825 Forum Posts by "Draconias"
At 3/27/07 02:28 PM, Dre-Man wrote: Do you even know someone who smokes pot?
Yes, and he barely accomplishes anything, even the simple task of doing homework for school. Things like video games and forums can chew up a lot of time, but drugees can't stop until the high is over-- and they usually don't do much afterwards, either.
Do you know someone who drops acid on a daily basis? Do you KNOW someone that does a couple of lines of coke a day? I'm guessing not.
No, not one on a daily basis or one doing it several times per day, but I find it interesting how you put heavy qualifications on acid and coke, but not on marijuana. Is that because low-level users of marijuana can appear okay, so you wanted them used as examples? Or because you thought the connection with the heavy use of the hardcore drugs would dissuade anyone from bringing up a marijuana example because you don't actually want to hear it?
A guy can go to work every day to a decent job with good pay, benefit society, and still drop acid every other weekend if he's in the mood.
Yes. But how often does it stay like that, and how often do they crash and burn because of the drugs when the going gets a bit tougher?
At 3/27/07 02:58 PM, Tomsan wrote: Only if taken excessivly. like alcohol, and fat food... there is no difference between drugs and alcohol.
Now you're wrong there. America has a strong set of cultural guidelines to control alcohol use: usually drinkers do it at night, often at the start of a weekend, and recover with only a hangover in the morning. The addictiveness of alcohol isn't bad enough to really drive it beyond that, and centuries of Americans have demonstrated how alcohol and a working life can be integrated. Most modern drug users have only shown the exact opposite.
If your gonna ban drugs start with the one people use the most ALCOHOL!!! but I think all non harming drugs should be legal (smoking pot included even if it does do some lungdamage)
No, start with the most dangerous, in terms of safety and societal effectiveness. That's what is actually happening: why do you think Smoking has been on the way out? It's not just that it harms users, but that it makes them less effective in the social and business worlds (smelly, stained teeth, more work breaks, etc.).
At 3/27/07 10:01 AM, Brick-top wrote: You can't honestly say if it was good or not. And besides are your speakers not working? I suppose not all of us would be laughing and joking when shooting insurgents.
But I'd sure as hell be giddy (with fright, most likely) if a sniper round landed inches away from me-- and giddy (with relief, most likely) if none of my guys got hit and we're all still alive after an ambush.
What they say makes sense to me because soldiers are not emotionless killing machines: they feel fear, relief, and anxiety just like anyone else.
At 3/26/07 10:08 PM, Kev-o wrote: 1. Work in a field for 400 years, and then get called cracker. Then you can be offended by it.
The United States isn't 400 years old. You aren't 400 years old. If you're assuming ancestors count, then all the Europeans have the Africans beat by 1000+ years. Europeans had agriculture before the black Africans (about the same as the Arabic Africans) and have relied heavily on Agriculture for 3000+ years.
So yes, I can be offended by it, even more so than a black for the reverse, at least under your rules.
2. Blacks are still a minority, and are still struggling in society.
A lot of other groups are minorities, too, and that doesn't actually mean anything at all. White, latinos, blacks, asians, everyone struggles in society. If the blacks have created their own problems (gangs, perpetuating ghettoes, etc.) in some areas, it is there fault and is a socioeconomic issue, not a race issue.
3. We're all people, so what difference does it make.
Then why are you labeling by race as if it matters? If we're all just people, why do we have Affirmative Action and other programs to help non-whites under the assumption that those people will be poor and badly educated? Why not make programs based on being poor and badly educated instead of making it a race issue?
At 3/24/07 06:47 PM, Ravariel wrote: Eeeeeh, I dunno... after the "First, do no harm..." it gets kinda odd. once it gets to the not working on those who labor under the stone, I kinda give up...
That part sort of makes sense to me: isn't it saying that the doctor's will not practice surgery when they are not qualified, regardless of a patient's pain? Stone is a reference to kidney stones, as far as I can tell, and those hurt like hell.
What I find rather amusing about the medical profession (to go on an odd tangent, but it's related to Hippocrates) is that the technical term for some things still stem from the medieval bodily humors.
Most professions, scientific or otherwise, don't do a very good job at cleaning up their jargon. But yeah, I understand what you mean. Sanguine has literally come to mean "looks like blood" at this point, but doctors still use it as the humor (but only in words, not methods).
At 3/21/07 11:50 PM, Ravariel wrote: I'd like to hope that if anyone tries to troll in here that all of us would take that stance and not respond to him or her at all...
*meaningful glance at everyone, myself included*
Great suggestion-- now look what happened.
Anyway, I thought I'd mention another possible subject to add a bit more fuel to this thread to try to revive it:
I know how people always rag on the old Greek Philosophers like Aristotle and such for being completely wrong about a lot of things, but I think if you look at their actual work they are a lot more correct than they appear.
For example, take Aristotle's idea that the world is composed of four elements: Earth, Water, Air, and Fire. Sounds absurd, right? We all know the world is made of atoms and all types of different elements. Well, he wasn't actually that far off; what are the primary forms we see around us?
Solids, Liquids, Gases, and Energy/Heat.
[Earth] [Water] [Air] and [Fire]
What Aristotle described is actually correct in terms of the different forms of matter and energy. Mud actually is made of a combination of Earth and Water (Solid + Liquid), and the human body is actually a mixture of the four. He had it right, he just didn't understand the concept of modern elements; he was looking for general trends, when the next step was specifics.
However, his general trends were pretty accurate. Many of the Greek Philosophers espoused the idea of everything being made of a single base material, just in different forms. Well, Science has led us to believe that they are actually correct on that point. It took us two millenia to realize that matter and energy are equivalent, and that one can change form into the other. All matter and energy is the same thing at some basic level... so they were right. I seriously think we give these Greek Philosophers way too little credit for the things they thought up.
I bet if we thought about them, there are all manner of other things they got pretty close or right. For example, where do you think we got the word "atom" from? These guys had some good ideas, but they get ragged on a lot for not having the entire picture (which they couldn't physically have had at the time).
What do you guys think?
At 3/24/07 08:25 AM, Zoraxe7 wrote: Yes but they are neaded to keep the universe going, and not get too hot for us or to not expand infinatly till every thing is out of gravity and moving so fast we all die.
No, they are not needed at all. If only the sun and our planet existed, that would be entirely enough for our existance. Everything else is simply an added danger. Also, your claim show a completely lack of understanding about gravity and other details.
1. Gravity does not run out, it only becomes diluted by distance. Our distance from the Earth is not increasing.
2. You can't die from "moving so fast," you can only die from stopping.
3. The rest of the universe has virtually no effect at all on the temperature of our planet-- one lightbulb probably has more effect than everything extrasolar combined.
What fun would life be with out 'dangers' to overcome? seroiusly, with out dangers there is no need to advance, everything would just be the way it has all ways bean.
These aren't the sort of dangers you can "overcome." These are the type that kill everyone, without regard to anything you think you can do. If a big enough comet hits, you're dead, period. If we get caught in a super nova, we're all gone, period. There's no "overcome," no day-to-day motivation, just death.
Discomfort, boredom, and ambition lead to change. These dangers just kill you.
Not realy, it in fact has no impact, I belive the universe was created and laws such as gravity were created as apart of, were as atheists have only there gut instinct and opinions about our world witch is full of next to impossible to guess and how the world works and was created with out a deity. And yet have not explained anything so far that is real.
Okay, I need to break this down into two pieces:
First of all, the ever-looming question: If the Universe is so reat that we needed a God to make it, who made God? However God was created could be the same way the Universe was created. He is an un-needed complication and any answer to his origin can explain the origin of the Universe and eliminate him as a variable. If God "always was," then the Universe could have "always been" without a God in the mix. If God "created himself," then the Universe could have "created itself" without a God in the mix. Get my drift? God is an extra cog in the clock-- we don't need him, he just jams the gears.
Second, what's this trash about "athiests have only [their] gut instinct and opinions"? You do realize this is the Science and Religion thread? Science, the secondary support of Athiesm (with Logic being the primary), is all about facts and reasoned observation. In truth, it is the Thiests who rely only on gut desires and taught opinion; most of the Thiests actively scorn the suggestion of proof, instead demanding Faith, because proof can only destroy Religion.
I'll give you the No-God plan of Universe Creation, and if you give me a complete one for God's Plan of Universe Creation (explaining the mechanisms, as specifically as possible, and going to the very beginning), then I'll give you a bit more credit.
Rough No-God Plan:
Void -> Asymmetry -> Big Bang -> Expansion + cooling ->
Consolidation of matter, asymmetrical lean against anti-matter ->
Asymmetical gravitational clumping -> Star formation ->
Star debris spreads + more star formation ->
Star debris clumps into planets too far away to fall into star ->
At least one happens to fit a relatively stable temperature range ->
Complex chain molecules form naturally based on common elements ->
Earth + Life.
Yeah, it's long and confusing, but it boils down to this: No "God" is necessary, only a single asymmetry, and I know for a fact that your God is not Asymmetry, but an "infinitely complex being." Sure, you can try to wrangle your way into defining your God as that Asymmetry, but you need proof, not clever fact-twisting and propaganda.
"Dude, that f---ing snipe round hit right where you were"
If you listened to these guys, it wasn't just random firing. There's no evidence in the video to show that they even hit the civilians, if those were civilians.
"I shot that guy in the white car into the building"
There's no evidence that the potential civilian was hit, just that he was driven indoors by the gunfire. Why did he crash his car into the other one and dive out to go inside? Why not continue on and pass the parked car?
I don't see any "atrocity" here, just a bit of bull propaganda. Nothing was actually shown, nothing actually proven, just a tidbit of gunfire to let anti-war or otherwise anti-American-government people spout about how great their position is. That's war; learn to deal with it.
At 3/22/07 11:50 AM, Svoboda wrote: But Turkey is NO PART of the European bloc by any stretch of imagination, be it on sociological, historical, geographical, cultural, political, or religious grounds.
Ever heard of the Byzantine Empire, bud? They owned Turkey for a long time. Troy was in Turkey as well ("Asia Minor" of many classical texts). Lots of key Greek trading partners and cultural centers were there. So what if Muslims overran the place at one point-- there's still a connection.
Grammer and Imperator, do you guys even remember what this thread is about anymore? Insulting each other has nothing to do with Science or Religion. The only way to ever come to a reasonable balance on these types of issues is to argue without anger. Sure, we're on page Way Too High, but don't kill it with a flamefest.
At 3/18/07 10:49 PM, Imperator wrote: I think an even better insight is how humans developed an ear for rhythm and a "beat" before written music and musical structure came into being.....
When I read this, a very straight-forward answer suddenly occurred to me: the ability to recognize rhythmic sounds is a valuable prehistoric hunting asset. How do you know which sounds are living things and which are the wind? The rhythmic ones are living-- every animal walks, runs, breathes with a steady tempo. Falling rocks can make random thumps, but a charging rhino always has a repeated rhythm.
When I actually think about it, there are so many different situations where this recognition ability would help to seperate between dangerous and safe sounds that it makes complete sense for humans to have this as a developed ability. Sneaking animals, animals you can't see, judging the current state of an animal (panicky? calm?), another person in the brush, just about any situation where sound can matter in prehistoric hunting relates to this.
When you consider the calls and vocal sounds humans would hear regularly and combine it with an ear for rhythmic sounds, the noises of music seem completely reasonable as an emulation of nature. The burst of a trumpet, the call of an elephant; the thump of a drum, the pounding of hooves. It's all very similar, and it would all combine with the natural need for pitch and tone recognition to seperate animal species and signalled attitudes.
I'm sure this idea could go much further and describe the inspiration for many of the earliest musical inventions. Simple, physical things can also describe many of the other instruments that developed shortly after the beginning of music. For example, the same animal guts used for sewing make twanging sounds when held taut-- just like any modern string instrument. Hollow logs, caves, some reeds, and even some natural wood (like Bamboo) can make wind instrument sounds. Heck, even a blade of grass can make a good harmonica-like instrument.
I don't know about you, but this sounds pretty reasonable to me as a way music could have developed and why it developed.
At 3/17/07 12:02 AM, Ravariel wrote: Not unless we find Atlantis, probably not.
Actually, from what I've heard recently, it may have been discovered. The archaelogical dig isn't complete yet, and I need time to dig up the facts again, but essentially the Atlantis story was written as a "moral story" about rival city which was destroyed by a catastrophic ocean surge (triggered by an earthquake) less than a decade before Plato wrote his story. The surge completely wiped the city off the map.
Sadly, until I find my a source again to double check my facts, I can't remember the name. However, I do remember the details about the city.
Anyways, for decades scientists had been scouring the bay where the city was located, looking for the ruins. However, in the past year or two a group of archaeologists have found the ruins of a major city beside the bay (on dry land). The key thing, though, is that the ruins are buried under a massive lagoon that dates to approximately the right time. So the city was destroyed by the tsunami surge, and a 20+ foot lagoon covered the ruins of the city for centuries or more.
The Atlantis story accurately describes many known details about the rival city and deals with a situation so similar that it can't be coincidence. Athens was only something like 20 miles from the rival city, so Plato must have known about what happened. His explanation of the event as an "act of god" destruction for sins accurately reflects Athenian despise for the rival city as well.
Sorry about the lack of links this time, but there is so much trash about Atlantis on the internet that I'm having trouble digging up a source I can link you to. The archaelogical dig of the ruins is still in progress, though, so I doubt you will see this information flashing across newspaper headlines just yet. I'll try to find a link when I can.
...speaking of Atlantis, many many religions have a story of a great city or holy place lost to magicks or some otherworldly force. Atlantis, Avalon, Yggdrasil, and others that escape me at the moment. Much like dragons, which evidence themselves similarly in the mythology of very disparate cultures, would this constitute an underlying cultural meme? Or would it be coincidence, a traveling of ideas over great distance, or perhaps cultural bents on real creatures and occurrences?
I would definitely support the cultural meme concept on those things, dragons in particular. Snakes are feared in almost every region in the word (without exception in regions with dragon myths), and other types of reptiles exist as well. Dinosaur bones, as one person mentioned, would seed some stories, but only rarely. Perhaps it would only take one source, though, in each of those continents, and then the story would spread everywhere.
Many of the similarities seem reasonable, though, and are related to inevitable questions about the dragons. For example, "Why haven't I seen one?" In Europe, it's because dragons can fly into the mountains and hide in inaccessible caves. In China, it's because dragons can dive into the ocean, never to be seen again.
However, it's worth noting that Ancient Greece and Ancient China actually did have contact (traded goods found in shipwrecks). Transfer of information between those sources is possible. Copper age Polynesia also had contact with Africa (across the ocean, to Madagascar), and Polynesian's travelled 500+ miles at a time over open oceans to settle many islands like those in Hawaii. Ancient Egyptian reed rafts have been proven capable of crossing the Atlantic (Kon Tiki Expeditions), and the Polynesian wooden outrigger canoes were thoroughly proven in the Pacific. Physical transfer of the stories is a possibility.
I do have sources for all those facts, and I can dig them up if necessary. I'm out of time for tonight, but I'll show you links tomorrow if you want them.
At 3/16/07 08:51 PM, intrinsik2 wrote: Self-Affirmation, under which all those are sought. (If you want to make a hierarchy out of it)
I'm not sure I quite understand the logic behind that addition. To my knowledge, "self affirmation" usually refers to a defensive tactic for maintaining self-esteem by focusing on your strong areas. In what sense are you using that word, and how does it apply to the four mentioned categories?
I can understand, to a degree, how your strong points would affect your focus across those categories (more often than not you enjoy what you are good at), but I am not entirely sure how you intend it to fit.
At 3/14/07 07:15 PM, AIDSextravaganza wrote: it is extremely expensive... you have to pay for the recycling plants, buy trucks to pick up recycling, pay for gas and repairs for the truck, paying the workforce behind it, and providing medical insurance and all that kind of stuff to the workers. If you add it up it cuts deeply into state funding
And a well designed recycling plant is profitable. Which means you earn the money back and more, as well as benefitting your region in the long term. Do you think trash pickup isn't expensive? The city gets no money return on that, and constantly has to spend money for new dump sites. Recycling has an initial cost (as does everything), but brings back money, too.
At 3/15/07 11:44 PM, Ravariel wrote: Cool beans. Nice to know some progress has been made. Makes me wonder, though... has anyone figured out what is going on with Easter Island?
Easter Island onc sustained a strong civilization, like Neolithic England, and acted in a very similar manner. The maoi statues adorning the island were created by competing tribes attempting to best one another. The ancient method for transporting heavy blocks (the same wooden sled one at Stonehenge) was extremely wood-intensive, but allowed a single clan of the size found on Easter Island to move even the largest known statues the longest known distance in only one week.
However, the Easter Islands kept creating larger and larger statues to one-up the other clans, and soon (100 years or so) virtually every tree on Easter Island had been cut down. What had begun as almost complete forest with gigantic palm trees became barren, and the civilization on Easter Island collapsed with no wood for boats, tools, homes, etc. remaining. Thus Easter Island is a striking tale of ecological disaster and what negligent use of resources can do to a civilization.
We really have made a lot of progress on these "mysteries" in the past few decades. I'm not sure any of them still remain beyond our knowledge.
At 3/15/07 08:28 PM, Jimmy-jackass wrote: Science:
States that the universe was created by a cataclymistic event known as the "Big Bang".
Suggests, based on a theory. However, the actual nature of Science is competely independent of this matter and has to do with the pursuit of truth based on empirical evidence.
Religion
Mentions that the world was created in 6 days by God.
Christianity does. However, the factor which has made Religion so strong in the face of science is the practically unlimited number of variations of belief. Eliminative proof is impossible against that kind of ambiguity and variation, but elimination is the only way to disprove the existance of a deity. Hence "faith" and the inability of Science to beat it.
Very conflicting don't you think?
I have spent time in serious thought about this issue and believe I have narrowed down the real meanings of life (those actually pursued by people) to four categories:
1. Achievement
2. Contentment
3. Continuation
4. Enlightenment
Some find meaning by pursuing Achievement: discovering a world-changing technology, becoming extraordinarily rich, constructing a famous building, becoming president, or similar goals. Accomplishing something significant can be the focus of your life, even if "significant" could be something as small as helping one man recover from poverty.
Others find meaning by reaching Contentment: a stable retirement with a loving family, long hikes through forests, or living on a beach and surfing every day. When you reach a stable point in life, it can create a trainquil, long-lasting joy.
Still others seek Continuation: children, a lasting fame, a novel remembered for centuries. There are so many ways to reach this goal, but they all revolve around one thing: beating Death, somehow. Almost everyone seeks Continuation, even if it just means believing in an Afterlife of some sort.
A small few chase Enlightenment: becoming a life-long scientific researcher, becoming a monk, or leaving on a soul-searching journey. Enlightenment is the hardest goal to complete because what you seek lies within yourself, you just don't know how to see it. There is no physical path, which makes it nearly impossible to follow.
Your immediate reaction may be to reject any definitive "Meaning of Life," but take a second and think about thes ideas. If you can come up with any which don't fit my categories, tell me. If you happen to be right, then I'll explore the issue further, but if you're wrong, I'll see if I can show you how it fits into the categories.
At 3/14/07 12:30 AM, Ravariel wrote:At 3/12/07 04:44 PM, poxpower wrote: ok back on topic: what the fuck is stonehenge?Lol... noone really knows.
Actually, recent discoveries have revealed a lot more information about Stonehenge. For example, a nearby village was discovered that has been tied very closely to Stonehenge. This village has a similar structure to Stonehenge, but built out of wood and facing the winter solstice sunrise (rather than sunset).
This new information, as well as other scientific details discovered in recent years, strongly suggest that Stonehenge was a religious center-- a temple, essentially --that had some importance to healing or death and was maintained for several centuries (large numbers of diseased bodies buried, several stages of construction). It probably had a wooden outer structure and a simple wooden sled technique would suffice for transporting and placing the blocks (coincided with a Copper Age revolution and mass deforestation).
Put simply, Stonehenge was probably the Neolithic English equivalent of the Egyptian Pyramids (a sending off for the dead).
Sorry for going off the main topic a bit, but I felt this warranted a full response.
At 3/15/07 01:25 PM, fli wrote: techncially... God can't murder because he isn't human.
It's in the same sense that I can "murder" a bug.
You're not quite right at first, and totally wrong by the end. Murder is "To kill (another human) unlawfully," according to Dictionary.com. Yes, technically, God can't murder under the strict definition because the word originated in a human-only world. However, the intent of the word is entirely accurate: "For one sentient being to kill another in a manner not in accordance with human laws and/or morality." In the true sense of the word, God is a blatant murderer. Killing a bug has nothing to do with murder as the victim is neither human nor sentient.
In fact, the most apt title for God would be a Serial Killer, "A person who attacks and kills victims one by one in a series of incidents" (same source). No technicality saves God from this title because Person is defined as: "(Theology) any of the three hypostases or modes of being in the Trinity, namely the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. " Hence, God is a Serial Killer.
At 3/15/07 09:02 AM, deslona wrote: Really?! Of course I haven't seen that! I haven't spent the last 7 months here!
As for Communism vs Capitalism. Where does Democracy fit in?
It doesn't. Communism and Capitalism are economic system, and Democracy is a political system. The only connection is that Communism usually requires a dictatorial government to enforce it bcause the individual benefits are worse for everyone.
Communism itself is flawed. It sounds good on the surface, but if you actually look at how it works it promises stuff that it does not give and it doesn't function properly. It does't give equal shares-- just forces a black market. It doesn't create an oganize workforce-- just a planned economy that unbalances and collapses. It doesn't make everyone happy-- it just makes everyone poor. Communism is an illusion.
At 3/14/07 10:20 AM, Zoraxe7 wrote: If you are color blind and have never seen the color red, unless you have faith in someone you can never know that red even exsists, despite thinking long and hard about how red might look, unless you are convince red does not exsist there is nothing to prove to you otherwise.
Wrong. Light comes in a spectrum, which is quantitized and measurable by machines. If someone can't see red, I can pull out a frequency spectrum and point to which light is seen by everyone else as "Red." He may never see the color as others do, but I can physically show to him what "red" is and exactly what properties it has.
I never said atheism makes people with bad morals. You never chose your morals, your shaped by the world you live in, a world that is heavily influence by religion, you are very much a creature of religion like me and even dre-man.
You make a lot of assumptions. Sure, environment does affect personal opinions, but it is the individual who chooses exactly what to believe. In the same environment, you and others decide to cling to the robes of Religion; he decided to reject it. Your morals rely on another's word, his are ones he chose to follow. The distinctions between individual choices are critically important.
No one makes a change, the influences of the world do it to you, your mama, the TV, anything you might look up accidentaly on the internet, never yourself however.
If you've ever spent a bit of time in internal reflection, you'd know how wrong you are. External influences and experiences can have an impact, but it is ultimately the individual who chooses what they want to believe or follow. It is entirely the self who decides.
Because your Mama taught you better.
Or she may not have. And let's not be sexist: fathers can teach just as well as mothers. But really, very few individuals follow the exact things taught by their parents, and often childen go in distinctly different directions.
No one is moral without the morals given to them.
You misunderstood his statement. He said you can still be moral without the morals being given to you-- i.e. from a God or other supreme moral deity. Someone can easily be extremely moral on their own grounds, and often these self-chosen morals are held much more strongly and followed more closely than the ones commanded by Religion.
in other words, you closed your mind to the idea
No, in the correct words, you have no case at all! You want someone to believe something that he has absolutely no reason to believe. It's like me describing a race of aliens who live 4 billion light years away, and then assuring you that they are totally real. Why should you believe me if I cant give the least bit of proof and my claim is illogical (how do I know about them)?
At 3/12/07 09:51 PM, Texsk8er56 wrote: i dont like recycling, id rather put everything in one trash can. call me lazy, but its much easier than having to put 4 trash cans in front of the house instead of just one
I live right beside Columbus in Ohio, and that's not how we do recycle, at least. We have a trash can and a larg blue can (like the trash can) for any type of recycle-- paper, plastic, metal, etc. It doesn't cost any more than the pre-sorted recycle, either, and conveniently driveways have two sides.
Recycling isn't nearly as bad as you claim it is.
At 3/7/07 06:04 PM, Zoraxe7 wrote: It makes more sence to say god made gravity and every other law of the universe than to say it exsisted forever or that its there 'just because it is', witch is the atheist idea on things, not very logical realy how can you think like that?
No, that is not the "athiest" or Scientific idea on things. The Scientific view is that a series of causal relationships occurred, possibly starting at the Big Bang event (but that is still not entirely known), and from that point the universe progressed in a mechanistic manner tending towards lower-energy states until Life developed, chemical reactions that drove themselves to higher-energy states by harvesting other reactions. The exact cause of all the attractive forces is still unknown (Grand Unified Theory), but we understand the predictable manner in which they seem to wok.
That is absolute logic. The truly illogical view is the "Universe created by Being who does not operate under any physical laws and who was never created, which means the Being has always existed and may be independent of time or anything we can possibly observe or interact with." Yeah... that's just another way of saying, "Oh, how does that work? BOGEYMAN!"
no, we dont know, all we know is that it happens and the patterns of it happening.
Which leaves you weak and ignorant. Knowledge leads to technology leads to progress leads to increasing quality of life. Ignorance leads to a pathtic death.
God cant make the sun rise, thats just silly, but an invisible force that has no origen and magicaly levitates big things to small things just because it does makes much more sence!
An invisible force that originates from matter and pulls things together to achieve a lower energy state when combined with centrifugal forces of motion causes a small thing to travel in a stable orbit around a big thing.
If you actually got it right in the first place, it might make more sense to you.
I thought trying to understand the world around you was called 'science'.
The initial purpose (and probably source) of Religion was to explain the natural things that humans did not understand. It has inevitably become a power structure for an elite to dominate over others in every single place where it has developed.
Science was developed to allow the Universe to explain itself. It has not spiraled into anything negative.
At 3/7/07 10:12 AM, Grammer wrote: I am honestly saddened that many people believe science is "against" religion, or vice versa. The two are polar opposites, science is simply not good enough to test the supernatural, and the supernatural is not good enough to test science.
So stuff it.
The supernatural is fictional. Nothing can be "above" nature if it occurs naturally, and if it occurs at all it can be dealt with by science. Only stories invented by humans can't be explained because they aren't real.
NEDM, you seem to be misunderstanding the point of war. The point is not to kill, but to win. In fact, if possible, you want to kill as few people as possible (on both sides) while still winning. Medics aren't usually killed because they are noncombatants in a general sense; so what if they help enemies? We'll just make them PoWs until the end of the war.
At 3/4/07 07:53 PM, Ferris95 wrote: Pay attention, sience and religon are considered oppistites.
They are not. They bolth try to answer the same questions, but they do it differently.
Which means they will always oppose one another on those topics.
The sientific theory of the Big Bang has one flaw that many of noticed, what was force (Or cause) made that ball of energy implode.
That's not the question. Once started, the Big Bang was a chain reaction. The question is why it started in the first place, a question we may never be able to answer. It's possible that previous Universes existed, so the current one was trigger by the death of the last. In that case, finding the first origin is truly impossible.
The christian theory is Genis. When God said "Let their be light," and the universe was made. But the flaw to this theory is, why then?
Religion does not fill the gap in scientific theory in this situation. Whenever God becomes involved, the problem eventually becomes, "What created God?" It's an even more complex question that we started with and carries a huge number of assumptions to even reach it.
Sience and religon are like to different genii (plural form of genuis) trying to answer the same question. The problem? They hate each other and refuse to belive that they, together, can answer the same question. And another problem, they speak difernet languages and can't always understand each other.
That's not true. Many scientists are actually relgious, and science itself was born from a religious search to understand the world. The problem between science and relgion is that the answers of science indanger the established power structures of religion. It's not that Galileo discovered a flaw in the Christian view of the universe, it's that he discovered a flaw in the Catholic church's version of the Universe-- and the Catholic priests, etc. couldn't afford to be wrong on anything.
At 3/4/07 08:34 AM, emmytee wrote: movie nights, in which such Hollywood blockbusters as "Titanic" were screened.
Watching Titanic officially counts as a form of torture.
At 3/2/07 01:33 PM, fastbow wrote: Ok. I agree that some kind of testing should be used. But I still feel women would do better freeing up men in the rear than in frontline combat.
However, I still see no arguments for women in command positions. I still hold most women can't make objective decisions in a way required to command a military...
So in other words, your sexist attitudes can't be entirely overcome by your reason? Women are just as or more capable than men, depending on which individuals you choose. Was Britain any less capable of conquering the world under Queen Victoria or Elizabeth than France was under King Louis (any)? Was Egypt any weaker under Cleopatra than China was under the Nationalists (males)? Being a woman has nothing to do about whether or not she can command effectively unless sexism from inferiors gets in the way. In that case, the inferior and the social attitudes as a whole are the problem.
Your argument is the same one used to keep Blacks out of political offices, white workplaces and schools, and most of the military for a century or more. It's just bigotry, and thus total crap.
The key problem with preventing women from holding certain positiions in the military is that you are making judgements based on blatant sexism. You make generalities about what "all women" are, and then assume that they are entirely correct.
Your excuses are that women are: too weak, low endurance, too emotional, somehow less capable, and targeted by sexism. But that's all crap for one simple reason: you're assuming them, and not actually testing them.
The procedure you should use is, for example, to say that all Marines must be at least 5'6", be able to walk 5 miles with 200 pounds of equipment on, be able to sprint 100' in 10-25 seconds, be able to coordinate with other soldiers, and be able to aim with at least 50% accuracy on a target at 100'. If 99% of women fail these tests but 99% of men pass, then it is entirely fair and totally unbiased because this is what a soldier needs. It's not saying "you're a woman, so leave," it's actually testing everyone to see who is truly qualified.
Objective tests to determine quality are the way to determine military positions. Sexism should have nothing to do wtih it at all. If women can qualify, or if men can qualify, it's fair and encourages high quality recruitment. Sometimes physical differences can get in the wa, but they are not an excuse for across-the-board sexism.
And yes, th draft should include women too to be totally non-sexist.
At 2/28/07 05:44 PM, Peter-II wrote:At 2/28/07 05:40 PM, JakeHero wrote: I think mutation is proven, abiogenesis and macroevolution isn't. The closet thing we have to proving macroevolution are ambiguous fossils.Abiogenesis basically can't be proven. It's very much possible though.
Abiogenesis is entirely proveable, we just don't know quite enough about the primordial Earth to be sure about it. However, the more we discover about the environment of that time, the more probable the generation of self-sustaining organic reactions has become.
At 2/26/07 03:43 PM, BritZombie wrote: Well if sex is used with protection theres nito wrong with that, and they are still people to look up to.
How naive. Of course there's still things wrong with it. It's still not truly safe, it's still sex, and it still has all the same issues, just some (like pregnancy) are less likely.
Thats where England and USA music difer, with role models. Even london rap its usually jam packed full of anti-gun anti-drug messages and so forth
The problem here is not the difference between US and British music. It's the fact that anyone considers those people to be role models at all. Do not look to music and celebrities for role models, look to the local heroes: the firefighters, the best teachers, the good parents, etc. Celebrities and politicians are just egomaniacal attention whores-- they should not be role models.
