I removed this post because while it is science, it's pretty low on quality info. Notably the amygdala is misspelled "amigdala".

Also some major oversimplification going on....and the cortex bit is either too confusing or straight-up wrong.

Its a shame whoever edited it together included stuff that was just stupid , like the dead puppy and the kids running for the water.

also lumping together Iraq and Afghanistan is stupid this video is just a gross oversimplification.

O, there were 2 parts to your quote, sorry, I only addressed one. I will read that now as I though it just part of my quoted text, I shall replace the body of this with the talks of that


Like I said, not all things can be directly attributed to people...hell, one has to wonder what really could be. Indeed, the hour of which your were born was not your own, indeed, nor was the age, nor the race, social-economic legacy, ect ect. However, that does not make us have to be unaccountable for such things, those things are still true and real. Life is not fair, something that we all learned right away in life. Some are born into wealth, while others poverty, some to good health some to bad. In that, unfairness is something inherent in the system of life. However, if we wanted to make things "fair" the only way to do that is to create more unfairness. Should man with two legs be handicapped in scope of ambition for the heart of fairness of the man with one leg? This would be unfair to two people at once, the man with one leg is still not able to accomplish as much as the man with two in actual physical prowess, and the man with two legs is now diminished directly with a man of incomparable ability. To install fairness in an unfair world you have to create more unfairness, a violation of the main ambition. However, if the man with two legs willing sacrificed of the gains from his two legged prowess, then not only has the two legged man lived up to his rich potential, but out of it, the one legged man is also enriched.

This is an oversimplification, but it works as a lead-in to my main, and consistent point, freedom first, equality second. If you have freedom first, and equality second, you get a great deal of both, if you put equality before freedom, you get the bloody unending killings of the french revolution...life simply is not equal (the ending of count de monte cristo is a great wording on this.)

I shall watch the link you provided however. Thanks for the civil conversation, they are seemingly fewer in the days of yesteryear.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
There is a certain wisdom in people being the victims of their own bad choices, though at times, it is an oversimplification of a much larger set of problems.


I am a big proponent of responsibility and accountability for individual actions so I can agree to a point. However, I can't fully agree. We all make mistakes. And beyond those mistakes, sometimes things just go wrong due to freak circumstances and/or things completely unexpected. That isn't even counting the background that we come from. One of my friends is extremely smart and went to a prestigious college. Her parents were upper middle class, but wouldn't pay for any college. Since she was under 25, she couldn't get financial aid (college rules state that she is a dependent of her parents whether they are paying or not.) She ended up with over $100,000 in loans by the time she graduated. Having that large loan forced her hand in deciding her career and what she will do in life for a while. Now albeit this is only a small (although not to her) specific example, this difference in background exists across the board to widely varying ranges. All of that combined makes me want to give people the benefit of the doubt and many second chances. How has this worked out? Well quite frankly, I've been ripped off and taken advantage by people in the past. I'm sure it will happen again, but I've learned to judge people's character quite well now due to my experiences and am more mindful of what type and degree of the help I give. Looking back, I wouldn't have done anything different.

Here's a wonderful sift on success and failure. I don't know if you have watched it yet. I didn't see a vote by you for it, so maybe you haven't.
http://www.videosift.com/video/Fascinating-talk-on-success-failure-and-careers


>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
There are real problems of poverty and hardship that you can do something about...like right now...this very moment. You don't need an act of congress to do so.


I agree on a personal level and do some things that address those issues, but I am unconvinced of the argument that private charity, etc can take care of a sufficient amount of the ills. Please understand I am not implying that you are making that argument, but it is that belief that doesn't allow me to say that the government shouldn't be involved at a medium or higher level.

There is a certain wisdom in people being the victims of their own bad choices, though at times, it is an oversimplification of a much larger set of problems. For instance, the blame for my toe hurting so very very badly atm, is the fact that I placed a 20 pound weight near my computer chair. However, there are those, mainly children, who are victims of things of which they weren't really able to make choices over, and that is truly tragic. Hoever, there is something you can do about it...like right now, without a piece of legislation (coercion)! Blaming someone for blaming someone for something (boy that's a mouth full!) is just like the guy who makes the SHHHHH'ing sound in the theater. Sure the the SHHH'er might feel better, but he has betrayed his cause of silence in the name of haste.

There are real problems of poverty and hardship that you can do something about...like right now...this very moment. You don't need an act of congress to do so.

Yeah, countries that base their government on science and logic instead of Christianity have GREAT track records! Okay, I know there was no call to get sarcastic. I agree that science, logic, and respect for others are essential to good society, but the right interpretation of Christian doctrine should encourage these things, not reject them.

"Religion" is not synonymous with "Protestant Christian," and your personal bad experiences with religion do not prove that all religion is harmful. It's funny how you just sort of skipped over the second part of my sentence, "However, religion isn't harmful in and of itself, but the watering-down and misuse of doctrine is, yes, extraordinarily evil and damaging to both straight and gay people."

When I refer to the "watering down" of doctrines, I'm verifying what you said. It seems like most Christians today have no concept of the fact that faith does not have to be removed from logic, tolerance, and an open mind. "Faith," for some people, is a word to throw out when someone asks you a hard question. I do believe in faith. You and I both know that there are things that human beings don't and/or can't understand. Whereas you write faith off as belief in the supernatural, I believe that faith is belief in things that follow all of the laws of the cosmos, but that are beyond our power, knowledge, or understanding. Faith is not necessary for the purpose of dismissing science and logic. It is necessary so that we can have choice. People are always arguing with me about choice, saying that a god who threatens damnation is not truly offering choice. Well, that's a discussion for another day.

When religious people think that morality is black and white, when they are hateful, intolerant, or bigoted, they obviously don't understand Jesus Christ AT ALL. Religion is not inherently harmful, and your 37 years of experience, I'm sorry to say, do not exhaust all of the possibilities it has to offer.

>> ^ABTechie:
In response to thePink,

I have been going to church for 37 years and I can tell you religion is harmful. It is an oversimplification of decision making and morality. This is right and that is wrong and we have God to back up what we say. This leads to intolerance and an unwillingness to explore different views. Churches and theologians do not rely on scientific advances that help us understand why people do what they do. They know their rights and wrongs. They don't care about hormones, pheromones, cognitive developement, cognitive biases... They already have the answers from God.

A religious upbringing and a religious wife have made my life and sex life more difficult and less happy than it should be. It amazes me that Christians think they get their sexual morality from the Bible. The hypocracy found in the Bible and with Christians is one of the reasons I am no longer a Christian.

Science, logic, reason and respect for others will produce a far better society than religion.

In response to thePink,

I have been going to church for 37 years and I can tell you religion is harmful. It is an oversimplification of decision making and morality. This is right and that is wrong and we have God to back up what we say. This leads to intolerance and an unwillingness to explore different views. Churches and theologians do not rely on scientific advances that help us understand why people do what they do. They know their rights and wrongs. They don't care about hormones, pheromones, cognitive developement, cognitive biases... They already have the answers from God.

A religious upbringing and a religious wife have made my life and sex life more difficult and less happy than it should be. It amazes me that Christians think they get their sexual morality from the Bible. The hypocracy found in the Bible and with Christians is one of the reasons I am no longer a Christian.

Science, logic, reason and respect for others will produce a far better society than religion.

"However, religion isn't harmful in and of itself"

I have been going to church for 37 years and I can tell you religion is harmful. It is an oversimplification of decision making and morality. This is right and that is wrong and we have God to back up what we say. This leads to intolerance and an unwillingness to explore different views. Churches and theologians do not rely on scientific advances that help us understand why people do what they do. They know their rights and wrongs. They don't care about hormones, pheromones, cognitive developement, cognitive biases... They already have the answers from God.

A religious upbringing and a religious wife have made my life and sex life more difficult and less happy than it should be. It amazes me that Christians think they get their sexual morality from the Bible. The hypocracy found in the Bible and with Christians is one of the reasons I am no longer a Christian.

Science, logic, reason and respect for others will produce a far better society than religion.


In reply to this comment by thepinky:
Something is wrong with both their religious and sex educations if they think that anal sex is preserving their virginity. It's an oversimplification to say that religion and abstinence-only sex education are to blame. The type of religious parents that shove dos and don'ts down their children's throats, shouting "LOVE JESUS" without bothering to check whether their children have real values, faith, and integrity, are the type of people that are harming their children. The kids aren't truly converted to the teachings of Jesus Christ, and they obviously don't understand them. Perhaps they're addicted to the high that they get when they hear a live band in church. If they're having anal sex, they have a very misguided concept of virginity brought on by parents and church leaders that sensationalize religion to the point that children are confused beyond belief. If this is all that you know of religion, I can understand why you despise it. However, religion isn't harmful in and of itself, but the watering-down and misuse of doctrine is, yes, extraordinarily evil and damaging to both straight and gay people.

Let's not forget that other types of sex education fail, too. However, abstinence-only sex education is bogus. The way I see it, if abstinence isn't being taught in the home, the school will probably be ineffectual, anyway. They might as well do some damage control and educate kids about safe sex and birth control. If parents are teaching abstinence, why should they worry that schools are encouraging teenagers to have sex? Stop expecting the government to fix your problems!

Something is wrong with both their religious and sex educations if they think that anal sex is preserving their virginity. It's an oversimplification to say that religion and abstinence-only sex education are to blame. The type of religious parents that shove dos and don'ts down their children's throats, shouting "LOVE JESUS" without bothering to check whether their children have real values, faith, and integrity, are the type of people that are harming their children. The kids aren't truly converted to the teachings of Jesus Christ, and they obviously don't understand them. Perhaps they're addicted to the high that they get when they hear a live band in church. If they're having anal sex, they have a very misguided concept of virginity brought on by parents and church leaders that sensationalize religion to the point that children are confused beyond belief. If this is all that you know of religion, I can understand why you despise it. However, religion isn't harmful in and of itself, but the watering-down and misuse of doctrine is, yes, extraordinarily evil and damaging to both straight and gay people.

Let's not forget that other types of sex education fail, too. However, abstinence-only sex education is bogus. The way I see it, if abstinence isn't being taught in the home, the school will probably be ineffectual, anyway. They might as well do some damage control and educate kids about safe sex and birth control. If parents are teaching abstinence, why should they worry that schools are encouraging teenagers to have sex? Stop expecting the government to fix your problems!

Responding to 3 people here

>> ^gwiz665:
Same goes for theism. Atheism is "lack of belief in a intervening God". Nothing more.

I don't believe that "Intervening" is a specific prerequisite.


>> ^peggedbea:
ps. i really wish atheism would just go fucking define itself already so all you pretentious jerk offs would quit over analyzing and arguing its position or lack of position.

It has been defined, the problem is that non-atheists (and some atheists) people keep adding shit to it that isn't there. Atheism can be either the rejection of theism,[1] or the position that deities do not exist.[2] In the broadest sense, it is the absence of belief in the existence of deities.[3] (Stolen from Wikipedia)

>> ^sineral:
...Incidentally, it is not the case that nothing can be said about god's existence. When it comes to considering the veracity of claims, the notion that we can only say "true", "false", or "I don't know" is an oversimplification. Instead, every claim exists on scale from 0% to 100% probability of being true. The only things that exist at 0% are those that are logically impossible, and the only things that exist at 100% are those which are a logical necessity; any claim which depends on "facts" is somewhere between, but not including, 0% and 100%. A 0% claim would be "I am standing 15 feet to my right"--a self contradiction; a 100% claim would be "I am right here". "I am on Pluto having tea with green Martians" depends on facts--observations, measurements, etc--so it can not be 0% or 100%, but we can easily imagine it's so close to 0% that in a casual conversation we would say it's impossible.

I'm very glad that you put it into those words using percentages (they're so damn effective!) I use them all the time normally so good on ya for using them.

It really is about the believability of the claim.

I would like to add to and refine IAmTheBlurr's comments.

I haven't thought about this specific point much, but it does seem reasonable to say that atheism is not a belief system. This would mean that, in addition to the possible atheistic comments Blurr listed above, we could add "Huh? A god? What's that?". That is, a person who had never been exposed to any supernatural idea would also be an atheist. This is the point that Sam Harris is trying to make--that atheism is the default state of a mind. I suppose this means that agnosticism is a subset of atheism, although agnosticism has the additional connotation of "and I don't care".

Incidentally, it is not the case that nothing can be said about god's existence. When it comes to considering the veracity of claims, the notion that we can only say "true", "false", or "I don't know" is an oversimplification. Instead, every claim exists on scale from 0% to 100% probability of being true. The only things that exist at 0% are those that are logically impossible, and the only things that exist at 100% are those which are a logical necessity; any claim which depends on "facts" is somewhere between, but not including, 0% and 100%. A 0% claim would be "I am standing 15 feet to my right"--a self contradiction; a 100% claim would be "I am right here". "I am on Pluto having tea with green Martians" depends on facts--observations, measurements, etc--so it can not be 0% or 100%, but we can easily imagine it's so close to 0% that in a casual conversation we would say it's impossible.

There are various definitions for "god". People learn the meanings of words not by some Matrix-like scenario where a perfect copy of the information is transferred into their brains, but by how they see the words used and not used in their everyday experiences. Every individual has a unique set of experiences, so everybody has unique definitions for every word they know. This, by the way, means it is important to define relevant words when having a serious conversation; this is done in both science and law. Any definition that is self contradictory has a 0% probability of being true. We all have contradictory beliefs; it's impossible to review every idea you've ever had every time you form a new idea. A difference between a rational person and an irrational one is that the rational person is willing to reevaluate his ideas when the contradictions are brought to his conscious attention. Any god whose entire definition is "all loving, all knowing, all powerful" is arguably self contradictory if you accept disease/war/etc as true facts.

Any god definition which contradicts facts that are sufficiently close to 100%, and which has no other facts in its favor(I happen to know of no supernatural god definition with facts in its favor) will be comparatively close to 0%. So, a god that depends on creationism is so close to 0% that in casual conversation we would say such a god is "batshit lunacy". This is the case for the god defined by the Bible, as a whole, as well as those of the Torah, Koran, and most other religions.

Even if you have a god definition that is not self contradictory, and has no facts for or against it, its probability of being true will be closer to 0% than 100%. One line of reasoning works like the following. The number of possible propositions a person could make, alternatively the sea of ideas that are either true or false, is infinite. But the number of things that are true is finite(if you don't want to buy that, then "there are an infinite number of false variations of each true statement" works as well). Thus, a proposition with no facts for or against it is essentially just a random item on this list of all possible propositions, which contains more falsehoods than truths, and so the proposition is most likely false. People have intuited this on their own and it shows up in all sorts of contexts, such as the legal system's presumption of innocence.

Based on all the above, most people's idea of god is so close to 0% it's as false as the idea that the moon is made of cheese.

Full disclosure: I consider myself an atheist. I think that religion is untrue, inherently dangerous, actively harmful to individuals and society, is child abuse, and needs to be eradicated.

Yelling fire in a theater doesn't get you kicked out, it gets you arrested. Being obscene in court will get you jailed for contempt. And it should. The government can definitely outlaw certain types of speech. Rights have reasonable limits, some of which were decided by the same generation of statesmen that founded the country and wrote the Bill of Rights.

For those who slept through 9th grade, the test applied to free speech is "time, place, and manner." You have the right to express your ideas, but you have responsibilities as a citizen: to express those ideas in a way that does not disrupt the normal function of civil society, cause panic, or incite violence.

Gun control is obviously a murkier subject, and one that gets reexamined all the time. Saying that the right to bear arms necessarily allows all forms of weapon ownership and use is a thoughtless oversimplification.

>> ^ponceleon:
Oh Dranzerk, you ignorant imbecile... the reason this wasn't a typical situation is because they didn't know that the levies would break and flood the city. It was an unknown quantity.
I lived through hurricane Hugo in PR when it happened. It was a direct hit, very comparable to Katrina. We didn't have electricity for a month or running water for 3 weeks after, but we were not flooded and that is the big difference.
Remember those news casts of people stuck on their roofs? What did you want them to do, swim away? Where? How long do you expect to live waterlogged, or trapped in a stadium with no actual aid?
Your oversimplification of the situation is so amazingly stupid, I really do hope you have to live through something like that at some point in your life, maybe then you'll realize you are just a typical internet "expert."


So I use reason and common sense. If that makes a person a internet expert then im a freakin god. The situation you posed still comes down to the same simple fact. They knew a hurricane was coming, they stayed.

Oh Dranzerk, you ignorant imbecile... the reason this wasn't a typical situation is because they didn't know that the levies would break and flood the city. It was an unknown quantity.

I lived through hurricane Hugo in PR when it happened. It was a direct hit, very comparable to Katrina. We didn't have electricity for a month or running water for 3 weeks after, but we were not flooded and that is the big difference.

Remember those news casts of people stuck on their roofs? What did you want them to do, swim away? Where? How long do you expect to live waterlogged, or trapped in a stadium with no actual aid?

Your oversimplification of the situation is so amazingly stupid, I really do hope you have to live through something like that at some point in your life, maybe then you'll realize you are just a typical internet "expert."

In reference to what i am getting from this thread is there is no God and this is all just one big cosmic coincidence? Now how much belief does that take?

2 points here, firstly, How much belief it takes? well, to me, its not really a matter of belief or "faith", its a matter of evidence. Scientists have studied the universe for a long time and concluded, based on EVIDENCE, that the universe is expanding at an exponential rate. By comparing stars at various distances, we can look back in time, literally, and see how the early universe looked and behaved. Which brings me to point number 2: "cosmic accident" is a gross oversimplification of our current understanding of the universe.

We have deduced, based on evidence that the early universe was much denser and hotter and simpler than it is now. Brian Cox used a snowflake as a metaphor, this old, "frozen" universe is complex and interesting, where as the early universe, like a melted snowflake, would just be a dense , hot gass of sorts, ultimately with only hydrogen in it. As Carl Sagan said: This (meaning us humans, earth and every living creature on it) is what you get when you give Hydrogen atoms 14 billion years to evolve.

Right now, our Sun with its immense gravitational pressure fuses 700 million tons of hydrogen into 695 million tons of helium, EVERY SECOND. 5 Million tons of pure energy is released, equaling something like 200 million Hiroshima bombs EVERY SECOND. Yet these extreme numbers are peanuts compared to the events that shaped our universe. Our sun simply isnt powerful enough to fuse helium and create heavier elements. For that, we need bigger "Weapons of Cosmic Destruction Creation" Supernovae, red giants, galactic collisions and supermassive black holes, nebulae and gas clouds beyond all imaginations. From cosmic events like this, all the ingredients we take for granted here on earth, (like carbon etc) were originally created. Again when talking about grand stuff like this that I know little about, it is best to qoute Carl Sagan again:

We are the Stuff Of Stars.

I love that quote because it is literally true.

So thats the "accident" before life arose. The exact chemical reactions that gave rise to the first self-replicating molecule is not fully understood, but once that first barrier was crossed (achieving high-fidelity replication) Evolution by natural selection is INEVITABLE.It still took a good 2 billion years before cells start grouping into multi-cellular organisms, but when that revolution happened, we went from flatworm to primates in a measly 700 million years.

That account of the Cosmic accident is a far to brief, incomplete and rough draft of what happened, of course, I only mean to point out that this isnt some mad scientists guesswork. The processes and events above have been predicted, discovered, tested and examined and calculated and peer-reviewed and-- you get the point. They are our current best shot at understanding the universe, based on the available evidence. Naturally, much is left to discover, and thats what makes science interesting.