All good things in moderation. Its a shame our primitive brains our wired to gorge ourselves on the good shit because it might not be there tomorrow.

Anyway, I think I am giving up internet porn for a while. Wish me luck

@Sarzy - As has been explained in recent films, when the lower brain function proceeds (due to the virus running rampant there), the basic mammalian instincts continue. The need to feed is not driven by a need to survive hunger (depending on the movie; 28 Day Later is one exception) because if a zombie didn't eat for a hundred years, it'd still be walking around aimlessly with it's never-decomposing body intact. It's just the primitive drive to feed that urges them onward.

This makes me wonder why then that's the only basic instinctual behavior zombies carry out. It seems they should be doing other things like trying to make sex with one another.

>> ^calmlyintoit:

jeez, no contest. I felt pity and a little frustration with that buffalo. What were they even fighting over?


rhino's have very bad eyesight and a brain that is primitive. If spooked they would likely charge. Water Buffalo's have very bad eyesight and a brain that is primitive. They are also in a constant state of being pissed off. So likely the buffalo saw something that looked like another buffalo and wanted to display dominance over it, which was a poor decision.

@renatojj

Relativism, relativism.

Resources are limited, and that's why we must be accountable for their consumption. Your policy is for everyone to grab as much as they can and use it as fast as possible while hoping that somehow the great god-economy will sort it all out.

It won't. The economy is forever irrational and short sighted because people are irrational and short sighted. To leave ourselves at the mercy of such an arbitrary and ultimately primitive system really would be colossally, criminally irresponsible.

I'm going to suggest that the source of your own backwards thinking has been your lack of the basic human drive to order and improve on nature; the drive responsible for all progress throughout our history as a species.

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

@shinyblurry

I cannot prove to you that this has happened to me

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.

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.

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.
For this irony to be the foundation to salvation, God would have to be a smartass of an asshole. This is not a sane, righteous or respectable approach given that most humans adopt their parents religious beliefs and are therefore largely disqualified given the amount of pressure some religious people put on family to remain loyal to that which they were born into.

A point that they still have a chance of finding your God has truth to it despite whether your God is actually real as we can't discount the subjective realness of delusions, but to make such a claim is to discount the difficulties and almost impossibilities in some cases due to lack of legitimate opportunity.


If you are that close to being an atheist, what is the practical difference? To maintain a hairbreadth of uncertainty so as to hold the "intellectual honesty" card is actually intellectually dishonest I think, no offense. I don't think being certain and being a hairsbreadth away from certainty is really much different.

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.


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.


Even if scientists understood this perfectly, what does that actually prove?

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).
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?


Did you know that scientists must make fundamental assumptions, such as a uniformity in nature, to even do science? Can you answer why there is a uniformity in nature?

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.


Scripture says differently

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.


For instance, God is the giver of life. He gives everyone a body and soul, air to breathe, water to drink, and He even upholds the atoms that comprise your being. Life is only possible because of what God is doing for you in this very moment, and every moment.

So, if this is true, why is it wrong for God to take it away, at the time of His choosing?

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.


Let's say someone is doing something terribly evil, and causing many people to greatly suffer. The evil he is doing is going to cause many people to miss the boat on what God had planned for them. Is God wrong for judging this person and taking away his life to serve the greater good? Now lets say this is a nation, which is causing many other nations to suffer in the same way. Is God wrong for judging that nation? Wouldn't God actually be evil for ignoring it and allowing people to suffer needlessly? How about if the entire world becomes corrupt? Wouldn't God be evil for allowing it to continue that way?

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.


I think you are suffering from a lack of imagination. Here is the being that has created everything you have ever loved, appreciated, been in awe of, who is intimately familiar with your comings and goings, all of your thoughts and feelings. He gave you your family, your friends, your talents, your purposes. He understands you better than you understand yourself.

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.

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

If you reread my post, taking into account that when i say evidence i refer only to public evidences, not personal ones that can't be substantiated by the public, i.e. me, then i think my points might become clearer as to why i say faith is an assumption. This is not including personal evidences and felt that I covered that sufficiently enough near the base of my previous post. The basic gist is: if you have personally experienced God, this is in no way a defensible evidence in a discussion requiring objective evidence.

Hence, you have a trump card, one that is only truly valued by yourself and easily discarded by others.

Actually, no. The evidence I have (the internal witness of the Holy Spirit) is the result of a test of the validity of the claim that Jesus has risen from the dead. Jesus promised that after He had been raised from the dead that He would ascend to Heaven and send the Holy Spirit from the right hand of power to everyone who believes in Him. To receive the promised Holy Spirit is objective evidence of the validity of the claim of the resurrection, and Jesus' claim to be the Savior of the world. I cannot prove to you that this has happened to me, but it is something you can test on your own:

Which leads me to this:

It's my knowledge that the faith-claim or God-claim has been unsubstantiated to myself personally as well as others (based on hearing their testimonies and reasons for it being unsubstantiated for them). This is not an assumption on my behalf, you or other religious folk haven't proven anything to me, this I know.

What Jesus said is this:

John 14:6

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me

Jesus said there was no other way to know anything about God except through Him. So far, your experience precisely matches His claim. You have no seen no evidence of God what so ever. Therefore, if Jesus' claim is true, you shouldn't be surprised to find a lack of evidence of Gods existence; it is in fact exactly what you would expect to see. Yet, you erroneously use this as evidence to rule out Jesus' claims, when He Himself claimed this would be the case if you tried to know God by any other means except through Him. So therefore, you fail to do the one thing that would provide you evidence, not understanding that the lack of evidence you have encountered actually validates His claim.

Additionally I do not believe that 'there IS NO God' as a true Atheist, i claim to be an Atheist because it's easier to define my position quickly as I'm a pin prick away from being one.

I know nothing as to whether God definitively exists or not, to claim otherwise would be an intellectual failure as one wouldn't be taking into consideration that they may be so delusional to the point of not realizing they could be delusional. To which both extreme's are something to ridicule as there is a trump card for both sides.
Theist trump card: God never shows him/her/itself, so can not be disproved.
Atheist trump card: One's so delusional that they can't comprehend that they're suffering from a delusion.

If you are that close to being an atheist, what is the practical difference? To maintain a hairbreadth of uncertainty so as to hold the "intellectual honesty" card is actually intellectually dishonest I think, no offense. I don't think being certain and being a hairsbreadth away from certainty is really much different. Where is the genuine humility about the limited capacity of mans ability to reason and his subjective and biased experiences? If you think you are merely matter, why would you trust the chemicals in your brain to be able to rationally determine that? Have you pondered that everything is equally unlikely? How would you know you were looking at a Universe that wasn't designed?

I very strongly doubt there is an intelligent-entity that cares about us based on biological and psychological survival drives such as the delusional properties of 'hope' and the chemical reactions that can occur in extreme scenarios having incredible benefits to over power paralytic levels of fear and keep us moving forward when logical-processing would hold us back or tell us to give up (these are live or die situations with extreme level's of emotion)

This is the standard reply of the atheist (the theist is too scared to face the big bad universe so he makes up an invisible friend to comfort him) but it doesn't apply to me. I grew up without religion and was agnostic until I came to believe in God. I wasn't afraid of death (I was resigned to it happening at some point)..I came to God because I wanted to know what the truth is. I was prepared to die even after finding God.

combined with my thoughts of the statistical probability being unlikely due to both the sheer size of the universe compared to how small God's favorite pet is and that science can explain reasonable theories on how stars and planetary bodies formed.. among many other psychology based reasons.

The medulla oblongata is a relatively small part of the body but you could not live without it. The size of the Universe has nothing to do with the relative importance of Earth. Scripture never says either way whether there is life elsewhere, either.

If you've read up on big bang theory then you would understand that there are some gigantic fudge factors in it (such as cosmic inflation), and understanding of stellar evolution is actually very primitive. Even if scientists understood this perfectly, what does that actually prove? The question, as it relates to God is, why is it in existence in the first place?

Did you know that scientists must make fundamental assumptions, such as a uniformity in nature, to even do science? Can you answer why there is a uniformity in nature?

PS: good on you for responding to all those posts, i like reading other peoples discussions about religion.

I enjoy talking with you guys..I am interested in your POV. Most of all, I want you to know the love of God.

EDIT: comment on your reply to Sagemind "If God is perfect, then He is the source of the highest good, and He is perfect love", ok, but by that logic he is also the source of the highest bad, and He is perfect hate.

Scripture says differently:

1 John 1:5

This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.

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

God stories involve good things yes, but they also involve bad things. To disregard all the bad because of some good is to review the subject lopsidedly.

I'm aware that some like to pluck things out of context from the bible and call some of Gods judgments evil. An atheist calling God evil is par for the course, but the real question is, were His judgments just? Some atheists seem unable to think past a superficial level about the nature of God, and His role in creation.

For instance, God is the giver of life. He gives everyone a body and soul, air to breathe, water to drink, and He even upholds the atoms that comprise your being. Life is only possible because of what God is doing for you in this very moment, and every moment.

So, if this is true, why is it wrong for God to take it away, at the time of His choosing?

Let's say someone is doing something terribly evil, and causing many people to greatly suffer. The evil he is doing is going to cause many people to miss the boat on what God had planned for them. Is God wrong for judging this person and taking away his life to serve the greater good? Now lets say this is a nation, which is causing many other nations to suffer in the same way. Is God wrong for judging that nation? Wouldn't God actually be evil for ignoring it and allowing people to suffer needlessly? How about if the entire world becomes corrupt? Wouldn't God be evil for allowing it to continue that way?

It is the combination of good and bad that would lead me to reply to God on my door step "Ok, now i believe you exist, but you're still a sociopath and i don't respect that given your incredible capability, why not be a humanitarian?.. and why give humans intelligence then condemn them for using it when they ask for reliably testable proof? ..please don't hurt me. Also if humans are made in your likeness, can you confirm to Christians that you do in fact have homosexual tendencies?".. naturally God would then proceed to kick my ass with his perfect love/hate

I think you are suffering from a lack of imagination. Here is the being that has created everything you have ever loved, appreciated, been in awe of, who is intimately familiar with your comings and goings, all of your thoughts and feelings. He gave you your family, your friends, your talents, your purposes. He understands you better than you understand yourself. All you can do is think to insult Him? I might call this evidence of a pathology in your thought process.




>> ^Sepacore:

>> ^messenger:

@Deano
A thought experiment should have valid parameters. To me, it fails the moment it makes all those dubious assumptions about DNA differences.
I did love his point about Mars though. That's spot on. What scares me is that if true, it would Scientology look more reputable.


Well except for the Overlord, his large economy flier airplanes, and bombing volcanoes (plus there are only a few volcanoes that he can actually bomb in the first place; they just are not built ALL like the Hawaiian chain open caldera type of volcano). Plus I have to wonder, how did our primitive species as we were slowly migrating upwards in the DNA chain deal with all the bad juju stuff that was injected into the DNA sequencing line--and then eventually ended up in ours...?

I really don't think you have to worry at all. Except for the stupid people, they amazingly will believe ANYTHING and often do; like Obama's birth certificate not really being one.

/I actually know a birther here in Utah and I can tell you that I can give them ALL THE PROOF on why their belief is incorrect, including evidence. Yet they will not believe me; BUT if I change my STANCE in the middle of my proof and make something up ON THE SPOT instead supporting them--they believe me!!! So I know what you believe is far more important than the truth and this is true EVEN for smart people. It's rare to find people that will switch positions on the spot--I think due to a lot of pride.

There's also the problem of defining intelligence. Intelligence can mean many different things although it's generally agreed that it involves the deliberate manipulation of the surrounding environment. Species such as crows, chimps, octopi, etc. have varying degrees of intelligence because they all exhibit problem solving behaviour, sometimes using tools to accomplish this.
This is a very Earth-centric definition of intelligence though.
It's very probable that out there we won't recognize intelligence when we see it. We'll land on a planet looking for intelligent life without realizing that the mossy stuff that we're walking on IS the intelligent life on this planet. Or the gassy bags that drift by in the thin atmosphere that we assume are some sort of primitive animal are, in fact, the intelligent life on this planet.
We assume that other intelligent species will be exploring space just like us. However, they may be thin tendrils that live miles below an ocean with no concept of space. Or, they may be terrestrial but place no priority on space exploration so we may overlook them when we explore their planet.

You can also make a primitive kiln using the fire pits (or just dig your own holes) at the beach. I prefer this to an actual kiln, because then the entire process of sculpting and firing is DIY, like real life minecraft.

>> ^xxovercastxx:

I think it's embarrassing that there is a "left" and "right" in a potential murder trial and it reinforces my feeling that, in the 21st century, people still can't break away from their primitive tribal mindset.

That's my position too. Why you're putting that at the head of a reply to me, I don't know.
>> ^xxovercastxx:
The investigation is under way. Everyone needs to shut up and wait for the outcome. There will be riots no matter which way it goes if the public outrage machine keeps going like this.


Except there isn't an investigation under way. That's what people are mad about. That's why I don't get how this spilled into a right vs. left thing.

I have a theory, but rather than jumping to conclusions, I would like to hear someone make their case for why they're mad at people who are demanding Treyvon Martin's death be investigated by police.

So far it seems to be that the people pushing back are misinformed, either about whether the police are investigating (they aren't) or about what the people making noise about this are actually saying (apparently when people say "we want an arrest and investigation" these people hear "we want our pound of flesh").

As you said in the middle of your comment, there are people on "both sides" whose behavior has been reprehensible, but focusing on that kind of stuff is always a form of ad hominem. If Spike Lee does something bad because he's mad about this, it doesn't mean he was wrong to be mad in the first place.

I want to focus on the central dispute over the case, rather than try to litigate which "side's" advocates have acted most shamefully.

>> ^NetRunner:

The left's position isn't "off with Zimmerman's head!" it's "we demand a real criminal investigation!"

I think it's embarrassing that there is a "left" and "right" in a potential murder trial and it reinforces my feeling that, in the 21st century, people still can't break away from their primitive tribal mindset. Many people have simply sworn loyalty to a team.

I don't have a problem with demanding an investigation and I do think something smells rotten when said investigation even needs to be demanded. It should have been automatic.

But there has been plenty of noise from both teams on this case that is downright despicable. Never mind for a moment that Spike Lee gave out the wrong address; Was he encouraging mobs of people to show up at Zimmerman's house and demand an investigation? If he was that's incredibly naive, at best. Even if he, somehow, had the best of intentions, there have been plenty of people out there calling for Zimmerman's head and publicizing his address only puts him in danger and complicates the investigation.

The other team is no less irresponsible. What I've been seeing a lot of in the last couple days is references to the attacks on Allen Coon. "Why isn't the left up in arms about this?" and "Why hasn't Obama given a speech about him?" are the major themes. They're trying to portray the Martin outrage as anti-white racism. And in a few cases they're right.

Both teams are immature and insane, they're both making proper justice that much harder to attain, and they both think they're the fucking heroes in this story rather than the enraged peanut gallery they really are.

The investigation is under way. Everyone needs to shut up and wait for the outcome. There will be riots no matter which way it goes if the public outrage machine keeps going like this.

The regions of which you speak belong to another era. Villages out there take days to walk to along mountain trails in some of the highest mountain ranges in the world. Is similiar to a lot of terrain in Afghanistan. Natural forts.

They've never really been conquered or been part of established empire. People are still organized along tribal lines, with the tribes engaged in continuous inter-tribe warfare. Every kid is handed a gun as soon as he's old enough to shoot and raised to abide by the honour code (pashtunwali, yes they even have a name for it). When the tribe is under attack, you don't question right or wrong, you defend the tribe. They're no electricity, television, newspapers, literacy, or any other medium that counters this message. I know it sounds racist but those boys are like klingons, the Pakistani government has never really dared to take them on.

Couple that with the decades of training provided in the arts of guerilla warfare; including drug running, weapons manufacture, crude bomb manufacture, etc. by the CIA and ISI during the cold war and the Soviet invasion, means they are a force to be reckoned with as the US is finding out in Afghanistan.

Despite all of that they've never really bothered us until the "war on terror". They've always bbeen kind of our crazy cousins. We don't wanna be around them but they're family. Most of the country is similarly undeveloped (as in people still live like 3000 years ago undeveloped) and backwards. Bringing them into the modern era is a long term project but there's a 150 million more people on that waiting list.

Since the war on terror Pakistan has taken a serious beating. This was supposed to be our decade of growth instead the economy is in shambles. We've been through yet another round of Western supported, foreign policy obsessed, military dictator leaving our civil institutions in shambles. We've lost around 4 thousand soldiers another 8.5 wounded. 40 thousand civilians killed and 3.5 million internal refugees (dirt poor and starving variety).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_North-West_Pakistan

Those are big numbers, people are angry. The Americans are unlikely to win in Afghanistan. They're putting tribe against tribe. All this talk of democracy vs. extremism/terrorism is not something the average Afghan understands. The average Afghan is illiterate and does not understand complex ideas. He understands this: foreigners, christian army, my tribe has chosen this side because we always hated those other fuckers anyways. Americans will leave, leaving Pakistan with a mess. They did it before and we've been screwed since. There's a huuuuge (as in a small city big) Afghan refugee camp near where I live that's some thirty years old, from the last time American boys were in the region playing their geopolitical monopoly game. It's horrible.

From the Pakistani perspective the War on Terror has been a disaster. It's solved nothing and created tenfold the problem it aimed to solve. The Afghans are a primitive bunch (made more so by warfare) and need to establish a government, after which they will slowly over time, maybe a century, join the civilized world. Pakistan wholeheartedly supported the Taliban (as did the US) when they took control of the country and brought peace to it. Warfare is the real bitch not how "extreme" they are. Saudi's are equally nuts and there's not a single American president who doesn't go pay a visit right away upon taking office. Best friends.

Now the government/military of Pakistan is in a tricky situation, we have to play both sides, thus the lack of trust. Either side has the ability to seriously take Pakistan on and bring it to it's knees. The government the American's have propped up in Kabul wouldn't last a month without them, is corrupt, and allied to the Indians, with whom we see ourselves as being in a state of justified war. What to do!? What to do!? (in a indian accent).

I guess my point being, we're actually not a bad bunch. Just in a shitty situation. Come sometime and I can show you around. Most of the country is safe. Safer than mexico anyways.

Sorry that was a long post





>> ^bcglorf:

>> ^FermitTheKrog:
Thanks for having a more nuanced understanding of the matter... thought I'd share a Pakistani perspective:
-Yes, no arabs here. Lots of Muslims though as in loads of other countries:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Muslim_population
-Pakistani's despise the drone strikes for the same reason we despised the Bin Laden assasination. It is a terrible loss of sovereignity to have foreign soldiers killing with impunity, racking up civilian casualties, within your borders. It makes the matter worse, Pakistan is radicalizing tremendously fast and every time the US flattens another village in Afghanistan or our border regions, everytime American troops accidentally kill ours, that pace accelerates.
-An analogy: If Mexico had drones over the US taking out gang leaders in LA, the US would flatten Mexico in response. All we do is get angry.
-Things are not that bad: Liberals are not dying off. We are in government by popular vote. The Pakistani military is not some tinpot force, it is very much in control of itself and thus of it's nukes. We will deal with the militancy problem over time; education, economic opputurnity, writ of law; not bombs. We are a third world country, Afghanistan has been a war zone forever now, these things take time, most of us still shit in fields, out people are hungry, we have bigger problems to deal with than car bombs.
-In Pakistan, conservatives want the American's gone because they are an imperial force at our doorstep. All talk of human rights and democracy is hogwash. Palestine is the example. Amongst the ultra right (3-4% of the population, I'm sure you have them too, wherever you are) the "we" is Muslims and the "them" is a collaboration of Zionists and American bible thumpers.
Liberals want the American's gone because they are an imperial force at our doorstep. All talk of human rights and democracy is hogwash. Saudi Arab is the example. If they go away we can educate our people out of the mental cesspit they seem to be headed into. American bombs make us look like traitors to our people and weaken our stance.
Thanks for listening. Open to discussion


>> ^bcglorf:
>> ^vaire2ube:
well the trick is eventually we dont tell the kids running the drones that its actually REALITY! Ahh! Ender's Game!
But by then the arabs formics will be gone.

The populations in Afghanistan and Pakistan are primarily Muslim, not Arab. There are in fact more Arabs living in America than there are in Afghanistan and Pakistan combined.
I know, not your point at all, but if you try and hash out the real news by reading through middle eastern news outlets you won't be able to make head from tails wondering why a pro-Arab outlet like Al Jazeera would willingly say anything bad about Iran. It's not until realizing that Iran is largely Persian and not Arab that it makes any sense.
I rant about this because it's crazily important and the details matter. American drone attacks have killed hundreds within Pakistan, but even by Pakistan's most anti-American media those people were largely militants responsible for killing Pakistani civilians. The Pakistani Taliban have meanwhile killed thousands of civilians, including former PM Benazir Bhutto, and there is infinitely more outrage and hatred for America's drones than for the Pakistani Taliban. It's something important to think about. What's more, there is MORE hatred in Pakistan over America's raid that killed Bin Laden than there is for the unmanned drone attacks. That's even more important to think about.
The reality is that the moderates in Pakistan are fighting an uphill struggle in Pakistan. We need them to win but they are being killed off faster than we can defend them, and even attempting to defend them is hurting their cause to boot. It's easy to declare that a strategy is bad and has horrible consequences, it's a lot more important though to propose a better alternative. Stop the attacks and do nothing means a Pakistan where the Taliban where still best friends with the military and intelligence agencies. It means a nuclear armed state that was best friends with terrorist organizations eager to use those nuclear weapons in their jihad while we lacked any way of assessing just how close and willing their partnership was. Don't dismiss this assessment as doomsday fear mongering. One of the debates in Pakistan's national assemblies after Osama's death included elected representatives bemoaning Pakistan's failure to protect a great Muslim hero like Bin Laden. Pakistan is a battle ground between extremist and moderate populations and we have a very vested interest in who wins that struggle.


Thank you for adding so much to the discussion, very much appreciated.
Yes, I do understand the sovereignty issue looms huge in the opinion of American actions within Pakistan's borders. I can really understand how that would enrage anyone with any manner of national pride. America is in a tough spot though too. The mountainous tribal regions along the Pak-Afghan border are not under the control of the Pakistani central government. On paper the border may run there, but in practice militants can relatively safely travel back and forth between the two. What's more, there still remain places within Pakistan's proper borders that are controlled by the local tribal leaders, and NOT the central Pakistani government. Those local tribal leaders are allying themselves to the Pakistani Taliban and providing them safe haven within Pakistan to launch attacks in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Afghan part does make it America's business. The Pakistani part in my humble opinion, should be a source of greater public outrage than it is.
I guess I find it worrying that extremists can be in de-facto control of large swathes of land within Pakistan's proper borders. So much so that it is still unsafe for the Pakistani police and even military to patrol there. To me, that seems like it is already an enormous sovereignty issue. America's attacks against militants in that region I can understand being a source of outrage. I don't understand why there isn't equal or greater outrage that those regions on the ground are no longer under the control of the Pakistani government at all and being used as a base of operations for launching attacks on the rest of Pakistan.
I think America's problem is knowing whom they can trust within Pakistan's power structure to work against rather than with extremists like the Taliban. Hamid Gul, former leader of Pakistan's ISI, scares the crap out of me. How many of his friends are still in the ISI that think like him? The JUI-F party declared Osama a muslim hero in Pakistan's National Assemblies. How much support has that party been able to hold onto within Pakistan still after taking that stance? Political parties like the PPP seem to share alot of moderate values, but have historically been ridden out of office by the military every few years.
Do you have good reasons that those fears are unfounded? From what I see and read(largely from "The News International") the moderates like yourself have always been in an uphill struggle against extremists and the opportunists willing to work with them.

ron paul is a true blue bible-thumper. and in my book, that equals crazy, or at least severely lacking in rationality.

anyone who believes that there is an all-powerful invisible man in the sky should immediately (in effect) be disqualified from seeking any political office.

If I were to espouse Odin, or Mithra, or Baal, such would be my fate should i seek political office.

Using primitive mythology as a basis for decision-making, in this day and age, is entirely unacceptable.

I think we need to start recognizing that such a mind has a severe psychological deficiency.

not sarcasm

>> ^gorillaman:

I spend time and effort taking a dump. I don't expect you to pay me for it.
If you can monetize your creativity, great. Do it without calling in government thugs to extract the tribute you imagine you're owed from anyone who presumes to interact with your imaginary property.
The guy who gets coffee for the director is paid for his work. You're suggesting I owe him, what, his future job security? Come on. Tell him to go home, get a webcam and produce his own content for literally a millionth of the cost of the primitive, bloated, dying industry he leaves behind.
How much are we getting paid to make these posts? Love of the craft, man.


First up, read my original post. I do not, in any way shape or form support SOPA or PIPA. In fact, I abhor them. So you can leave the childish "government thugs" line out of it.

As to the rest of your arguments, I'm not going to pay you to take a dump, because I don't want your dump. If I did want your "output", I would expect to pay you for it.

As for "extracting the tribute I'm owed", I don't believe I'm owed a damn thing, until you use what I've created, in which case, pay me. If you don't want to use it, fine. But it's still my ip that I worked hard on. It's not "imaginary" property, it is intellectual property and the principal has been around for longer than you would believe (look up the story of Colm Cille copying art works in medieval Ireland).

The quality of the work is irrelevant. If Transformers or CoD or whatever is so shit, don't watch/play it.

As for these posts, I'm pretty sure that when you signed up to this site, we agreed that posts were made under creative commons, or are the property of siftbot or whatever. The point is that there is no expectation of remuneration here. I have no problem with people sharing their content or whatever, but it's still their decision to make.