantly under threat, just as is the case in Israel now? Personally, if the citizens weren't being oppressed, I don't think they would favour killing anybody, and would choose a live-and-let-live policy so they could raise a family in peace and seek success in the world."
Perhaps, but Hamas has stated many times that their goal is not just reverting back to the 1946 borders, but the elimination of Israel. They've ingrained that into the people of Palestine and as we are discussing this I fear that this may be a situation where peace can not be brokered because of the constantly reinforced hatred towards the Jewish people. I pray it doesn't revert to a situation like that of WW2 where entire cities were eliminated in order to get Germany to eventually collapse. (We didn't just do it to the Japanese, although the comparison may be more accurate) Besides reverting back to the 1946 borders isn't really feasible, or justified, but that is a WHOLE different discussion. (There weren't borders in 1946 as all of Palestine was under British control from WW1)

"Can you substantiate that? Celebration alone makes someone a terrorist? And "blight on humankind" doesn't even have meaning. They ARE humankind. They're not an affliction."

I can actually, celebration of an innocents death in my opinion shows a lack of a soul and a lack of sympathy towards other human beings. Celebrating the death of a child is about the most evil thing I can think of, yet Islamic extremists do it on a regular basis. It makes you a monster and puts you outside of humankind. So yes it makes you very much an affliction on humankind. Unfortunately it is very likely a symptom of humankind as well, but like an infection is a symptom of being alive, sometimes it must be abraded and removed completely.
As humans we have to value life and celebrate life, not death. I feel the same way about the KKK or any other organization that divides the human species into groups and has devalued one of those groups to the point where the death of one of them is something to be celebrated. That is hate and it is evil. Evil, real evil, exists in this world and it can be seen in the video above.

Celebrating the death of innocents isn't in and of itself something that makes a person a terrorist, it merely reinforces the fact that Hamas is a terrorist organization.

All this yet I still like to play FPS. Huh...gonna have to dwell on that.

Would take more courage than I have to do this, regardless of the safety mechanisms in place. Good on him for trying it and thanks for the view.

Re the cynicism, some people feel a need to justify their own lack of achievements by devaluing the achievements of others. I'm not saying that this is something that should define the lives of people, but it sure isn't worth talking down about and if one simply held no interest in the feat, they wouldn't have commented.

>> ^scannex:

Certainly didn't take you long to resort to personal attacks. Sorry I annoy you.
Congratulations, you annoy me.
1. Your connection is ridiculous. I must somehow be privileged or sexist to have this view?
2. I guess I cannot figure out your point, since I only directly dealt with #3 in your post it sure sounded like "because she cannot turn off being fat, its nothing like smoking". Your other points are you soapboxing about how you want the world to be and are not something I am likely to convince you about.
3. She needs to binge eat in front of the camera to draw the conclusion that she overeats? I completely disagree with you that SHE is in a situation where being overweight is a necessity.
A point I will concede to: It is WILDLY more expensive to healthily than to eat garbage. Being on a local TV program however makes me think she is likely able to afford healthier choices.
3b. Please feel free to provide some hard numbers on the incidence of genetic obesity
4. I redefined behavior following you redefining behavior as essentially a state one can inhibit in the presence of others. Obesity is a behavioral problem. Feel free to use meriam webster if that link is insufficient for you.
5. I didn't ignore 1, and 2 of your post I just didn't reply to it. I don't agree with you. Period. It is tangential to our argument and while valid arguments will further take it off topic.I will say that you ascribe such heightened value to everything it makes me think you are on the brink of a nervous breakdown.
6. What do I care if what she said was not reprehensible? To be blunt, she cites this as a bullying event. It isn't. That is inaccurate. Its becoming the first warcry of those with hurt feelings. My main problem with it is that doing this has the effect of DEVALUING the term, and often when that happens people become desensitized to it. Not every statement is bullying. Not everyone who hears a negative utterance was bullied.
7. One said wasn't saying Shh. One side was privately making a statment. Voicing an opinion, however dickish. Was it his place? Nope. Was it nice? Nope. Was it his right? Yes if you live in any of the 50 states it is his right. A lot of assholes do things with words, like the westboro baptist church and gay soldiers funerals. When it reaches a point of bullying things need to be done (and in the westboro case something WAS done to stop them). That's a good thing. That differentiation between systemic hatred and one guy writing an email NEEDS to be made clear.
Last to your example of Chris Christie, people are BRUTAL to that guy. He gets his share of mail I assure you. People give him shit for the exact same reason of being int he public eye as well. The sexist/privelaged thing is just wild speculation on your part that only makes an angry situation seem angrier. That says a lot about you and your mindset, too.
>> ^hpqp:

Words



It's a fair point to call me out on making presumptions about you and linking your comments to those I've been reading elsewhere; my apologies for that.

You cannot dissociate my first 2 points above from the third: you do not go telling strangers, even in a passive-aggressive way, that they are unfit to be in the public eye. For someone so quick to see personal attacks in comments about you, you seem rather impervious to those in the letter you defend (then again, 'tis true that I'm not very subtle when pissed). The real tangent, one I should probably not have given so much weight to, is whether or not obesity is something one can show/not show and induce simply by showing it (my argument remains valid, btw, it's just not so important as to repeat it all over, and your strawmen are so obvious as to no longer require pointing out).

Your point as I understand it is twofold: the letter-writer has a right to send the anchor his personal criticism and is right to do so. I only agree with the first part; he has a right to do so ((so long) as it is not harassment/threats), but she is also right to call him out for it, and point out that such behaviour is wrong, and that it participates in a culture that tolerates bullying, by letting people think it's fine to say whatever they think to whomever without questioning whether it might be hurtful or not. And nobody's saying that something like this is as bad as WBC-style bullying or systemic racist bs, just like nobody would argue that a female politician being meowed in a session by a colleague is as bad a case of sexism/misogyny as a continually harassed or beaten wife, for example. They are, however, on a spectrum with a unifying underlying belief, namely "I can and should voice my opinions/(dis)tastes about others without taking how it affects them into consideration (and society has nothing to say about it)".

The reason I projected the whole sexism/privilege thing on your comments is because they contain the same "it's harmless/no big deal" and "just poor me self-victimisation" and "what's with making a private event/exchange public?" and "you're trampling his rights!" dismissals. It was wrong of me to do so, but at least now you can understand why I did.

Speaking of projection, presumption and personal attacks, you sure are quick to jump to (and stick to) the conclusion that the anchor is overweight because she has poor lifestyle choices (the same assumptions behind the letter), which is why I (and @bmacs27) went on the tangent of "there's-more-to-obesity-than-being-a-lazy-junkfood-gobler". The assumption that an overweight person is that way because s/he choses so is insulting and ignorant in and of itself, the same way the GOP's "poor people are that way cuz they're lazy moochers who don't pull themselves up by the bootstraps" is.

As for Chris Christie, I refer to point 1) of my comment above: public denunciation all 'round!

I hope that has clarified my argument. Otherwise, I refer you to @Thumper's comments, less contentious than mine and with which I wholly agree.

Certainly didn't take you long to resort to personal attacks. Sorry I annoy you.
Congratulations, you annoy me.
1. Your connection is ridiculous. I must somehow be privileged or sexist to have this view?

2. I guess I cannot figure out your point, since I only directly dealt with #3 in your post it sure sounded like "because she cannot turn off being fat, its nothing like smoking". Your other points are you soapboxing about how you want the world to be and are not something I am likely to convince you about.

3. She needs to binge eat in front of the camera to draw the conclusion that she overeats? I completely disagree with you that SHE is in a situation where being overweight is a necessity.
A point I will concede to: It is WILDLY more expensive to healthily than to eat garbage. Being on a local TV program however makes me think she is likely able to afford healthier choices.
3b. Please feel free to provide some hard numbers on the incidence of genetic obesity

4. I redefined behavior following you redefining behavior as essentially a state one can inhibit in the presence of others. Obesity is a behavioral problem. Feel free to use meriam webster if that link is insufficient for you.

5. I didn't ignore 1, and 2 of your post I just didn't reply to it. I don't agree with you. Period. It is tangential to our argument and while valid arguments will further take it off topic.I will say that you ascribe such heightened value to everything it makes me think you are on the brink of a nervous breakdown.

6. What do I care if what she said was not reprehensible? To be blunt, she cites this as a bullying event. It isn't. That is inaccurate. Its becoming the first warcry of those with hurt feelings. My main problem with it is that doing this has the effect of DEVALUING the term, and often when that happens people become desensitized to it. Not every statement is bullying. Not everyone who hears a negative utterance was bullied.

7. One said wasn't saying Shh. One side was privately making a statment. Voicing an opinion, however dickish. Was it his place? Nope. Was it nice? Nope. Was it his right? Yes if you live in any of the 50 states it is his right. A lot of assholes do things with words, like the westboro baptist church and gay soldiers funerals. When it reaches a point of bullying things need to be done (and in the westboro case something WAS done to stop them). That's a good thing. That differentiation between systemic hatred and one guy writing an email NEEDS to be made clear.

Last to your example of Chris Christie, people are BRUTAL to that guy. He gets his share of mail I assure you. People give him shit for the exact same reason of being int he public eye as well. The sexist/privelaged thing is just wild speculation on your part that only makes an angry situation seem angrier. That says a lot about you and your mindset, too.

>> ^hpqp:

Words

@ReverendTed
Many issues to address here, but first, some clarifications. My analogies (wonky as they are) were to point out the immorality of the “you’ve got to live with the consequences” stance, they were not about who’s harmed. But speaking of harm, it would be more ethical to let the two analogical characters “suck it up” than to demand of a woman she bring an unwanted pregnancy to term. In the first cases, there is only one victim, but in the latter there are two. When I say abortion is “punishment enough”, what I mean is that it is already a disagreeable outcome of mistake-making/poor-choice-making, while obliging a woman to give birth to (and raise) an unwanted child not only negatively affects the mother’s life, but that of the child as well; it is a disproportionate price to pay for the former and completely unfair for the latter. Hence, imo, abortion is by far the lesser of two “evils”.

Adoption instead of abortion is “a non-solution and worse” for several reasons. First, there are already more than enough children already alive who need parents, and you know very well that most people prefer making their own than adopting, so many of these will never have a family (not to mention the often inferior care-giving in foster homes and social centres). Now imagine that every abortion is replaced with a child given up for adoption; can you not see the horror? It’s that many more neglected lives, not to mention the overall problem of overpopulation.

I’m going to go on a slight tangent, but a relevant one. I have a certain amount of experience with humanitarian aid in Africa, and one thing that causes me no end of despair is the idiotic, selfish way much of it is performed. Leaving aside corruption, proselytization, etc., the “West” pours food and medicine into Africa with that whole “life is sacred” “feed the poor” mentality – good intentions of course – but with disastrous results because education and contraception (not to mention abortion) are almost always left out, even discouraged, with the support of the usual religious suspects (remember the pope on condoms causing aids?). The result is simple, and simply appalling: despite aid and funds increasing globally every year, starvation and child mortality continue to rise. Why? Because the people being barely maintained keep making kids who grow up to starve and die in turn, instead of focusing on the education of one or two children to get them out of the vicious cycle (there is another argument to be made about the education of women, but I’m ranting enough as is).

The point of this digression is to show that the non-pragmatic “all life is sacred” stance is terribly counter-productive, and the same holds for abortion (viz: on adoption above). As for lack of pragmatism, the same goes for your comment on abstinence:
I appreciate that "don't have sex if you can't accept being pregnant" is not a magical incantation that makes people not have sex, but it has to be a part of it, because no method of contraception is 100% effective, even if used correctly.
What you’re saying basically is “people shouldn’t have sex unless they’re ready for childbearing/-raising”, which is absurd when one considers human nature and human relations.

All of the above arguments weigh into the question of the “ball of cells” vs “human being/identity”. The “sacred life” stance is one of quantity over quality, and in the long run devalues human life altogether. To quote Isaac Asimov on overpopulation: “The more people there are the less one individual matters”. In the abortion debate, what we have is one side so intent on protecting the abstract “life” that they disregard the lives of the two individuals in question, namely the “individual who is” (the mother) and the “individual who might be” (the child). The former is already a human individual, with memories, relationships, a personality, etc. The latter is not. The abortion question takes into account the future quality of life not only of the mother but of the would-be child as well, something the anti-abortion stance does not. Abortion doesn’t end an individual’s life, it prevents a ball of cells from becoming one. Here is where the religious aspect is crucial, because while embryologists see a complex mass of cells with no capacity for cognition/sensation, superstitious people assign an individual “consciousness” or “soul” to it, thus making abortion feel like murder instead of like the removal of a tumour. The question of potential is an emotionally manipulative one that does not hold up to criticism, because as @packo sarcastically (and the Monty Python brilliantly ) point out, you can go a long ways up the stream of potential.

I like the first half of @gorillaman’s tomato analogy for that reason (the second half is hyperbolic absurdity), that it underlines what is important in the debate: the living “thing”’s capacity for sensation/cognition/interaction. If you grew up with a tumour on your body which giggled when you tickled it and cried when you hit it, you would probably think twice before getting rid of it. That does not mean I’m categorically against late-term abortions, but for me the scale seriously tips between the 20-25th weeks when the nervous system of the foetus centralises. Of course, it is preferable that should an abortion take place it would be before the foetal stage, for the sake of medical and psychological comfort, but unfortunately one cannot always know so soon that one is pregnant.

Hillbilly beliefs?
Sounds more like mainstream beliefs.
His foreign policy has been dismal ( well for a Muslim loving guy its a complete success).

Domestically speaking there is nothing to show. We are worse off then before. Well except the fuckload of debt that did not turn this show around. His leadership has spent more than the first 41 presidents combined. His own last 3 budgets were so bad they only got 3 votes total. Just 3!

Harry Ried has yet to create a budget --- Total foolishness on him and the Democrats.


The election comes down to JOBS. If you want to have a job or keep the one you got then you need to vote this clown out. And every other democrat needs to out also.


On election day the market will take a 200 point dive and the nest 4 yrs there will be great market devaluation. -- Your retirement depends on this not happening.

Corporations are sitting on tons of cash-- afraid to do anything until this fool is ousted.


If you desire for the economy to sink deeper down the tubes then be the fool and keep the radical raciest in office.

>> ^charliem:

I missed the comedy part of this. Its quite pathetic using your kids to peddle your moronic hillbilly political beliefs.

I'm impressed by the number of people speaking out in favour of a "replygirl", cos i thought the term meant "an empty headed big titted youtube user who shows cleavage to make money." I'm not an exhibitionist so i wouldn't know whether it's worth it or not; to me it's not.

But in the interests of restoring the balance; i don't have respect for people who shake their tits about for money in this way. I hope she's investing some of the cash she's making for her impending retirement because i hear tits devalue rapidly with both age and familiarity. Could invest in surgery i suppose but that's a cycle that'll eventually end in mother nature's favour.

Porn - you couldn't get away from it even if you wanted to.

You've done some nice cherry picking here. Sepacore, my hope in this conversation is that you will be intellectually honest to address the substance of the arguments, rather than trying to find some angle to make your point so you can *avoid* addressing the substance. I don't think that is too much to ask.

My point exactly.
Therefore to call it 'evidence' rather than 'subjective experience' is an at best misleading if not false claim, as the term 'evidence' used in conversation with others generally refers to something provable to others.

To say something like "I had a subjective experience that is evidence to me" would be fine, as it has a buffer around the term to denote that 'evidence' in this case is in no way substantial or transferable to others, i.e. not evidence to others and can be discarded.. and any line of poetic words can not change this.

Jesus made a claim, that if I put my faith in Him, He would send me the Holy Spirit to supernaturally transform me, and live within me. If that happens, it is objective evidence that His claim is true. You may have other theories as to why it happened to me, or that it happened at all and I am simply deluding myself, but something has happened, and I have changed. Whether it is subjectively experienced, it can be objectively observed in my life. I am a different person, and those in my immediate family and circle of friends have certainly noticed it.

Let's look at the definition of evidence:

ev·i·dence
   [ev-i-duhns] Show IPA noun, verb, ev·i·denced, ev·i·denc·ing.
noun
1.
that which tends to prove or disprove something; ground for belief; proof.
2.
something that makes plain or clear; an indication or sign: His flushed look was visible evidence of his fever.
3.
Law . data presented to a court or jury in proof of the facts in issue and which may include the testimony of witnesses, records, documents, or objects.

As you can see, not all evidence can be empirically tested. Personal testimony is sufficient to send people to the electric chair in our court system. My personal testimony, and the testimony of billions of others, does count as evidence. This is all beside the point:

If you understand the above point (one you made yourself), then you may agree that those who 'require evidence' (regardless of what some guy poetically said), can not genuinely accept your use of the word 'evidence' as having the same value as what now has to be refereed to as 'actual evidence' for clarity after the term has been devalued to host a non-transferable personal experience (i.e. not evidence to others), and therefore swapping out this term for a personal 'reason to believe' is not only required for more clearly followable terminology within a conversation but is more accurate in general discourse of 2 opposing views.

You have completely ignored the entire point of my argument, and it seem you deliberately left out the key part of what I was saying:

"but it is something you can test on your own"

I am not telling you, I experienced God so believe in God on that basis. I am telling you that Jesus made a claim which you can empirically test. You have constantly objected that there is no empirical evidence for God, yet you have failed to validate whether this is true. You have merely assumed it is true, through many other lines of reasoning, except the one that would, if the claim was true, produce any results. Again, Jesus said directly that you would have no experience of God outside of going through Him, and your experience directly matches His claim; No have no experience of God. You assume its because there isn't a God, which is natural to assume, but Jesus said it is because there is no way to even approach God or know anything about Him except through Jesus.


Re Jesus said, Jesus said etc

The notion that one would give another great tools/resources like logical processing, rational thought and critical thinking and then put forward a reward of 'subjective experience based evidence' only achievable by those that disregarded such 'gifts' enough so as to have a chance of achieving this form of evidence is absurd.

If there is a God, then you are using none of these tools correctly. If you've ever read the book "flatland", then you can understand how two dimensional creatures would consider the possibility of a 3D world illogical and irrational. Thus, so does a materialist consider the spiritual reality to be illogical and irrational. This is why I say atheism is a religion for people who have no experience of God.

The bible anticipates your argument and your skepticism:

1 Corinthians 1:18-22

For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.

For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.

Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?

For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.

Men have always taken great pride in their intellectual accomplishments, yet none of them have ever given even one shred of revelation about Almighty God. The wisdom behind the cross is much higher than this worldly wisdom, and it in fact proves it all to be vanity and foolishness, but the world cannot see that, because it is wise in its own eyes:

Romans 1:22

Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,

No offense taken as you've missed the point. Firstly there is a difference as i do not claim to 'know' that God doesn't exist. I claim to have 'reasons to believe' that it is unlikely. Knowledge of mental deficiencies, emotions, subjective experiences, experience recognition mental softwares and the way humans make mass assumptions to quickly gain degrees of understandings of any/every situation alone take me right up to that hairsbreadth away point. Whereby it can take time and effort explaining to people the difference between agnostic (don't know/care), agnostic-atheist (don't know, doubt it) and atheist (believe not), I'm happy to wear the tag as a generality in non-specific and non-in-depth discussions.

However I'm aware that a God identical to your claims 'could' be hiding in the shadows just outside of human detection and actual evidence as the religious coincidentally claim to those who request proof (yet then in the same breath can state 'but I have personal evidence'.. yes, seems convenient and unlikely).
Just like I'm aware that there 'could' be a 700 story tall pink dragon that farts rainbows named Trevor that simultaneously exists and doesn't exist inside both of my kidneys without being split into 2 parts..
Or someone 'could' prefer their beliefs enough to unknowingly and automatically do mental acrobats around anything that would disrupt them including acknowledging that their position is unsubstantiated outside of a mind that wants to believe (this is in fact what can occur when someone suffers from a delusion).
Debating possibilities is a waste of time, whereas debating probabilities is where you might actually get some results or at least supportable reason to belive.

I'm not talking about probabilities. Jesus was a real person, and He made claims. These claims can be tested.

As far as the difference between God and trevor goes, one has explanatory power and one doesn't. Neither does anyone believe in trevor; he isn't plausible. He isn't even logically coherent. No one believes in flying tea pots, and flying tea pots don't explain anything. God does explain something, and in many cases, is a better explanation for the evidence, such as information in DNA and the fine tuning of our physical laws. Asking whether the Universe was intelligently designed is a perfectly rational question and there is evidence to support this conclusion. Do you know that 40 percent of biologists, physicists and mathematicians believe in a personal God? I am not appealing to an authority here, but I think this statistic shows that people trained in science do believe that the evidence points towards God.

understanding of stellar evolution is actually very primitive

The arguments relating to 'we don't know everything yet' is not a basis in which to claim 'X is just as, if not more so, likely to be true'. Claims require their own 'evidences' to support them. Pushing ideas onto people requires 'transferable evidence' and just because there is a question mark at a stage whereby most other aspects of a theory hold true enough to be accurately predicted during tests, does not reflect on another theory being more likely but may indeed reflect on another theory as being less likely.

Again, this is just cherry picking and I think you have lost track of the thread, or you don't want to follow it. You said that part of your skepticism about God creating the Universe was that we understood things about stellar evolution, which is to say we don't need to invoke God as an explanation. I pointed out that not only is our understanding primitive, but even if it were perfect, how does that rule out a Creator? You are confusing mechanism for agency. The stars didn't create themselves, the laws that govern the cosmos caused them to form, and ultimately the laws that caused them to form also had an origin. You have to explain the agency before you can say you don't need God to explain something.

I won't reply much to this as it merely shows that you're already geared to ignore actual evidences that would support the idea of the universe not requiring a God (note that this readiness to disregard facts is what occurs within delusions so as to keep degrees of stability withing fantasized worlds).

I can just as easily say this:

And I won't reply much to this as it merely shows that you're already geared to ignore actual evidences that would support the idea of the universe requiring a God (note that this readiness to disregard facts is what occurs within delusions so as to keep degrees of stability withing fantasized worlds)

Although we haven't figured everything out yet, we've only had about 400 years worth of good studying and scientific thinking on the matter of a 13.7 billion year old case... how much can you honestly expect us to know definitively when so much of our combined time goes towards supporting notions that can't actually be proved?

I don't, and therefore, I wouldn't expect you to say that what has been described actually proves anything one way or the other.

Yes I know that humans must make assumptions so as to figure things out, in fact it was one of the if not THE main focus of my previous post.
Could you ask your question if their wasn't uniformity in nature? No. The fact that there is, is what allows for those that can question it to arise. Our mere being here says nothing as to whether there is a God, in fact nothing in science thus far (to my knowledge) says anything as to whether there IS a God, however some things do say as to whether or not a God is required.

So what is the experiment that proves science is the best method for obtaining truth if you have to assume things you cannot prove to even do science?

Our being here doesn't prove there is a God, necessarily, but we should be surprised to find ourselves in a Universe that is so finely tuned for life.

Scripture (your one and others) say a lot of things, some things vaguely, somethings specifically, and some things contradictorily (Google 'bible contradictions' for examples), but most of all, it says things poetically somewhat like a manipulating salesman whose product you're not allowed to touch, until you've handed over the money. Scripture also doesn't say things as well as some writers over the years could have, but hey it's only the word of God.. I'm interested in things outside of scripture, things that are testable, things that are comparable to an alternate source than where they came from.

You're cherry picking, and dodging the substance, and now even the point of the argument. You were agreeing with Sageminds contention that if God is perfect, then He is also perfectly evil. I pointed out that scripture describes God different, and I also gave you a logical argument outside of scripture for it:

It would be less perfect for God to be a mixture of good and evil versus being perfectly good.

Do you have a response to that argument?

Cheap shot: proof please. I require it in order to respond to the statement & question.
Na just kidding I don't expect any proof for these claims, just like I can't provide you any proof about Trevor.. * whispers: because Trever doesn't actually exists *. In these cases we'll just dismiss each others unsubstantiated claims until the other provides either evidence or acceptable reason to believe said claims.

It's your claim that God does evil in the bible, and so I am asking you why, hypothetically, is it wrong for God to take a life? Since we're talking about the God of the bible, He is the creator of all things, and so has ultimate responsibility over His creation. He is responsible for every aspect of your life, and has the say over your continued existence. Therefore, what makes it wrong for Him to take life just as He gives and maintains life?

Conflict.

Christian claim: God gave humans free will and allows them to use it whereby they will be judged in the afterlife.
Christian claim: God may affect the world in your benefit if you pray (or as your hypothetical, affect the world against you if you're naughty).
Christian claim: God exists outside of detection.
Christian claim: God can do anything.
Christian claim: God.
Christian claim: God is mysterious / we can not understand the will of God
Christian claim: God likes X, God doesn't like Y.

Or to summarize: God exists outside of known existence and has the ability to create and destroy anything without exception.
This is the result of human intelligence evolving to the point of getting one of our psychological survival drives (hope) to an indisputable peak of performance.

My point is that believers over time have given themselves so much wiggle room, when we start talking about 'why God X, why not Y, can God Z' etc, then we enter the realm of imaginative flexibility where the desperate and delusional can simply change the variables of what they want to use regardless of the conflicts, and ignore any logical positions by getting caught up on their preferred ideological technicalities while rejecting other physical or metal technicalities or proofs.

Again, this is a hypothetical scenario involving the God of the bible. It's your claim that God has done evil, so you can back it up with a logical argument? I've outlined a few scenarios and asked you if God would be evil for doing any of those things. I am not talking about mysterious ways, I am talking about specifics.

I have to say 'proof please' again. The words of 1 source (the Bible) are not good enough, evidence requires testability and multiple sources of confirmation. Too much imagination and you can slip away from reality.

Again, we are speaking hypothetically of a scenario you engaged in; "how would you react if the God of the bible showed up at your door". You said you would react in such and such way, which is unrealistic considering how the God of the bible is described, which is what I pointed out to. Based on your modified understanding of the God of the bible, do you think you would react the same way?

Would have replied sooner, but was busy and then D3 launched =D

No problemo..take your time? How is D3?

>> ^Sepacore