Look, don't get me wrong, I'm undecided on the issue, and as such, am not propagating any particular side. Nor am I trying to fear monger, though I may be expressing my own concerns of the unknown, when I speak of Islam, I'm speaking of Islam as it is proscribed by the Koran. Though there certainly are many moderate muslims, the Koran's demands are worrisome:

"Against them make ready your strength to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to strike terror into (the hearts of) the enemies of Allah and your enemies and others besides, whom ye may not know (8:60)"

"Strive hard (Jihad) against the Unbelievers and the Hypocrites, and be firm against them. Their abode is Hell,- an evil refuge indeed. (66:9, See also 9:73)"

"Remember thy Lord inspired the angels (with the message): "I am with you: give firmness to the Believers: I will instill terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them." (8:12-13)"

In regards to my comment on the founding fathers' views and expectations having been corrupted, I was referring specifically to the power given to the banks. Here's Thomas Jefferson's view on banks:

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.
Already they have raised up a monied aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The
issuing power (of money) should be taken away from the banks and restored to the people to
whom it properly belongs."

As far as my worry about what they're preaching and praying for in mosques, how can I know for certain? Shall I infiltrate them? There's a mosque right around the corner from my house. Shall I attempt to gain entry? My best bet would be wearing a full cloth bag and pretending to be a chick! Yes... 'tis an excelent plan. Or maybe I'll just walk in and see how they react to my curiosity.

Funny story about that mosque actually, when I was a young kid I was biking around with a muslim friend and he needed to go to the mosque for a bit, he wanted me to come with said it wouldn't be long. I was pretty hesitant as I didn't feel it was appropriate, we biked to the back of the mosue where everyone was happy and cheerful and smiling and random muslims were coming up to shake my hand, lol, until my friend said nono he's not muslim. Anyhow, it was a little awkward. His holy book says this about me:

"Surely the vilest of animals in Allah's sight are those who disbelieve, then they would not believe(8:55)"

Regarding the Koran demanding the abolishment of all non-muslim religions, why would a moderate muslim have a different answer than a non-moderate muslim? The Koran either says it or it doesn't say it. Oh wait, I forgot. Religious words can be interpreted, misinterpreted and reinterpreted. Religion is so convenient and easily defended that way.

Also, Atheists are, or should be, fighting holy wars all day long. Fighting for better spending of resources, fighting for good science, and fighting against religion when it seeks to undermine, conceal, distort, exaggerate or otherwise abuse the truth to the great detriment of people.

And lastly, you defend Islams oppression of women by purporting that I should troll the streets in search of self-proclaimed moderate muslims and ask their opinions on the conditions of women? That's just silly. I can only speak on what I see, and what I see are TONS of women psychologically manipulated into roles of subordination. They gladly don their cloth bags in my neighborhood, if I were to spend the day on my stoop, in 35ºC weather, counting how many women walk by fully concealed, I would count many dozen.

One last thought: I'm not even American, I'm Canadian, but it seems Americans expect a lot of themselves. It's strange. You've got tons of people saying, "Hey, we'll be righteous and good, we will let them build a muslim community center a couple hundred feet from where muslims flew planes into our buildings and murdered close to FOUR THOUSAND of our brothers, sisters, mothers, and fathers, in one fell swoop."

But then when Americans invade other countries, some undevelopped and third-world, murder, rape and pillage resources, everyone stays quiet. There's no outrage. It's funny to me is all, America portrays itself as some morale bastion of freedom, justice and righteousness when it's not. And that's fine. It doesn't have to be.

Quit being hypocrites and tell them to go fuck themselves. Maybe next time their brother knocks down your sand castle at the beach they'll speak the fuck up a bit louder and tell him to quit ruining their good thing.

I'm sorry if this has been inflammatory or offensive in any way. It's a very contentious issue, and I'm happy I'm not the one having to make a decision on this. I don't hate any group. I have a lot of disdain for religion in general, but I am not so ignorant that I would hate blindly, nor should the ignorant be hated upon.

“The tax which will be paid for the purpose of education is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance” -Thomas Jefferson

This is something that will have a generational impact. Some members will start to give less money to the church, and some will leave altogether, but that won't change their opinion much about the idea of God itself. But the reduced income and lack of a moral high ground will decrease the church's ability to indoctrinate the next generation of malleable minds. We're just going to see the atheist and "undecided" categories continue to grow over this century, unless there is a real catastrophe that sends the weak-minded running back for false comfort.

I don't get global warming.

In order to 'get' this discussion you need to seperate out two completely different components. ONE: The science of climate change. TWO: The politics of 'man-made' global warming (AKA anthropogenic global warming or AGW).

ONE: THE SCIENCE
The science of climate change is undecided. Scientists create models to predict climates change. However, to date all such models are unsuccessful. There is no current valid mathematical model that serves as a platform for predicting climate change. Some models are rigorous, others are 'loose'. Some weight XYZ variables, and others focus on ABC. But anyone who claims to be able to predict temperatures, hurricanes, or the other components of global climate is full of crap. There is no 'consensus'. Real scientists would not dare to say 'the science is settled' because they are still collecting data.

As of this time the science can only tell us that there are 'variables' that effect the climate. However, science has not yet determined if the variables are causal or predictive. EG - they know atmospheric C02 is involved in the equation but they do not know whether C02 causes climate change or whether its alterations are caused by the climate changes. Science is still up in the air on the topic - no pun intended.

TWO: THE POLITICS
The AGW movement is not 'science'; it is pure agenda politics. There are lots of groups that desire to reduce human activity, for whatever reason. Some want to reduce ALL human activity. Some want to reduce a specific area. Others focus on overpopulation. Others are anti-capitalist. Whatever. The one thing in common is a generalized desire to reduce human activity on some scale or other.

The political label this movement co-opted is "AGW". They took AGW C02 (one variable out of dozens) and artificially weighted it. They dangled tons of grant money in front of sympathetic scientists, universities, labs, and clinics. They shut out dissent. They falsified data. They hid methodology. They pretended anecdotes were 'experts'. They threw way primary data. They clammed thier pieholes shut when their conclusions were wildly exaggerated. In the kindest interpretation, AGW has been proven to be no more than a very rudimentary hypothesis. In laymans terms, AGW C02 as a cause of 'climate change' is bunk.

The scientific claims are easily refuted because they are just about 100% wrong every time they say anything. Global warming causes hurricanes to be bigger and more powerful... ...eeeexcept that hurricanes became less frequent and weaker. Global warming is causing rising temperatures... ...eeeexcept that temperatures have been falling for 10 years and there's 7 feet of snow in DC. Human C02 will melt glaciars... ...eeeexcept the glaciers are actually getting thicker. You pick the topic. The 'science' predictions of the Warmers have been dead wrong every time.

Realizing that they have lost credibility when examined with real scientific rigor (or even with plain common sense) the Warmers simply moved their target. "Global Warming" not working? Well - just call it climate change. Since the climate always changes, ANY weather (good, bad, whatever) is "proof that man-made C02 emissions are destroying the planet". How rhetorically convenient.

But since the real objective is POLITICAL and not environmental, it doesn't really matter. If they can get enough gullible people to just pretend the Emperor has clothes long enough then they could still achieve the political goal - science be damned. They don't care that they've made the scientific community a laughing stock as long as they could get the IPCC to use East Anglia's bogus conclusions to try and sucker people at Carbonhagen.

So keep the divide in this issue clearly in mind. There is the 'science' side which is still undecided. Then there is the 'politics' side which is more like a religion that has the reduction of human activity as its Nicene Creed. That's all you need to know to look at any news story on this issue and arrive at a clear conclusion as to what its 'angle' is.

The Hitchens video was heavily edited to look as if he's storming off for no real reason. I'm getting the impression that we're missing some important pieces of content that she may have said to set him off.

This "interview" could've been her way at getting back at those two for tearing her arguments apart in the fair, unedited debate they had where the entire group of undecided viewers were convinced by Hitchens/Fry's arguments over hers. I can't find a link to the debate, but it's definitely worth a view for anyone who hasn't seen it yet.

^naw farhad, emaciated emo-lookin' kids who are not hip don't have dealers. This guy abuses Dextro ans Salvia.
Favorite movie, Benny and Joon
Major: Undecided

and Throbbin, let's hope he's not using that cheap-ass petroleum-based goop for wankloob...Ewww!

Can't believe I wasted my vote on 'undecided', just because I don't have an opinion on this. Could have been so much more entertaining...

>> ^chilaxe:
Re:HadouKen24
You do seem well-informed on this topic.

1) "These give us an "in" for something like an empirical analysis."
It doesn't seem similar to empirical analysis if people's experiences of mystical feelings are all mutually contradictory. One person believes he or she senses one thing when reading a religious book, and another person senses nothing.

Strictly speaking, simply having a feeling when reading a book is not a mystical feeling. It is just a feeling. I am referring more to things like the [i]writing[/i] of the Bible or the contact that the Oracle of Delphi was said to have with Apollo.

2) "Why should we expect it to conform to the standards of a scientific epistemology?"
These videos are intended for the portion of the population that's open to a rationalist approach. If scientific thought builds civilizations, with their advanced medicine and space travel, and religious thought doesn't have a history of verifiable achievements, a portion of the population will regard the balance of evidence as favoring a rationalist approach.

Sure, a scientific approach is extremely useful for developing new kinds of vehicles, safer homes, and so on. No one denies that. It is not at all clear to me how or why a scientific approach ought to be taken for all phenomena or to explain all ways of thinking about things.

There are a number of philosophical and religious positions which are utterly undecidable on the grounds of science and, if correct, render science woefully incomplete. One must evaluate these positions according to criteria other than scientific, such as coherency, consistency, etc.

3) "If an image of the Japanese Sun goddess Amaterasu were to materialize and defuse all our nuclear weapons, I don't think it would be unreasonable to take as our starting hypothesis that Amaterasu really did just finally prevent a nuclear holocaust. "
Yes, if there was a verifiable supernatural event, that would constitute some evidence.
However, using mystical feelings as evidence, as most people would, doesn't seem to be supported by the balance of evidence when neurotheology, the neuroscience of theology, is taken into account. (Since 1994, neuroscience has been breaking down exactly what happens in order to (assumedly) create mystical feelings... e.g. turn off the neural circuits responsible for the sense of division between self and world, and suddenly we feel "connected to all things.")
Not everyone believes in relying on the balance of evidence, but this video is intended for those who do, or to at least give folks a sense of the advantages of relying on the balance of evidence.


The "balance of the evidence" is that, when you put people having similar religious experiences in an MRI machine, you see similar things happening in their brains, and the things you see are more or less the kinds of things you'd expect to see whether or not you believe there is an anomalous element to the experience.

"Neurotheology" is not nearly advanced enough to come to any conclusions about the ultimate nature of such experiences, and may in fact be incapable of making such conclusions.

>> ^blankfist:
You can paint those against a government option as wingnuts and crazy, but I fear you're only furthering alienation of the independents and undecideds.


The public option is riotously popular, with polling showing it getting between 60-75% support, depending on the poll.

In terms of alienating independents and undecideds, which will turn them off more?

a) The people who're yelling and screaming about how Obamacare is going to create Nazi death camps.

OR

b) The people who're trying to put a bill together showing clips of the group in A, saying "those people aren't helping drive reform"

Personally, I'm more worried that the whole thing ends up preventing "independents and undecideds" from feeling safe in coming to the town halls to ask questions and get informed about the plan.

*lies *fear

It deserves a "democratic debate"? That's 51% telling the other 49% how they can care for themselves. You can paint those against a government option as wingnuts and crazy, but I fear you're only furthering alienation of the independents and undecideds.

I'm undecided on this. The videos I sifted following this change would definitely have got at least 10 and so getting 15 wasn't a problem. The others are so-so submissions but with a few helpful votes and lots of promotes they would make it past 10. Now it's harder and in a way I don't see it as a bad thing. We all know what videos should probably stay in our PQ but yet get sifted.

The fact is raising the threshold to 15 does, on balance, prevent lesser videos getting through. On this site, this is not a bad thing.

And sure it will stop the good stuff as well. This is where we need solutions. One thing that occurred to me (and this is full of holes) would be to have a primary channel for each video (up to the submitter to show good judgement and channel owners to monitor). Each channel is weighted depending on the mode average votes (the number of votes that occurs most frequently) - a comedy video would then need more votes to sift than something in the Obscure channel.

Also you would effectively have Collectives back...

[edit] btw I say let's keep experimenting with 15 for a while more.

Is it possible to program a sequence which changes which samples are used as the timeline progresses?


Undecided.

By the way, I won't argue with you, rougy because you're absolutely right. But don't forget that CBS, ABC, and NBC, cable channels CNN and MSNBC, as well as major newspapers, news-wires, and radio outlets, especially CBS News, Newsweek, and the New York Times are the Democratic Party's propaganda outlets.

There, I said the obvious again.

A 2002 study by Jim A. Kuypers of Dartmouth College, Press Bias and Politics, investigated the issue of media bias. In this study of 116 mainstream US papers, including The New York Times, the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle, Kuypers found that the mainstream press in America tends to favor liberal viewpoints. They found that reporters expressing moderate or conservative points of view were often labeled as holding a minority point of view. Kuypers said he found liberal bias in reporting a variety of issues including race, welfare reform, environmental protection, and gun control.

http://web.archive.org/web/20080205062048/http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=/Culture/archive/200209/CUL20020917b.html


In a survey conducted by the American Society of Newspaper Editors in 1997, 61% of reporters stated that they were members of or shared the beliefs of the Democratic Party. Only 15% say their beliefs were best represented by the Republican Party. This leaves 24% undecided or Independent.

http://www.asne.org/kiosk/reports/97reports/journalists90s/journalists.html

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
Murder outside the law isn't justifiable. I tend to agree that pro-lifers who are willing to kill people who perform abortions are hypocrites of the highest order. The death penalty is completely different argument with ZERO moral equivalancy. The death penalty is a legal punishment reserved for persons who have violated the laws of society in such a gross manner that they are no longer worthy to continue to participate in it.


I'm curious why are pro-lifers trying to stop abortions? What the actually reason? Some people I've talked say that it is to protect the baby because life is sacred.

Yes, because life is sacred.... except when it isn't. It's great to able to choose when to apply one's morals - babies are cute and cuddly, while people on death row are much easier to rationalize.

So I'm curious: For pro-lifers, what exactly is your reason for saving a baby?


>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
Politically, I'm pro-choice. Personally, I'm pro-life. If you're pro-life then you need don't need guns to do your talking. You discuss the many options available to a person wanting the abortion. Show how choosing to let the child live is the morally, socially, and intellectually superior option. If you cannot convince the person otherwise, then they should be able to do as they wish and their ultimate judgement lies elsewhere.


Here here! It would be great if people on both sides would stop listening to the fringe radicals and join together to promote safe sex practices (yep, beyond abstinence) and alternatives to abortion.

Personally, I'm undecided on the issue. My limited pro-choice stance comes from a weighing of consequences on society. If you wish to look at a society burdened with completely illegal abortions, you can look at the Philippines.

In reply to this comment by 8727:
i've always doubted this idea that people think in words, i don't feel like i do


just thought id msg u as i was watching an old clip and noticed u comment
i reply with this ,

" "8727" the thinking in words thing is not important as language just refers to the thought process , comunicatoin wether that be internal comunicatoin within your own brain of concepts you are aware of . ore wether that be the comunicatoin of those conspets in sounds, ore images."


from wiki

Language is a term most commonly used to refer to so called "natural languages" — the forms of communication considered peculiar to humankind. In linguistics the term is extended to refer to the type of human thought process which creates and uses language. Essential to both meanings is the systematic creation and usage of systems of symbols —each referring to linguistic concepts with semantic or logical or otherwise expressive meanings.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language


also as i understand it some people supposedly think in words and others in visuals. I'm undecided as to what i believe.

from wiki

Language is a term most commonly used to refer to so called "natural languages" — the forms of communication considered peculiar to humankind. In linguistics the term is extended to refer to the type of human thought process which creates and uses language. Essential to both meanings is the systematic creation and usage of systems of symbols —each referring to linguistic concepts with semantic or logical or otherwise expressive meanings.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language


so "8727" the thinking in words thing is not important as language just refers to the thought process , comunicatoin wether that be internal comunicatoin within your own brain of concepts you are aware of . ore wether that be the comunicatoin of those conspets in sounds, ore images.

also as i understand it some people supposedly think in words and others in visuals. I'm undecided as to what i believe.