This country was founded by Christians, and judeo-christian principles. 24 out of the 56 signers of the declaration of independence had seminary degrees, and some of them were ministers. The first meeting of the constitutional congress opened with a 3 hour prayer and a bible study. The reason we have "checks and balances" is because the founders knew all men are sinners and can't be trusted with power. James Madison got the idea for our three branches of government from Isaiah 33:22. This idea that this country has ever been secular in any sense is ridiculous. While some presidents may have been pandering, we are a Christian nation, and that is why we elect Christian leaders. Around 80 percent of us self-identify as Christian, and around 90 percent profess a belief in a higher power. Only around 13 percent of the country believes in darwinian evolution without any divine intervention, which is the reason why we won't have any atheists in the office anytime soon.

Newsweek

Now historians are discovering that the bible, perhaps even more than the constitution, is our founding document

12/27/82

>> ^Diogenes:

well, as the link infers... probably right from the start
i just find it difficult to agree with penn in that the umbrella term 'christian' began to flourish in the 1970s, and because of some sort of 'planning'
i mean, we know simply from the etymology of the word that it was used long, long ago... at first disparagingly by non-christians, and then embraced a few hundred years later as different assemblies used it to self identify
i think those who run for office are canny by nature, and it's probably second nature for them to understand that to garner more votes, they must present an inclusive image, rather than divisive

Those studies are not gonna show feedback from god? or divine intervention? Really father??? Oh my!
no study EVER is going to show any such thing, because it is not fucking real except in your head!

>> ^bmacs27:

If you've got me pegged as a creationist/ID proponent, you've got me pegged wrong. I specifically said, filling gaps in knowledge with divine intervention is obviously not valid. My point is simply that many who claim ID is unfalsifiable also claim irreducible complexity as impossible to demonstrate you might open evolution up to the same criticism. I don't really care what side I argue for, I'm just interested in hearing a hire level of debate. Frankly, I didn't want to talk about logical fallacies, I wanted to talk about biochemical processes, like opsin barrels, and energy barriers. That shit is dope.
Now, the real problem here is that what we mean by "evolution" is a moving target. It's so broad it's meaningless. In many ways "Darwinian evolution" has been falsified hundreds of times, much like Newtonian mechanics. It was wrong in the details. In fact, almost every rule I was ever taught at an elementary level about any sort of obviously falsifiable detail of evolution has turned out to be false in some weird or possibly limited case (e.g. epigenetics smells awfully Lamarckian). Still, we don't say "Darwin was wrong." You can't falsify evolution in the broad sense the same way you can't falsify gravity. At this point it's common sense more than science. It's more like a world view we use to form specific falsifiable theories than a theory itself. It's a world view that has been shown to be extraordinarily enlightening for sure. So much so, that at this point even with that Hippo fossil, I don't think people would change their minds.
That's fine. I just get worried about how far people push the assumption of natural selection (e.g. evolutionary psychology). I feel that there would more constructive arguments resulting from a healthy skepticism about it. I understand that there is a sociopolitical undertone to the whole debate, and I respect that. I just happen to think that those with the better arguments will win (natural selection). So often I see bullshit jive being put forth as reasoned debate, which I think is what happens when ideas gain too much popular acceptance. Thus, I'd like to see an elevated level of debate about the topic. Since you aren't going to get QM to form a coherent paragraph, I might as well be the uke.


Well, you may not remember, but not long ago "gravity" was thought not to exist. It took Galileo to prove without a doubt that it did. Same thing with "evolution": the concept was understood before Darwin (by, among others, Lamarck), but it took Darwin and his idea of natural selection to prove it (with Mendelian genetics being the Newtonian mechanics's analog). Newton said that two mass attract each other, and it still is true today only now we know that it is so because they each form a gravity well. In the same way Darwin said evolution happens by natural selection. I do not know how our understanding of the concept will change (or not, which is possible) in the future, but it will still be recognizable as being that the most fit (adapted) organism in a situation surviving and producing more offspring than the rest. What will change, I think, will be how we define fitness, organism, survival and reproduction. Already, the concept of "meme" shows how broadening some of the terms can lead to new understanding in the psychological realm. If you want to show that Darwin is wrong, then by all means attack natural selection and show us a better mechanism for evolution, the same way Einstein replaced Newtonian mechanics with general relativity. But really, I don't see how talking about biochemical processes will ever falsify natural selection. In fact, I don't even see how a flaw in natural selection could be revealed by some biochemical process: they seem to be on two different levels of abstraction. But if you know of one, then by all means enlighten us.

If you've got me pegged as a creationist/ID proponent, you've got me pegged wrong. I specifically said, filling gaps in knowledge with divine intervention is obviously not valid. My point is simply that many who claim ID is unfalsifiable also claim irreducible complexity as impossible to demonstrate, thus they might open evolution up to the same criticism. I don't really care what side I argue for, I'm just interested in hearing a higher level of debate. Frankly, I didn't want to talk about logical fallacies, I wanted to talk about biochemical processes, like opsin barrels, and energy barriers. That shit is dope.

Now, the real problem here is that what we mean by "evolution" is a moving target. It's so broad it's meaningless. In many ways "Darwinian evolution" has been falsified hundreds of times, much like Newtonian mechanics. It was wrong in the details. In fact, almost every rule I was ever taught at an elementary level about any sort of obviously falsifiable detail of evolution has turned out to be false in some weird or possibly limited case (e.g. epigenetics smells awfully Lamarckian). Still, we don't say "Darwin was wrong." You can't falsify evolution in the broad sense the same way you can't falsify gravity. At this point it's common sense more than science. It's more like a world view we use to form specific falsifiable theories than a theory itself. It's a world view that has been shown to be extraordinarily enlightening for sure. So much so, that at this point even with that Hippo fossil, I don't think people would change their minds.

That's fine. I just get worried about how far people push the assumption of natural selection (e.g. evolutionary psychology). I feel that there would more constructive arguments resulting from a healthy skepticism about it. I understand that there is a sociopolitical undertone to the whole debate, and I respect that. I just happen to think that those with the better arguments will win (natural selection). So often I see bullshit jive being put forth as reasoned debate, which I think is what happens when ideas gain too much popular acceptance. Thus, I'd like to see an elevated level of debate about the topic. Since you aren't going to get QM to form a coherent paragraph, I might as well be the uke.

>> ^Yogi:

And watch for religious nuts to spin cancer into divine intervention in 3-2-1-GO!


Blessings happen to both good and bad people. Tragedy happens to both good and bad people. Death and disease is due to a cursed world. Thus both good and bad people will suffer and die.

Anyone claiming it was divine intervention is boasting where they shouldn't be.

And watch for religious nuts to spin cancer into divine intervention in 3-2-1-GO!

>> ^mentality:
>> ^Drachen_Jager:
But the longest range sniper kill ever recorded was not fired from a Barrett, which has never held that distinction.
It was from a McMillan Tac-50, in fact it broke the record twice on one day in the hands of the PPCLI. Prior to that the record was held by an American sniper using a modified .50 Browning machine gun.

That's because the M95 is used as an anti-materiel rifle, not an anti-personnel rifle.


When it was initially introduced it was supposed to be used as an AMR, correct. Even then it was used as an anti-personnel rifle though. There was some confusion at that time about how the Geneva Convention and other treaties against the use of certain weapons against people applied to .50 BMG rounds, currently it is considered that these treaties do not apply so it's role is officially as a multi-purpose rifle.

>> ^therealblankman:
>> ^honkeytonk73:
MAGIC IS REAL!
Jesus prefers high powered rifles, especially when used against heathens! PRAISE THE LORD!

Jesus prefers the stopping power of the AK-47.


I beg to differ. Jesus wouldn't use something that couldn't dismember with a single round. No, I believe that Jesus would pick this. http://www.videosift.com/video/Barrett-M95-Divine-intervention-not-included

Philip Glass - Target Destruction
Slayer - Divine Intervention
Laika & The Cosmonauts - C'mon Do The Laika!
Mindless Self Indulgence - Clarissa
Fantômas - 04/15/05 That Sucks Day (USA) Day of the Sun (North Korea)
Unknown singer - wax cylinder recording of an old Finnish lullaby
Mr. Velcro Fastener - Re-beat offender
K4n - Rott
Front Line Assembly - Resist (Dislocated mix)
Polmo Polpo - Rottura

Well, this was... interesting. Nice finish though!

Is this what you're looking for?

@rougy
Oh, you mean the "When God created the heavens and the earth in six days" part?
You consider that scientific?

Keep in mind I'm not a Biblical literalist. But yeah. Insofar as it was written by a semiliterate goatherder thousands of years ago, yeah, our current scientific understanding matches the Christian conception of creation. It doesn't match the Buddhist one.

When you speak of life appearing relatively recently, you realize that you are only speaking of our own planet.
You can't say the same for other planets, nor can you say the same for other solar systems in other galaxies.

Oh, sure, it's possible (even likely) that life evolved (or created, take your pick) on other planets before Earth. But if you've studied cosmology, there's a large period of time that having any life at all existing would be rather dubious (without divine intervention, I suppose).

Having any period of time without life is bad for Buddhism, in fact.

I'm sorry, but to claim that the Big Bang theory proves Christianity correct and Buddhism incorrect is speculative at best, and very arrogant.

Prove? Did I say prove? I said supported once, and favors another time. Which is the appropriate level of confidence to use in this case. If you were held at gunpoint and forced to pick between Christian and Buddhist worldviews on the ultimate nature of reality, based on our current scientific understanding of the universe, a rational person would pick Christian.

(And if you'd say neither, you've fallen off the logic wagon a couple steps back.)

In short, you have no proof. You are drawing a conclusion based on limited facts, the same as me, the same as everybody else, and your conclusion is, at best, nothing more than a guess, or a wish.

Which is why I never used the word proof, but argued instead from the fact that the evidence favors life after death instead of extinction.

The facts are 1 to 0, as it were. You can certainly believe in what you'd like against the evidence (taking it on blind faith as it were), but you can't claim it's especially scientific to do so.

His attempts at introducing logic into an argument to prove the existence of god fails at such an apocalyptic level, I'm starting to question my own beliefs. Because NOBODY can fuck up that bad without a little divine intervention.

If he had just used that as his basis for argument, I would have been sold.

The lovely dames of my local monastery suggest a combination of Baby Jesus and the Diving Nun for the ultimate divine Geesus-spot experience.

In reply to this comment by peggedbea:
ha! i think im gonna order gods immaculate rod

In reply to this comment by EDD:
http://www.divine-interventions.com/baby.php

In reply to this comment by peggedbea:
is that soap???!?!!?! i wanna wrap my vaginas around it!

In reply to this comment by gwiz665:
I'm gonna wash you SO clean...

I know your pits need it.

ha! i think im gonna order gods immaculate rod

In reply to this comment by EDD:
http://www.divine-interventions.com/baby.php

In reply to this comment by peggedbea:
is that soap???!?!!?! i wanna wrap my vaginas around it!

In reply to this comment by gwiz665:
I'm gonna wash you SO clean...

I know your pits need it.

http://www.divine-interventions.com/baby.php

In reply to this comment by peggedbea:
is that soap???!?!!?! i wanna wrap my vaginas around it!

In reply to this comment by gwiz665:
I'm gonna wash you SO clean...

I know your pits need it.