What is particularly interesting, and new science to me is that the majority of the heat that keeps the core molten is just decay heat from Thorium, Uranium, and Potassium. Only 20% of the heat that drives the internal dynamo is believed to be primordial, most is from the decay of mainly these elements. This, coupled with our crust layer which forms a heat retaining blanket, has enabled the heat of our core to live much longer than otherwise. Predictions for core solidification without radioactive decay is on the order of a couple hundred million years. Every major thermodynamic system on the earth is powered via some form of nuclear; be it fission (well, decay, which isn't usually called fission) keeping the core molten, or fusion keeping the sun burning...we owe a lot to the strong and weak forces!

The actinides are, generally, "safe" to handle, like those Uranium Oxide pellets. You are more likely to damage the pellet with your nasty human oils than the uranium will you...unless you eat the whole thing, but its chemical toxicity will do you more harm that its radioactive toxicity. Uranium oxide just isn't that radioactive, that is why none of the containers or work areas were shielded in this lab.



Now, if they were dealing with a "hot" substance, one that has hard gammas (like when you do MOX fuel recycling), you have to take even greater precautions because then the radioactive problems really do start to show their heads. Not only will it damage your cells faster than they can repair, but it can start to take out unshielded electronics. This is generally only true for fission products, and a few actinides like protactinium which is highly radioactive AND chemically toxic, and generally only man-made (normal occurrences are less than a few parts per trillion in the crust).



These complications are pretty good generalization to why normal LWRs are not the best way to do nuclear, they just generate far to much waste compared to alternatives. You burn less than 1% of the mined uranium in current reactor tech and fuel cycle choices. With a thorium cycle in a molten salt reactor, you can burn greater than 90%, pushing up to 99% or higher if you try real hard. This means you generate an order(s) of magnitude less waste, and that waste generally is safe after about 300 years (radiation is about the same as naturally occurring radiation). There are also other alternates that use uranium in a faster spectrum that perform better than current tech.



A second age of the atom is fast approaching. Unfortunately, those great pioneers which made this industry in the shadow of "the bomb" failed to realize the full potential of e=mc^2. If nuclear power was developed along side the Apollo instead of the Manhattan project, we might already be in that future, alas...it was not to be.



Radiation is fascinating though! I used to believe what I read in the fear news about any radiation leading to death..turns out that isn't so true after all. The planet is a far more radioactive place then you normally consider, and FAR more radioactive when our primordial ancestors evolved. In fact, there are many people living today in what are dubbed High Background Radiation Areas that seem to suffer no ill effect, and some suggest, have lower rates of cancer than other groups. More studies need to be done, but initial findings fly in the face of the notion of radiation I grew up with (that it all is bad and it all kills you!) Some have even suggested that the creator of the entire model used for evaluating radiation risk knowingly lied about it. The entire basis for today's evaluation of radiological risk is evaluated by Muller's findings as supported by the National Academy of Sciences’ of the time. And in fact, might just be based in fear instead of evidence.



Perhaps ancient man went through the same struggles as he tried to adopt fire, some impassioned move against the dangers of fire prevented some groups from using fire and advancing their way of life. Fire, though, allowed the groups that adopted it to improve their life dramatically. The energy released from a fission event is over a million times more energy rich than any energy tech we currently use, imagine what that could mean for mankind. Fusion is over 4 times that of fission (but much harder), and antimatter over 2000x that of fission (and MUCH MUCH harder). Yes, the age of the atom has only just begun, and who knows were man will be a result? Don't settle for solar dandruff, the power of the atom will reign supreme.

"The changing information which we experience as world is an unfolding narrative. It tells about the death of a woman. This woman, who died long ago, was one of the primordial twins. She was half of the divine syzygy. The purpose of the narrative is the recollection of her and of her death. The Mind does not wish to forget her. Thus the ratiocination of the Brain consists of a permanent record of her existence, and, if read, will be understood this way. All the information processed by the Brain—experienced by us as the arranging and rearranging of physical objects—is an attempt at this preservation of her; stones and rocks and sticks and amoebae are traces of her. The record of her existence and passing is ordered onto the meanest level of reality by the suffering Mind which is now alone." (PKD, VALIS)

>> ^messenger:
So, how is you believing that you have a superior intellect to someone who believes in God not pride?

Read it again. Nobody claimed to have a superior intellect to anyone else. The contrast is between using our intellect and not using it. As Galileo famously put it, "I do not feel obliged to believe that that same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forego their use." Now, he was talking from the perspective of a person of faith who simply didn't believe the bible or church teachings anymore but certainly did still believe in God. We are speaking as people with sense, reason and intellect who don't see sufficient evidence to come to the conclusion that God might reasonably exist.

It's the entire contention that someone who believes in God is not using their sense, reason and intellect that is prideful. Did you know that 40 percent of biologists, physicists and mathematicians believe in a personal God? Some extremely intelligent people believe in a Creator, and they can back up their beliefs with logical evidence. You see theists through a grossly distorted lens created by your own prejudice, and it blinds you. Galileo, by the way, did believe the bible; what he didn't buy is the catholic interpretation of it, and rightly so.

>> ^messenger:
Since there is no empirical evidence for or against Gods existence, how do you calculate how likely or unlikely His existence is?

The lack of evidence for existence is a non-concrete kind of evidence for the lack of existence. So the overwhelming lack of evidence for God is a bloody strong case. Everywhere we look in nature, we continue not to find God.

The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. Although I think there is evidence, such as fine tuning and information in DNA. In any case, do you honestly believe you can point an instrument at God and say "there he is!". Is this idea not fundamentally ridiculous? I think what youre confusing is mechanism with agency. You think because you describe a mechanism, how something works in a mechanical sense, somehow it rules out an Agent. God says He upholds the entire Universe; that He is the one that keeps the atoms from flying apart. How does mechanism rule out Gods agency?

Not only that, but if God created the Universe, do you realize that the entire Universe is evidence of Gods existence? The question I would put to you is, how would you tell the difference? How would you know you're looking at a Universe God didn't create? What would you expect that to look like?

What about the laws of logic? Where do they come from? If they're only in our brains, subject to constant flux, then what is rationality? It isn't anything you can trust if what you believe is true. Therefore all of your arguments fall apart. You have nothing in your worldview that can explain it, yet I can explain it. I know there is an omnipotent God who made us in His image, and we are rational beings because He is a rational being.

>> ^messenger:
Please, stop talking about science. You really do not understand it. You sound like a religious sceptic spouting crap about the bible. Really, what you say about science is just non-verified faither talking points. All science is based only on observation and drawing generalized inferences from that. "Theories" are just that. The strength of a scientific theory is roughly [how well it predicts other things] ÷ [how many things you have to just accept]. The belief in a particular atomic structure for oxygen has many predictions, which are testable and have largely been shown reliably true. So the atomic structure of an oxygen atom is a generally accepted theory, even though we will never be able to sense it directly. It's scientific. On those same grounds, the theory of evolution is also a strong theory in science. It has very few conjectures (three simple ones, I believe I heard Dawkins once say), it generates predictions, the predictions are testable, and they affirm the theory. Saying that evolution is untestable is as ridiculous as saying we haven't investigated every oxygen atom, so the model of the atom is untestable, and therefore unscientific.

If you understood it better than I do then you would know what macro evolution is. The scientific method uses empirical evidence, which comes from empirical experimentation or observation. There is no experiment to prove macro evolution, nor can it be empirically observed. It is simply an unjustified extrapolation from micro evolution (which is proven beyond a reasonable doubt), and based on nothing but inferences from *circumstantial* evidence and not evidence based on empirical observation.

Many people have this conception that the theory of common descent is as certain and proven as 2 + 2 = 4, or as Sepacore put it:

"once claimed to be a book of literal truth, becomes more and more metaphorical as science stomps its way all over the human races ignorance of the universe reaching greater level's of understandings that are testable through mathematical predictions"

That is certainly how it is taught in schools, as absolute fact, and that's why I believed it too. It's when you stop looking at their conclusions and see the actual data they base them on that you will get the shock of your life. Yes, you're right, the theory makes a few predictions, all of which have turned out to be wrong..such as this:

The main cause, however, of innumerable intermediate links not now occurring everywhere throughout nature depends on the very process of natural selection, through which new varieties continually take the places of and exterminate their parent-forms. But just in proportion as this process of extermination has acted on an enormous scale, so must the number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed on the earth, be truly enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory. The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record.

Darwin

Darwin predicted that for his theory to be true, there must be innumerable transitional forms in the fossil record. What have we found?:


"Paleontologists just were not seeing the expected changes in their fossils as they pursued them up through the rock record. That individual kinds of fossils remain recognizably the same throughout the length of their occurrence in the fossil record had been known to paleontologists long before Darwin published his Origin. Darwin himself, .., prophesied that future generations of paleontologists would fill in these gaps by diligent search... One hundred and twenty years of paleontological research later, it has become abundantly clear that the fossil record will not confirm this part of Darwin's prediction. Nor is the problem a miserly fossil record. The fossil record simply shows that this prediction is wrong.
N. Eldredge and I. Tattersall, The Myths of Human Evolution, 1982, pg 45-46.

What we find is that creatures appear in stasis, and enter and leave the fossil record abruptly with no changes.

Another prediction is a start from simple to complex, with an increase of diversity of the phyla over a long period of time.

"Consequently, if my theory be true, it is indisputable that before the lowest Silurian stratum was deposited, long periods elapsed, as long as, or probably longer than the whole interval from the Silurian age to the present day; and during these vast, yet quite unknown periods of time, the world swarmed with living creatures. To the question why we do not find records of these vast primordial periods, I can give no satisfactory answer."
Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species, 1st edition, pg 307.

What we find is that all of the phyla we have today all abruptly appeared in the "cambrian explosion"

"The fossil record had caused Darwin more grief than joy. Nothing distressed him more than the Cambrian explosion, the coincident appearance of almost all complex organic designs ... "
S. Gould, The Panda's Thumb, pg 238, 239.

This is just the tip of the iceberg for how poor a theory macroevolution actually is, but you won't have a shortage of true believers in it, even though they don't even understand what evidence it is based on. I do know something about science, and although I am a layman, I am perfectly capable of understanding of what makes a sound theory, and what doesn't. I would believe in macroevolution if the evidence supported it. Not only does it not support it, but it actually argues against it. It is shocking to someone who has been indoctrinated (like I was), but if you want to talk about fairy stories, macroevolution is a whale of a tale.

Your refutations were (in order)

"This guy believes in evolution"

"We can never prove anything about the fossil record"

"this quote is old"

"this guy is crazy"

"this quote is old"

"this guy is a probable creationist"

Yeah, amazing refutations..which you got from a website, while calling me out on doing the same thing. Evolutionists, biologists, palentologists etc DO dispute the theory of evolution..you were right though..the ones I provided were kind of weak. You'll have an infinitely harder time refuting these:

"With the failure of these many efforts [to explain the origin of life] science was left in the somewhat embarrassing position of having to postulate theories of living origins which it could not demonstrate.

After having chided the theologian for his reliance on myth and miracle, science found itself in the unenviable position of having to create a mythology of its own: namely, the assumption that what, after long effort could not be proved to take place today, had, in truth, taken place in the primeval past."

Loren C. Eiseley,
Ph.D. Anthropology. "The Immense Journey". Random House, NY, p. 199

"We have no acceptable theory of evolution at the present time. There is none; and I cannot accept the theory that I teach to my students each year. Let me explain:

I teach the synthetic theory known as the neo-Darwinian one, for one reason only; not because it's good, we know it is bad, but because there isn't any other.

Whilst waiting to find something better you are taught something which is known to be inexact, which is a first approximation."

Professor Jerome Lejeune,
Internationally recognised geneticist at a lecture given in Paris

"Considering its historic significance and the social and moral transformation it caused in western thought, one might have hoped that Darwinian theory ... a theory of such cardinal importance, a theory that literally changed the world, would have been something more than metaphysics, something more than a myth."

Michael Denton,
Molecular Biologist. "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis". Adler and Adler, p. 358

"The fact of evolution is the backbone of biology, and biology is thus in the peculiar position of being a science founded on an unproved theory - is it then a science or a faith? Belief in the theory of evolution is thus exactly parallel to belief in special creation-both are concepts which believers know to be true but neither, up to the present, has been capable of proof."

L.Harrison Matthews,
British biologist

"[The theory of evolution] forms a satisfactory faith on which to base our interpretation of nature."


L. Harrison Matthews,
Introduction to 'Origin of Species: The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life', p. xxii (1977 edition).


"I reject evolution because I deem it obsolete, because the knowledge, hard won since 1830, of anatomy, histology, cytology, and embryology, cannot be made to accord with its basic idea. The foundationless, fantastic edifice of the evolution doctrine would long ago have met with its long deserved fate were it not that the love of fairy tales is so deep-rooted in the hearts of man."

Dr Albert Fleischmann. Recorded in Scott M. Huse, "The Collapse of Evolution", Baker Book House: Grand Rapids (USA), 1983 p:120

"Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no life after death exists; 3) no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent."


William B. Provine,
Professor of Biological Sciences, Cornell University, 'Evolution: Free will and punishment and meaning in life', Abstract of Will Provine's 1998 Darwin Day Keynote Address.


"The origin of life by chance in a primeval soup is impossible in probability in the same way that a perpetual machine is in probability. The extremely small probabilities calculated in this chapter are not discouraging to true believers ? [however] A practical person must conclude that life didn’t happen by chance."


Hubert Yockey,
"Information Theory and Molecular Biology", Cambridge University Press, 1992, p. 257


"As I said, we shall all be embarrassed, in the fullness of time, by the naivete of our present evolutionary arguments. But some will be vastly more embarrassed than others."


Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, Principal Research Associate of the Center for Cognitive Science at MIT, "Inevitable Illusions: How Mistakes of Reason Rule Our Minds," John Wiley & Sons: New York, 1994, p195)


"In 10 million years, a human-like species could substitute no more than 25,000 expressed neutral mutations and this is merely 0.0007% of the genome ?nowhere near enough to account for human evolution. This is the trade secret of evolutionary geneticists."

Walter James ReMine,
The Biotic Message : Evolution versus Message Theory


"Today, a hundred and twenty-eight years after it was first promulgated, the Darwinian theory of evolution stands under attack as never before. ... The fact is that in recent times there has been increasing dissent on the issue within academic and professional ranks, and that a growing number of respectable scientists are defecting from the evolutionist camp. It is interesting, moreover, that for the most part these 'experts' have abandoned Darwinism, not on the basis of religious faith or biblical persuasions, but on strictly scientific grounds, and in some instances regretfully, as one could say. We are told dogmatically that Evolution is an established fact; but we are never told who has established it, and by what means. We are told, often enough, that the doctrine is founded upon evidence, and that indeed this evidence 'is henceforward above all verification, as well as being immune from any subsequent contradiction by experience'; but we are left entirely in the dark on the crucial question wherein, precisely, this evidence consists."


Wolfgang Smith,
Mathematician and Physicist. Prof. of Mathematics, Oregon State University. Former math instructor at MIT. Teilhardism and the New Religion: A Thorough Analysis of the Teachings of de Chardin. Tan Books & Publishers, pp. 1-2


"If there were a basic principle of matter which somehow drove organic systems toward life, its existence should easily be demonstrable in the laboratory. One could, for instance, take a swimming bath to represent the primordial soup. Fill it with any chemicals of a non-biological nature you please. Pump any gases over it, or through it, you please, and shine any kind of radiation on it that takes your fancy. Let the experiment proceed for a year and see how many of those 2,000 enzymes [proteins produced by living cells] have appeared in the bath. I will give the answer, and so save the time and trouble and expense of actually doing the experiment. You would find nothing at all, except possibly for a tarry sludge composed of amino acids and other simple organic chemicals.
How can I be so confident of this statement? Well, if it were otherwise, the experiment would long since have been done and would be well-known and famous throughout the world. The cost of it would be trivial compared to the cost of landing a man on the Moon.......In short there is not a shred of objective evidence to support the hypothesis that life began in an organic soup here on the Earth."


Sir Fred Hoyle,
British physicist and astronomer, The Intelligent Universe, Michael Joseph, London, pp. 20-21, 23.


"...(I)t should be apparent that the errors, overstatements and omissions that we have noted in these biology texts, all tend to enhance the plausibility of hypotheses that are presented. More importantly, the inclusion of outdated material and erroneous discussions is not trivial. The items noted mislead students and impede their acquisition of critical thinking skills. If we fail to teach students to examine data critically, looking for points both favoring and opposing hypotheses, we are selling our youth short and mortgaging the future of scientific inquiry itself."


Mills, Lancaster, Bradley,
'Origin of Life Evolution in Biology Textbooks - A Critique', The American Biology Teacher, Volume 55, No. 2, February, 1993, p. 83


"The salient fact is this: if by evolution we mean macroevolution (as we henceforth shall), then it can be said with the utmost rigor that the doctrine is totally bereft of scientific sanction. Now, to be sure, given the multitude of extravagant claims about evolution promulgated by evolutionists with an air of scientific infallibility, this may indeed sound strange. And yet the fact remains that there exists to this day not a shred of bona fide scientific evidence in support of the thesis that macroevolutionary transformations have ever occurred."


Wolfgang Smith,
Ph.D Mathematics , MS Physics Teilardism and the New Religion. Tan Books and Publishers, Inc.


"... as Darwinists and neo-Darwinists have become ever more adept at finding possible selective advantages for any trait one cares to mention, explanation in terms of the all-powerful force of natural selection has come more and more to resemble explanation in terms of the conscious design of the omnipotent Creator."


Mae-Wan Ho & Peter T. Saunders,
Biologist at The Open University, UK and Mathematician at University of London respectively


"In other words, when the assumed evolutionary processes did not match the pattern of fossils that they were supposed to have generated, the pattern was judged to be 'wrong'. A circular argument arises: interpret the fossil record in terms of a particular theory of evolution, inspect the interpretation, and note that it confirms the theory. Well, it would, wouldn't it?"


Tom S. Kemp,
'A Fresh Look at the Fossil Record', New Scientist, vol. 108, 1985, pp. 66-67


"We have proffered a collective tacit acceptance of the story of gradual adaptive change, a story that strengthened and became even more entrenched as the synthesis took hold. We paleontologists have said that the history of life supports that interpretation, all the while really knowing that it does not."


Niles Eldredge,
Chairman and Curator of Invertebrates, American Museum of Natural History, "Time Frames: The Rethinking of Darwinian Evolution and the Theory of Punctuated Equilibria," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, 1985, p144)


... by the fossil record and we are now about 120-years after Darwin and the knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly expanded. We now have a quarter of a million fossil species but the situation hasn't changed much.
The record of evolution is still surprisingly jerky and, ironically, some of the classic cases of Darwinian change in the fossil record, such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed information."


David M. Raup,
Curator of Geology. Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago "Conflicts Between Darwin and Paleontology". Field Museum of Natural History. Vol. 50, No. 1, p. 25


"Thus all Darwin's premises are defective: there is no unlimited population growth in natural populations, no competition between individuals, and no new species producible by selecting for varietal differences. And if Darwin's premises are faulty, then his conclusion does not follow. This, of itself, does not mean that natural selection is false. It simply means that we cannot use Darwin's argument brilliant though it was, to establish natural selection as a means of explaining the origin of species."


Robert Augros & George Stanciu,
"The New Biology: Discovering the Wisdom in Nature", New Science Library, Shambhala: Boston, MA, 1987, p.160).







>> ^MaxWilder:
What the hell are you talking about? I refuted every one of your quotes point by point! I provided links to further information. The whole point was that your "evidence" of paleontologists speaking out against evolution was utter bullshit!
The only one where I discredited the source was from some no-name Swedish biologist that nobody takes seriously. Every other source was either out of context (meaning you are not understanding the words properly), or out of date (meaning that science has progressed a little since the '70s).
You have got your head so far up your ass that you are not even coherent now.
But you know what might change my mind? If you cut&paste some more out of context, out of date quotes. You got hendreds of 'em! </sarcasm>
>> ^shinyblurry:
So basically, you cannot provide a refutation to the information itself but instead try to discredit the source.

Okay, the theory is that something mutates and creates something beneficial which then is selected to survive because it reproduces...well..how does natural selection choose for parts for components that dont exist and dont work? why would a creature with 1/40th of a working part be selected to survive so that it could get another part for a component that still doesnt work it just does not explain things like the flaggelums tail..thats what irreducible complexity is all about..there is no reason why flaggelums with a 10th an onboard tail motor would be selected to survive..just because each component could independently grow in some scenerio doesnt mean anything..no mutation for a non working part is beneficial..there would be no reason to continue on down that line or why the creature would survive in the first place.

another problem for evolution is that we can observe it in action..a generation of bacteria grows in no time..and at no time has there ever been observed one kind of bacteria mutating into another kind. we can test evolution this way..yes things mutate all the time..but they don't produce new kinds. not even once. so evolution is just not happening today

>> ^TheGenk:
>> ^shinyblurry:
Professor Edwin Conklin observed, "The probability of life originating from accident is comparable to the probability of the Unabridged Dictionary resulting from an explosion in a printing shop." or
Sir Fred Hoyle, of Cambridge University stated that statistically the chances of one cell evolving was the same as a tornado passing through a junkyard and giving you a fully functional Boeing 747
it's just taken on faith that it happened, of course..but there isn't even a good theory for it. pea soup getting electrocuted a cell does not create. its just not plausible.
Those quotes are all true, but the fail on one point: They assume a very complex endproduct (Here: the unabridged dictionary, the boeing 747 and the cell). Which is simply false.
Arguments about the statistical chances of something happening being very unlikely when it demonstrably happened are moot.
I could use that to argue that statistically the chance of you being created from the genetic material of your parents is so small that therefore you could not possibly exist. But clearly you do.
I'll just address the last one:
No one claims that the fully formed cell was the first "life" to pop into existance. There are other more "primitive" forms which came first. I can't find the articles but I know of at least one which demonstrates how a less complex version of a cell membrane every cell enjoys today "creates itself" in a primordial soup like environment. Add the amino acids that form in the same environment and you got yourself a very primitive cell.

>> ^shinyblurry:

Professor Edwin Conklin observed, "The probability of life originating from accident is comparable to the probability of the Unabridged Dictionary resulting from an explosion in a printing shop." or
Sir Fred Hoyle, of Cambridge University stated that statistically the chances of one cell evolving was the same as a tornado passing through a junkyard and giving you a fully functional Boeing 747
it's just taken on faith that it happened, of course..but there isn't even a good theory for it. pea soup getting electrocuted a cell does not create. its just not plausible.
Those quotes are all true, but the fail on one point: They assume a very complex endproduct (Here: the unabridged dictionary, the boeing 747 and the cell). Which is simply false.


Arguments about the statistical chances of something happening being very unlikely when it demonstrably happened are moot.
I could use that to argue that statistically the chance of you being created from the genetic material of your parents is so small that therefore you could not possibly exist. But clearly you do.

I'll just address the last one:
No one claims that the fully formed cell was the first "life" to pop into existance. There are other more "primitive" forms which came first. I can't find the articles but I know of at least one which demonstrates how a less complex version of a cell membrane every cell enjoys today "creates itself" in a primordial soup like environment. Add the amino acids that form in the same environment and you got yourself a very primitive cell.

@Ryjkyj

I appreciate your sincere reply, and do not want you to take my comments as personal attacks; it is the fact that such a practice can be so widely accepted despite having no, and I repeat my claim, no ethical nor medical basis, that really angers me. As for "age of consent", I am talking about informed consent, which I imagine you gave/had when you first had sex. A baby/child cannot give such consent (whether an adolescent under community/family pressure can is another question).

You say: "Saying that circumcision is akin to cutting off toes is ridiculous." Au contraire, it is actually quite a good analogy if one implies the little toes; they are not primordial (but do help balance), and without them you can be sure of never getting ingrown toenails on said toes. One cannot have phimosis (a rare and almost always benign ailment) without a foreskin, ergo the analogy is applicable. I've got one with earlobes if you prefer...

Nowhere did I suggest FGM and circumcision are alike, and I never would. They are comparable, though, inasmuch as they are both cultural traditions from barbaric times, upheld by religious beliefs.

The pain factor is a red herring, to distract from the real ethical problem: tampering with someone's body, irretrievably, without their consent. In Africa, some tribes still scar their babies' faces to mark their belonging; would it be okay if done medically and under anesthesia? "I'll tell them, 'some people are scarred, some not', no biggy"?



@asynchronice

Look up "mutilation" in the dictionary; no sensationalism whatsoever. Maybe it seems that way because most of society is completely desensitized to the disgusting and unethical practice that is infantile circumcision.

Circumcision is like sex change in two ways:

1) It should be an adult's personal decision (to do it to themselves, of course).
2) It should NOT be done to kids.



"If you are arguing outside of the aesthetics or practicality, I don't have time for you."

I guess you don't give a shit about ethics and human rights then. Well fuck you.

>> ^ctrlaltbleach:

Sorry guess I did not get my point across. Im not limiting your existence to your dads tiny ball sack. The miracle lies in the primordial soup or if you wish the placement of life by a higher being. Not to forget the years of evolving our planet has made in order to become a place that sustains our lives today. We can all see that our time here is very short if you still don't see a miracle in our existence then theres nothing more I can say.
>> ^Stu:
A miracle? Never saw that video in health class huh? Go read a science book. It's called sex. Try it sometime.>> ^ctrlaltbleach:
Mainly because you don't fight fire with fire. Every person on this planet is here by a miracle whether a god was involved or not. That makes each life precious whether they believe your life is precious or not. Its not enough to care about the future of humanity. Furthermore your just replacing a hatred for gays with a hatred for gay haters. Which makes you and the person who wants you or whoever dead the same. No offense but thats the way I personally see it. >> ^Yogi:
>> ^griefer_queafer:
whoops. didn't meant to upvote that. was in shock from your douchebaggery so much that lost control of my index finger. >> ^Yogi:
Takei says you should never tell someone to kill themselves. I think it depends on the reason though. If you're telling them to go kill themselves because they're black, or gay, or plushy, then yeah that's wrong you shouldn't do that. But when they say some really fucking stupid shit like McCance did...then no Fuck that, he should die. I would love LOVE to meet him and constantly tell him that he should kill himself. Stupid assholes don't deserve to live...period.


How is it douchebaggery to have concern for the species? Do you just not care about the future of humanity...because if so then you should encourage stupid people to live. People that say the earth is given to us by god so that we can rape it. People who kill people because of their race, sexual orientation, and other bullshit reasons.
If you don't encourage these idiot bastards to kill themselves then fuck off.





Yes there is more you can say. You can tell him to KILL HIMSELF!! What the Fuck Is wrong with you people?!?!

Sorry guess I did not get my point across. Im not limiting your existence to your dads tiny ball sack. The miracle lies in the primordial soup or if you wish the placement of life by a higher being. Not to forget the years of evolving our planet has made in order to become a place that sustains our lives today. We can all see that our time here is very short if you still don't see a miracle in our existence then theres nothing more I can say.
>> ^Stu:

A miracle? Never saw that video in health class huh? Go read a science book. It's called sex. Try it sometime.>> ^ctrlaltbleach:
Mainly because you don't fight fire with fire. Every person on this planet is here by a miracle whether a god was involved or not. That makes each life precious whether they believe your life is precious or not. Its not enough to care about the future of humanity. Furthermore your just replacing a hatred for gays with a hatred for gay haters. Which makes you and the person who wants you or whoever dead the same. No offense but thats the way I personally see it. >> ^Yogi:
>> ^griefer_queafer:
whoops. didn't meant to upvote that. was in shock from your douchebaggery so much that lost control of my index finger. >> ^Yogi:
Takei says you should never tell someone to kill themselves. I think it depends on the reason though. If you're telling them to go kill themselves because they're black, or gay, or plushy, then yeah that's wrong you shouldn't do that. But when they say some really fucking stupid shit like McCance did...then no Fuck that, he should die. I would love LOVE to meet him and constantly tell him that he should kill himself. Stupid assholes don't deserve to live...period.


How is it douchebaggery to have concern for the species? Do you just not care about the future of humanity...because if so then you should encourage stupid people to live. People that say the earth is given to us by god so that we can rape it. People who kill people because of their race, sexual orientation, and other bullshit reasons.
If you don't encourage these idiot bastards to kill themselves then fuck off.

If they were describing the Egyptian creation story of the Earth rising out the primordial chaos in the same book, wouldn't it be fair to call it a myth? Or should they temper the the language by saying, "The chaotic waters, called Nu, giving rise to the holy mound that the Earth eventually rose out of is one possible explanation for genetics, biology, and paleontology, but it's up to the reader to decide." It's a called a creation myth exactly the same way all other stories involving gods creating the world are called myths.

There has to be some standard of education. Quality is very important to assure that all children are receiving at least some semblance of what we call truth at that time. Calling things as they are is not a bias. It's just the truth. Get over it.

So, generally speaking, space itself is a product of the big bang. All of the the known material universe and the space and energy between it and throughout it, including the "last scattering background", all exploded out from its primordial origin, not into space ... but into ... what? Where was this opaque ball of plasma? What was outside of it? How did it get there? This is what makes me crazy. That and wondering what exactly is "space". When you remove everything from it, what is it? And how did it get there?

You cant see back to the beginning though. The universe was a opaque ball of primordial plasma until some point, you're not going to see in there. But you can see this opaque remainder though -- and its everywhere you look in space. It's called the cosmic microwave background, and is the "last scattering surface". This is the moment that space became transparent.

>> ^dannym3141:
Yeah, but are you really gonna place a bet against the odds that between now and 14 billion years ago, any hydrogen atom in your body was NEVER part of a star? Like it just floated around for 14 billion years avoiding all contact with all other material, landed on earth perhaps in a science lesson, went into a test tube thanks to a series of freak localised winds, they did the burning hydrogen trick showing that it made water as a result, which then worked its way around the sewer system which you one day drunk and it's still in you now?
Or were you just trying to show how clever you were(n't)?Yes in that way it is true. It is very likely that most hydrogen atoms were part of a star at one time or another. I misinterpreted that statement as all atoms were made in a star.
However there must still be a lot of primordial hydrogen in the interstellar medium which will be incorporated into molecular clouds out of which stars form.

>> ^Jesus_Freak:
"Well, we're here, so how we got here is irrelevant."

That's what I mean about lazy.. you just don't want to get it. It's like looking at a river valley and saying.. "it's a good thing these hills come together to form a perfect vessel for this mountain snow melt." It is that simple. The river runs there because it is the lowest point. The valley is formed because the river runs there and makes the valley deeper.

That's exactly why humans use oxygen. It's why some people from northern climates are really pale and people from really sunny places have lots of pigment. God didn't make some people black and some people white. They all "started out in his image". Or is that microevolution.

The garden of eden and Noah's flood are simply oral traditions from nomadic tribes that got assimilated into modern culture. Your Bible has been arbitrarily modified for thousands of years. It's been a political device capriciously modified and edited as the ruling powers saw fit.

I do take exception to how off-handedly dismiss the Bible, though. The Bible has been validated through historical accuracy of events depicted, is a unique document in all of human history, and is validated through the fulfillment of prophecy over time.

Studies have verified that the transcripts have held up without material alteration according to the earliest known records.
The type of forgery necessary to corrupt the Bible we know today is a feat I doubt would be possible even in this day and age. You'd have to destroy every prior copy and convincingly alter remnant copies, all the while leaving no historical footprint to tell the tale.
I posed a scientific question to see how entrenched you all were about the notion that God could not exist. I'm still not impressed with the answers.


You obviously don't know much history about your religion. You can't honestly believe that what we call the Bible was just a filtered set of gospels. And then even certain aspects of those were shaped, such that original Christian sects allowed women to hold honored positions, and even preach. All references to such things were removed by non-holy means.

How can you say there is no alteration? Really old greek, latin.. always interpreted. Heck, wasn't there usually margin notes up until the King James which has it's own history. Aren't there like four or five "King James" Versions.. The wording is different in them all.

You really can't be serious. "Studies have shown"... ok.. "It's been proven that".

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You are not impressed because it's your job to think for yourself. It's not anyone else job to make you believe something. Making someone believe is childish. You have to want to discover new information, think for yourself, be open to new ideas. You refuse to look and even try to see the other side.

If you had tangible, observable, logical evidence in your ideas, people would listen. But you don't have anything to bring to the table. You only have a belief and faith. There is not competing idea, just this never ending game religion plays where they find an area of human understanding that is lacking, and say God did it. Thousands of years ago it was rain, lightning and crop yields... Now it is before the big bang, and primordial ooze. Since it is hard to "prove" or demonstrate millions of years of time and natural forces, religion jumps in there and say, "you have to teach both sides".

They don't have another side or theory or evidence or progress. Intelligent Design should be bringing scientific discovery and break throughs and new inventions. Especially since they have God and prayer and holy water and host wafers. Shit, I forgot about all the prophecies. Certainly that would be a HUGE advantage!

Can you not even concede that Christianity declared the world flat and sun went around the Earth. These were equivalent to the modern Creationist meddling with a competing theory. But instead of proof or science... Religion just demands equal treatment, just because. Just because they have faith they must be right. How many years of scientific progress was stiffle or murdered over the Sun going around the Earth based on measurements and THEORIES. Do you really think the theory of planetary orbit is any different from the theory of natural selection?