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I think you're supposed to review the song above your post, Reinteck. I made the same mistake earlier, so no worries.

Anyway, I reviewed your track and Midimachine's track, so... woo.

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  Everyone Hates Squids by Reinteck

  Inspired by some minecraft stuff

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  4.00 / 5.00

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  House

  Popularity

  22 Views

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• 
  Summer Goes On by midimachine

  we won't give up on summer.

  Score

  4.30 / 5.00

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  Song

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  Chipstep

  Popularity

  69 Views

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I don't have too many reviews on this one, so a review or two on this would be appreciated.

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  Magnet Man vs MM1 Wily Stage 1 by Gario

  A Genesis-inspired electronic track that contains both Magnet Man and MM1 Wily Castle 1

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  3.88 / 5.00

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  Song

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  Video Game

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  362 Views

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:P

I'm not calling you a monster right now, either - just thought that might be misread at the end, there.

Well, not yet, at least - start preaching active eugenics to filter out the imperfect race and I'll pull that card on you.

At 7/21/13 05:29 PM, AxTekk wrote:

At 7/21/13 05:04 PM, poxpower wrote: IQ is quite sufficient a number to roughly determine intelligence in someone by any way that intelligence is defined normally by people not trying to make idiots feel better about having "Super Mario Bros" intelligence.

Dude, all I'm going to say is go talk to a psychologist and ask them about IQ and whether or not it's fully comprehensive. You're talking about something you don't understand, my friend.

I specifically studied the intelligence factor in college for my BS in psychology. From what I've gathered (which was substantial, back in college), most psychologists that discredit it misunderstand what it is (that is, a person will point out the alternative Gardener Multiple Intelligence theory and ignore the heavy correlation of these intelligences have shown to have). If you want the bare-bones version of it, here you go:

It is an average taken by the culmination of every single conventional test score that you have, will, or even could take. That is technically what the intelligence factor (or "g factor") is, and for obvious reasons this number will never change (since it's an average of everything ever). That number is obviously impossible to gather, however, so the tests that people take in order to gather what someone's g factor (a.k.a. IQ) is will be an estimation of that number. From test to test that average may vary, but it'll stay within a standard deviation away for the entirety of a person's natural life.

It sounds silly, but this factor can and has been used to predict a variety of things about a person - it's correlated to a person's body symmetry (which normally equates to sex appeal) and ability to learn new things, for example. Since it's also hereditary, it's implied that people pass on their intelligence from generation to the next, with some variance.

Until someone can provide new data that contradicts the idea that someone's average of their test scores predicts to a good degree of accuracy how well someone will perform on any given future test, you cannot throw out the effect of the g factor.

WITH THAT SAID:

Pox, I'm less interested with the data (because I've seen it - there is a correlation between race and intelligence, specifically the one that you're pointing out... though I've only personally seen the association within America) and more interested with what you want to do with that information. If black people were g factor-ly inferior to other races, how would you propose people should react to this information, or how would people use this information proactively? The data doesn't necessarily make you racist - the data is the data - it's how you would apply the data that would make you into a racist monster, which I haven't seen you mention yet.

At 6/29/13 02:19 PM, poxpower wrote:
That is not enough, someone needs to lose their jobs over this. You don't get to be that incompetent at anything in life and keep doing it.

I wish I could agree with you on this, though in my experience this is exactly what happens all the time - incompetent sleazy people get ahead while those that take responsibility get shit on.

Yeah, those guys should actually be arrested themselves for something like this, but they won't.

At 6/23/13 08:45 AM, midimachine wrote: person above you?

My apologies, I had the window open for a while and had responses above since I posted. Refresh is my friend, I suppose.

Anyhoo, here's a review of this track.

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  [Knox]Canyon Song by Knoxius

  Canyon Song

  Score

  4.17 / 5.00

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  Song

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  General Rock

  Popularity

  327 Views

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Anything from my 2011-on list is still good.

I gave this track some reviewin' love.

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  Blinding Drive by Blacklawn

  Noah Cartwright's theme

  Score

  4.29 / 5.00

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  Song

  Genre

  General Rock

  Popularity

  25 Views

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Any of my tracks from 2011 on are fair game. Take a look, take a review.

Mega Man: The Wily Castle Remix Gauntlet 2013

It's going to be a whole lot of fun, and there's no skill barrier for entry. I've participated in this a few years ago, and it was incredible (my music from it is posted on my NG account, if you're interested), and I'd like to see a few new talents on that board, so come check it out!

At 6/14/13 01:11 AM, Poniiboi wrote:

At 6/14/13 12:57 AM, Gario wrote: What is "information bias"?

Distorting information.

No it isn't; that's called distorting information. Information bias means you believe that more information will lead to a more accurate conclusion, even if the information that you're seeking is either wrong or irrelevant. It also could mean the information that you've gathered to make a diagnosis of a medical condition is incorrect, leading to an incorrect diagnosis. Neither of these have applied to the discussion so far.

Information Bias (for Psychology)
Information Bias (for Medical)

It's much less confusing if you say people are distorting information rather than claim it's 'information bias' - I didn't understand what you were saying, at first.

As for the article you posted, I have no reason to deny the publication it's conclusion (from the metadata analyzed, the conclusion that "There is room for further research on the possible negative effects of high Fluoride levels on IQ" is perfectly acceptable, which is all the publication states), but whomever made the article in the Huffington Post (as well as Mercola) is absolutely hysterical. In no way, shape or form did the publication conclude anything about Fluoridation - it just shows a correlation between a relatively small sample that justifies further investigation. Also, since the levels of Fluoride in the studies were nowhere close to the levels that occur in the States (3.0 - 11.5 mg/L, compared to the State's 0.7-1.2 mg/L recommended levels), the decreases in IQ at those levels (if they exist - metadata studies cannot make a causation claim, and the publication acknowledges that) wouldn't apply to American fluoridation levels, anyway.

I'd take a quick look at the publication that Harvard released, Pox & Feoric; it's really only HP and Mercola that are wrong in here, not the publication. The article just wanted people to think the publication was coming to these conclusions, when it was actually studying the effects of high concentrations of fluoridation which is known to be bad for you already - and is also not the levels of fluoridation that we're talking about when it comes to water fluoridation in the States.

I won't say the Harvard study was bunk on it's own terms, but the HP & Mercola conclusion is simply incorrect. It doesn't apply to the United States fluoridation of water, due to the vast difference in the sample fluoridation compared to the States'. I'm actually acknowledging the Harvard study as being perfectly fine, after reading it, but Huffington Post & Dr. Mercola are taking that report and coming to conclusions that the report doesn't support at all.

After studying your source, I would say it's certainly a poor source (with a decent source attached to it, if you look hard enough). At least in posting it you perhaps understand why it's a poor source, and can learn from it - that's why people need to post their sources. Or not; it doesn't matter to me if you understand or not.

...

Alex Jones, he's not someone I follow - he has too much misinformation with the little correct information he has; I'd rather not pick diamonds out of poop. I don't think this is news to you though, Poniiboi - most people in this thread have expressed this opinion. At this point I'm only echoing their sentiment, so this discussion will only end up devolving into the same argument you've had with every other poster in here, so it'd be a real waste of time. It's a fun thread to lurk in, though, so I'll go back to doing that.

Honestly, I just wanted to make sense out of the 'Information Bias' statement you were making, and thought it would be rude to leave it at that without a more relevant post in the thread.

What is "information bias"?

At 5/16/13 09:45 PM, Dawnslayer wrote: technocracy, n. "A system of governance where people who are skilled or proficient govern in their respective areas of expertise. A type of meritocracy based on people's ability and knowledge in a given area." (Wiktionary)

So what are we talking about again?

That doesn't sound like a bad thing at all.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/25/cispa-cyber-bill_n_
3158221.html

Doesn't look like it's going to be an issue - agree with the measure or not, the Senate agreed not to vote upon it, as it stands. From another source (forgot where it was, don't want to fish it out of FB) I heard it was because they thought it infringed upon the privacy of the citizens a bit too much.

Well, that's nice to know.

At 2/21/13 11:09 AM, poxpower wrote: Once again, isn't it strange how no one had the idea to make this distinction before science came along and cast doubt on the story?

Not really. If there was no reason to doubt it then why would you bother to doubt it? Same thing with the theory of the four elements and people's understanding of nature - no one really questioned it until they had to.

At 2/21/13 09:49 AM, poxpower wrote: Genesis 1 and 2.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1&versio n=NIV

He made the animals on the 5th, THEN man on the 6th day. Then it goes on to detail what he does with man.

I agreed that Genesis claimed that men were all made at once (derp if I mixed up the 5th and 6th day - the point stands that I did concede that all people were made simultaneously in the beginning, regardless). I asked where it said that Adam was the first, which you still haven't answered (On the sixth day He created mankind, not Adam, and the creation of Adam is considered an entirely different story altogether, even among fundamentalists), nor do I think you even have an answer to it. My initial point still stands strong, and at this point I think it's safe to say you're in checkmate on this one. Good game, though.

Are you going to hold that against current mathematicians, too?

No, because math isn't a religion or based on religious texts and laws.

Math is nothing more than a few guesses (postulates) that people have made in the past, and all the results that occur if you come to certain conclusions - you'd be surprised just how analogous theology is to that. You're hating Religion for no reason other than it's religion. By definition, that makes you a bigot, you know. Making your bigotry the basis of your argument is completely illogical, but okay. I legitimately wonder if you had severe problems with some religious people in your early childhood to develop such a blind hatred to those people.

No, seriously, why all the hate? I find it mildly annoying when people are flat out wrong about other things (like when someone plays a minor chord and insists that it's major, or people that insist that pop is inventive music), but I honestly can't comprehend why someone would hate someone else so much just because they disagreed with them.

But Christianity is, you are stuck with the texts and instead of just admitting it's all bullshit, you pick and choose what you want and ignore what you don't feel like following anymore.

You completely missed the point - texts from the Bible are not the same as texts from a random site. Let me try again - why don't I pull up this page about atheists - http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life/the-10-commandments-for -atheists-20130205-2dw83.html - and simply assume that it's what you follow, down to the tee (which means you're fucking up the tolerance thing hardcore, breaking your own code)? Because that would be trying to apply a generalization when it's inappropriate. It is precisely the same thing as bringing in a random Christian thing and insisting that I have to acknowledge it, somehow - you can't expect to make an intelligent argument by doing that.

Why should I respect that?? That's pathetic.

If your goal is for Christians to not attack science and accept it, tolerate atheists, understand why they don't believe and coexist with them, then Christians who do so I would think would be respectable. If that's not your goal, then what is, crushing Christianity?

Just come clean and admit the whole thing is bullshit already.

Hmm, why wouldn't I do that...? Oh yeah, probably because I don't think God is bullshit. Big surprise, especially considering the weakness of your arguments so far. I'm willing to live and let live, understanding why atheists and non-Christians don't believe that it holds any truth, but you seem intent on bullying and attacking people because they believe in something that you don't. You do realize that this sort of attitude is at the core of most genocies involving religion, right?

What exactly do you think you're accomplishing by doing this? All you accomplish is getting more Christians to ignore the atheists more intently, and possibly provoking them to act out against you more violently (which, by the way, would be entirely your fault, at that point, since you provoked them) - is that really what you want?

By the way, there's another gaping hole in your argument that I suppose you'd be interested in. That genealogy in the New Testament is based on the Old Testament - do you seriously think that the scribe that wrote that had any clue of their genealogy otherwise?

It comes from the Jewish tradition as well.
I've never heard or seen anyone dispute it in any part. Of course, I'm not religious so I know most of it is made up, but if you're Christian, you can't know this from the book itself.

Now you have heard someone call it into question - congratulations. I'm curious, do you know what 'Sola Scriptura' means, and the implications of it when a person says that he doesn't practice it?

You can't be Christian but then decide that the bible isn't the word of God or the truth. That defeats the entire purpose of it since then you're basing your faith on literally nothing whatsoever but your own made-up ideas loosely based on something you heard one time from an old book you don't really believe is true.

Yes I can, actually. It's called 'Sola Verbum Dei' - the idea that it's not the Bible that Christians hold true, per se, but the 'Word of God'. That means there are plenty of other things that they base their religion off of. Not every Christian practices it, but I'm one of those that does. The Bible, while considered to be inspired by God isn't considered the direct Word of God - the possibility of human error is there, both in interpretation and in the act of writing it down.

Ever hear of Oral Tradition? Magesterium? Spiritual writers that come to post-biblical revelations? Doesn't sound like you have - the Bible doesn't need to be the sole source of the religion, even if a lot of Christians have turned it into such.

"Oh the bible? No that's all bullshit, I'm a CHRISTIAN, not some kind of crazy anti-science person!".

I never said that. I claimed the Creation story is not true and that I have not explored anything past Abraham to verify if any of those stories are true or not. I hold a lot of the Bible to be quite important and informative - you're simply focusing on one of the small areas that I do not consider important or informative.

On a final unrelated note, Bart Ehrman is at least one atheist historian who claims to know that Jesus existed as a person. Look him up - just thought you'd rather see an atheists perspective on that issue.

Lol he's not an atheist, he dedicated his entire life to religion and writing about Jesus and now he says he's an agnostic because he can't figure out the problem of evil.
That's so retarded is makes me cry.

I gave it an effort. He claims to be an atheist, so that's all I went on - if you want to fight with the details then go for it. It's honestly no skin off of my back, here.

Anyway, none of that matters as he still has no new evidence that I know of.
All you're doing now is trying to convince me with an argument from authority.

To a point, that's why I personally hold that to be the case - I'm not a historian, so I am just going to go by what the majority says is true. It's not perfect, but it's the best that I can go on (arguments from authority are actually great for an inductive argument - I'm not making a deductive argument, here). I'm not trying to prove anything to you, other than your position is the minority, to which you've not provided anything to show that not to be the case (just because you don't believe it to be the case doesn't mean that you're position is the majority). If you have an issue that a lot of the scholars are Christians then convince more atheists to become historians so you can have more balanced representation of the issue. Until then, I don't think we have anything to go forward with - I will agree to disagree with you at this point.

I legitimately missed your response earlier, Charlette - sorry about that.

At 2/20/13 02:17 PM, Cynical-Charlotte wrote:

At 2/19/13 12:34 AM, Gario wrote: there is proof within the Bible that Adam couldn't be the first human on the planet

This is false, and your following statements are based on this assumption rather than evidence of it.

http://roguepreacher.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/bible_fa mily_tree.gif

Daughters are not included in the family tree, and it is entirely reasonable that Cain's wife was a cousin, niece or sister. Moreover, this genealogical record does not include the families that branched from sons other than those in direct lineage of Noah. In other words, the generations before Noah's string could be seven times larger than what we can derive from information given in the Bible.

Um, actually my statements following were an attempt to clarify that statement. I was not assuming anything save for the text that was in Genesis.

Cain could very well have married his sister. I can't say, and neither could you with any certainty, based on the Bible alone (did it say it was his sister?) - assuming that it was his sister/relative out of necessity is actually making the very mistake you're accusing me of making (making a statement based on an assumption and not on what is there). I agree that it could have happened, though. However, I can say with some certainty that since he was exiled from his home by God that he had nothing to fear from his father and other brother. I ask the question again - who did he fear when God marked him?

This was a question asked by a Calvinist teacher that I had once (it was a lead in to why they didn't believe in Creationism), and I thought it was a very interesting question. The sections on Noah... I don't see the relevance; all I'm trying to point out is that it's possible (very likely, even) that Adam wasn't the first person created by God, even if we took it all in the context of the Old Testament.

Charlotte, unless you're taking early Genesis literally I don't see the benefit of arguing with me on this one, as I personally don't even see too much before Abraham as being literally true (even after, I won't necessarily cast my lots on the things past that point until I do proper research on it, which I'm too damn lazy to do). This whole argument is therefore entirely moot, if you're trying to convince me of something about my faith. I'm not arguing to prove that something is true, per se - I'm just doing it to show that Pox could be quite wrong, given the confines of what he's arguing. Even if you are arguing for a more fundamentalist reading of Genesis I would ask to do so in another forum (PM me if you want some idea of where). I doubt this would be the right place for that.

At 2/21/13 02:17 AM, poxpower wrote:

At 2/21/13 12:07 AM, Gario wrote:

Yeah, my response was a direct answer to that question, actually (which you seemed to have sidestepped by pointing me to a stupid site where Christians try to work around that).

Rather than explain this further, I'll just remind you that whether God created just Adam or more than him at first, he created all humans at the same time.
So if he made Adam in the garden but some other non-mentioned people somewhere else, they were still all made at the same time.

Again, where does it even say that in the Bible? God created the land animals on the planet on the sixth day, whatever that means (yeah, people too, presumably, if you're a creationist - which I'm not, by the way), birds and fish on the fifth day, plants on the fourth, etc., but that creation story and the creation of Adam are actually unrelated events separated by a chapter in the Bible - most Bibles even refer to Adam's creation as the 'Second Creation'. You're linking the spontaneous creation of people and the creation of Adam on a whim.

The creationist page explains at length where the other people came from, basically they're Adam and Eve's kids.

So what? People's argument on here have nothing to do with whatever creationists are saying elsewhere - why do you keep bringing them up? If you want me to call their opinions stupid, fine - their opinions are stupid, ill informed and frankly, incorrect.

Now stop bringing them up - they have absolutely no bearing on this thread, other than to create a red herring for you to hide behind.

The only reason you don't interpret it that way is because you know it's fucking stupid. You're not working from the actual texts, you're working from science that's outside the texts that already told you how to interpret the text.

Damn straight I'm not interpreting it that way because of science proving it to be false. I see no problem with that - you should in fact be praising Christians who do that (which more and more are, as of late), but instead you're trying to pigeonhole us into a corner because of past actions made by others, not to mention the current beliefs of some that do not represent everyone (Baseline fallacy, if the association is unintentional - otherwise it's a blatant straw man).

You KNOW that you HAVE to find an interpretation that doesn't make Adam the first man. You're forcing it onto the text when, for most of Christian history, the text and the mythology were actually interpreted as written.

I do not see the relevance to what people used to believe about all of that has to what people believe now. Throughout most of history, people thought that negative numbers couldn't possibly exist, nor did they see the purpose of the number 'Zero'. Are you going to hold that against current mathematicians, too? You are not allowing people to adjust their beliefs to new evidence as it's presented to them (like scientists would want us to) when you enforce that they somehow must continue to live in the past. Unless people are expressing that they currently believe whatever it is you are presenting, leave the past in the past - there's a good reason people left it behind.

Sure, I'm making up an interpretation to show that Adam could possibly have not been the first person, but that's simply because you're insisting that your position is ironclad when it's in fact full of holes, and your best defense is that... well, that I had to resort to showing you that none of what you said was solid, in the first place (which is what we're supposed to do in an argument). Is it an incredibly silly argument, twisting words and playing word games (like I said it would be, initially)? Sure is - so is your attempt to force the idea that because there is a genealogy in one book that traces to Adam, the Bible cannot be interpreted in any other way than as a Creationist agenda.

By the way, there's another gaping hole in your argument that I suppose you'd be interested in. That genealogy in the New Testament is based on the Old Testament - do you seriously think that the scribe that wrote that had any clue of their genealogy otherwise? We barely have the technology to trace our gene pool today; people back then simply didn't have the means to create such a detailed genealogy otherwise. While it's neat, there is no way to tell that the writer had any clue as to what he was talking about, so your entire foundation is a weak one, at best. It's a very silly argument, overall - I am completely clueless as to why you insist on pushing it forward.

On a final unrelated note, Bart Ehrman is at least one atheist historian who claims to know that Jesus existed as a person. Look him up - just thought you'd rather see an atheists perspective on that issue.

At 2/21/13 01:20 AM, Ceratisa wrote: A common argument to that is
So it is written: "The first man Adam became a living being" the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven

If Paul had scriptures that we don't, then power to him. For the sake of what I'm saying, another person claiming Adam to be the first (even if it's Paul, since he is presumably using the same text that we are) is irrelevant to the fact that the Old Testament story didn't label him as the first.

If he's referencing the Bible that we can read, it's likely that he's referring to Genesis 2:7. However, my point is that nowhere in Genesis does it say that Adam was the first person on Earth - just that God made him from the dust of the Earth. Again, it's a common inference, but it isn't actually stated in the Creation story.

At 2/20/13 11:27 PM, poxpower wrote:

At 2/20/13 10:50 PM, Ceratisa wrote: Tell me pox where in the bible does it say the Earth is now 6000 years old? I can't find any age being given in my book.

I already said it like 3 times in this topic.
It's arrived at by looking at the lineage of the characters in the bible, which are given in the books.
You can go from Adam to Jesus.
http://www.complete-bible-genealogy.com/genealogy_of_jesus.h tm

There's many different ones that span different books, both in the Jewish and Christian faith. They don't all connect to Jesus but most of them go from Adam to some humans in a vaguely familiar historical context like ancient babylone or egypt, so you can place them pretty easily with an accuracy of just centuries.

None of these genealogies even come close to ever suggesting that Adam was anywhere further than about 10 000 years, with the actual date being closer to 6000. Some guy actually had figured out what day of what month or what year too, it's really funny.

Yeah, my response was a direct answer to that question, actually (which you seemed to have sidestepped by pointing me to a stupid site where Christians try to work around that). If explaining that the Bible actually shows that there are people other than Adam and Eve in there isn't enough, let me play a word game with you instead - when does it ever state that Adam is the first man that God ever created? It states that God created Adam from the dust of the Earth, but it actually never specifies that Adam was the first (or only) man created. If so, correct me, but I just read it a few times looking for it, and it's not there.

Your argument only works if you can prove that Adam is the first human in existence according to the book of Genesis. People have (incorrectly) inferred it, but since it's not directly stated, and since there is proof that he actually can't be a few chapters later, you conclusively can't use the genealogy as proof of the Earth's age (according to the Bible).

I also fail to see the point of this argument, since virtually anyone can just say 'I agree that the Creation story isn't true' and still be a Christian. In fact, many people do just that. What are you trying to achieve, here?

At 2/19/13 04:36 PM, poxpower wrote:

At 2/19/13 03:32 PM, Gario wrote:

I agree - this is terribly written, and the site is terrible in general.

No, the bible is terribly written. Not the site... It's like the drawing of a child. You know that a 5 year old's drawing of their family is going to be really shitty. If your religion was based around that drawing and saying it was perfect, you'd have to come up with explanations all day long as to why dad is 12 feet tall and purple or why the mom has 3 legs and is floating in space.

You seem to have me mistaken for someone who takes the Bible as the single source of truth about God. It is one of the big reasons that I preach against sola scriptura so heavily - the Bible is not perfect, and you can't possibly come to a single revealing truth only reading the Bible.

That's the bible in a nutshell. A shitty incoherent child's scribble that grown adults parade around town saying it's the best thing ever when they know deep-down it's pretty terrible. Anyone who's not a Christian reads it and goes "wow, that is one shitty book" but they're stuck with it. Haha.

Lawlz. Some Christians also have some very well written and respectable books, too, but most Christians decide that because it's not the Bible that it's not worth looking at (another large problem with Sola Scriptura). Crossing the Threshold of Hope (a good read), writtings by Thomas Aquinas or Thomas Merton (though Aquinas is now dated, it is still a good read), articles, writings, speeches and sermons by Father Rore (the dude even has a blog - http://richardrohr.wordpress.com/)... I could go on, but just a few things to sink your teeth in, if you're tired of attacking a book that is old, dated, sometimes incoherent, cause of confusion, etc.

At 2/19/13 03:37 PM, Gario wrote: You're sweating bullets over an anthill.

Meh, it's just annoying that pretty much everyone thinks Jesus definitely existed.

Including most scholars of antiquity, if my short amount of research is correct. Not necessarily Christian ones, either. Not that they agree that He did what people claim, but they agree that there was a dude named Jesus, he was a Galilean and he was crucified (the scholars believe that he was baptized by John, too). For the moment, I'm going to side with the majority of scholars before I side with a few random people on the internet.

Just sayin'.

Again this is just biblical scholars demanding I trust that the bible and church authorities aren't lying to me out of convenience to them.

No, it's historical scholars in general (theist and atheist alike) that hold that there was probably a dude named Jesus who was a Galilean and was crucified. You can point at the non-existent Christ myth theories and I'll point to the "He was a dude, but wasn't God" portion of the crowd, which is looking like is a far greater number of people. That's not to mention the Christian people that believe that Jesus was real AND was the Son of God.

Wikipedia is stating 90% of scholars involved believe Jesus was a dude. If you have a source that gives a different number of people I'd love to see it - the burden of proof is now on your shoulders.

Oh, religious authorities agree that Luke was really the author of his Gospel? Wow, no shit, what great evidence.

This guy makes it sound like it's all squared, but it's not. There's still tons of controversy on who wrote what books and when.

I don't know who you're quoting, but if it were me I actually agreed that the books probably weren't written by the supposed authors (though the Gospel of John was a maybe from me, and some of Paul's writings are conclusively his).

But who cares, really. I just find it interesting that this popular myth that Jesus WAS TOTALLY REAL and the story is true, except for the miracles ( which may be true, but had explanations like hypnosis or medicine or whatever ) is funny cause it's such bullshit.

I don't care. I'm not even here to convince you that Jesus was real and was God (or that God exists at all), because I know that there is no hard evidence for such a claim. If all I'm armed with is the Bible, Oral Tradition and the word of the Magisterium to convince you that the claims of some form of Christianity or another is true, then I'm downright fucked - it will not happen.

I can tell you why you can't shoot it down with those tools, however.

I like telling people they're wrong about things, it's fun!

I like being the calm, rational portion of an argument that exposes your flaws. Your arguments have been as unfocused as a kid with ADHD in a math class, so far. And I don't like being the person who is right or tells another person s/he's wrong, per se - I like being the person who listens, does research and responds in a thoughtful, educated manner and learns more about his own beliefs (and non-beliefs) in the process. I don't even mind being wrong, if I end up learning something in the end. I suppose to each his/her own.

I don't necessarily agree with Charlotte on the validity of the sources' authors, but I think you're putting a little too much weight on 'primary sources' on documents from antiquity because of it's irrelevance (either because the document loses none of it's poignancy or because even if it were primary it'd still be disputed all the same due to biasing). You're sweating bullets over an anthill.

You want people to post sources, so here you go. I doubt using Wiki to come to some of my conclusions is a problem, since we're having an online debate, but I have a few others, as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_source
http://www.ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/REALWROT.HTM

Various texts that I've read that I can't list because I forgot their names
Teachings from various priests on the subject (Particularly from the Gallup diocese of the Church, if you want to get specific)

At 2/19/13 02:07 AM, poxpower wrote:

At 2/19/13 12:34 AM, Gario wrote:

Kind of a strange argument in support of Cynical-Charlotte, but there you go.

Well you can have fun reading all the rationalizations about Cain here:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/who-was-cains-w ife

Suffice to say that most of the answers are "Well this and that could have happened, even though it's not written in the story".

They just assume that there's a whole unwritten bunch of Adam and Eve's descendants who came to be before Cain murders his brother. You'd think this would be a worthy thing to mention in a would-be history of early man, but nope, they didn't care!
It's SO badly written lol.

I agree - this is terribly written, and the site is terrible in general. I think it's safe to say you're not using this in support of what you were saying earlier. I hope there isn't any implication that I somehow have to acknowledge this site (as well as a slew of other creationist garbage sites and teachings) because I'm giving some support to the Christian argument...?

At 2/16/13 03:05 AM, aviewaskewed wrote:

At 2/13/13 01:46 AM, Cynical-Charlotte wrote: Not all of them. This is why I separated the two in the latter section. By apostles I assume you mean original disciples? At least three of the twelve disciples wrote a book in the New Testament: Peter (1 Peter, 2 Peter), Matthew (Matthew), and John (John, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, Revelations). That makes two - Matthew and John - writes of a gospel.

Actually my understanding is that it is demonstrable they DID not write those Gospels. They are ATTRIBUTED to them, and NAMED for them to increase their authoritative power, but it is not the work of the Apostles themselves, but the work of later authors. Do you have evidence I'm missing to contradict this?

Are you talking about the Gospels, or the other letters of the Bible? Because in the case of the Gospels you're mostly right - the Apostles didn't write those/can't be proven to have written these (John being the only case where the Church believes they can demonstrate he wrote it mostly by using the accounts of St. Irenaeus, making the claim from within a generation of the supposed author's death that John wrote it). Matthew is attributed to the apostle, but there are holes that make that attribution less certain (there are no documents other than the Greek translation, for example). I don't think there is proof that many of the letters are written by the Apostles, either (at least according to the Catholic Church), but five to seven of the letters written by Paul actually are shown to be written by Paul, himself. How people come to this conclusion is how they come to the conclusion of other books that people try to attribute authorship to without having an autograph on the text - by analyzing the text, writing styles, and historical context of what the person is saying and making an attribution that makes the most sense. In the case of the letters from Paul (that are believed to be his letters), he actually states that he is the author as a part of a greeting to the people, how he approaches his material is consistent in these letters (the style, the writings are consistent), and if you believe what people say about him he was actually a well educated Jewish theologian before he was a disciple for Christ, so it makes good sense that he'd be able to write with clarity and elegance (like the letters are - if you don't believe me just read them; they are actually very well put together).

Proof proof proof. Because we've had religious studies folks on here and they have said it's actually not as simple or easy as you make it out.

No, there is no hard evidence, like a full hard copy of the manuscript, and because these were letters to a group of people, not books or documents of formality there is no literal authorship attribution (or an autograph, in your terms) to Paul, so if that's what you're looking for you're not going to find it.

A precise record of Peter's experience would be a record written by Peter.

Not necessarily. That would make up a precise account of what Peter wanted you to believe about himself - whether or not he'd leave in all the bad things about himself and restrain fabricating some facts is up for debate.

That's why scholarly work insists on primary sources, because they are closer to the event, and tend to be more truthful then sources who are copying or interpreting after the fact.

That's half true. While scholars will insist on using primary sources when possible because of the unique perspective they provide (someone who was actually in that time period), they do not agree that they are necessarily more truthful of the event due to a person's personal perspective of an event (bias, limited knowledge of the event, etc.). Most scholars would actually want to use a combination of primary and secondary sources to evaluate the truth of what happened - if all you had was a primary source account of an event, scholars would likely dismiss it entirely.

Your also not accounting for multiple translations to other languages.

My point is about the problems of finding primary sources which are dated to Jesus's actual lifetime and can verify that he did supernatural things.

I do seem to recall that it's widely believed John is the closest to being dated to Jesus's lifetime. However there's that pesky bit of "copying" again. So how can we be sure nothing was lost in the translation/copying?

But you HAVE no primary sources! You have no autographs, you have no 100% proof to back your claims about the text! That's my point!

I would like for you to give me an original, autographed, dated manuscript of Sun Tzu's 'Art of War'. No copies, no translations, no fragments, as details can be changed over time. If not that, how about Plato's 'Republic'? Aristotle's 'Politics'? Any text and/or manuscript from two thousand plus years ago*?

*This is actually a legitimate question; as far as I can tell, they don't exist, but I'd be happy to be corrected on this if I'm wrong.

If you're going to go that far back with these things, as far as I can tell it's a physical impossibility to actually find the original text with the author's autograph on the document. When dealing with such old documents, scholars will handle it differently than with documents that we actually have the primary source of out of necessity (There are plenty of scholarly work done on all of the books I mentioned, yet they cannot possibly be using the primary source, according to how you're defining it).

In most of the books mentioned (save the Gospels), the historical context is probably the least relevant thing about them - much like the philosophy books listed above, it's the philosophy, theology and the search for answers that make them interesting. If Peter, Paul, John, James, etc., actually wrote them or not is the least significant thing about them; it's just a cool little tidbit if Paul actually did write some of those. Regardless of the author, the messages within those texts still stand.

The Gospels are an account of an event that's supposed to have taken place, so that puts them in a different category. No, I would not expect anyone to take the Gospels at face value as a historical document - even if the writings were from a primary source, there would still be the problem of bias to deal with (being disciples of Christ would make them a biased source, I suspect), and I doubt anyone who was not a disciple would have bothered to write about Him at any length. These points would make the demand for these to be a primary source moot, as it would matter very little, in terms of it's validity.

At 2/18/13 02:58 PM, poxpower wrote:

At 2/18/13 12:13 PM, Cynical-Charlotte wrote:

Please reference me to where it indicates this - the book(s) with chapter(s) will suffice. Once you have done so, I will offer a rebuttal to your following argument which hinges on this statement.

This is done by daisy-chaining the lives of the characters in the bible all the way back to Adam, which can be done as they say who fathered who.
http://www.creation-science-prophecy.com/smallcht.gif
http://www.answersingenesis.org/assets/images/articles/2009/
01/timeline.gif

It's not stated in the bible, it's logically deduced by reading the entire old testament. You were probably thinking you could just refute a couple quotes with 'Oh this part is just a metaphor' as Christians usually do, but you can't. Suckah.

No surprise to anyone, but two chapters away from the second Creation story (Gen 2) there is proof within the Bible that Adam couldn't be the first human on the planet and therefore that genealogy couldn't imply when the Earth began.

Genesis 4:13-14

" Cain said to the Lord, âEUoeMy punishment is more than I can bear. Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.âEU "

Who was Cain worried about, if he was the fourth person ever to exist on the planet? He's being sent away from Adam and Eve, so it's obviously not them. Abel is dead, so no worries there. There had to be others.

Furthermore, Cain knocks up a bunch of women right after that are in no way related to Adam or Eve, so there is pretty strong implications that the Creation story makes no sense at all, even within the same book of the Bible. While I know I'm not exactly doing any fundamentalists any favors by showing even more inconsistencies in the Bible, that does prove that people existed before Adam, if we're going to count Adam as a literal person (might be, might not be).

Kind of a strange argument in support of Cynical-Charlotte, but there you go.

At 2/13/13 12:00 PM, LemonCrush wrote:
Raise prices of goods and services. Gas, food and commodity prices are already high enough. With so many unemployed, and not having money, we should be trying to make food, etc cheaper, not more expensive.

Yeah, that will happen. Unless you're comfortable with the idea of people who create these products not being able to support themselves (and therefore must rely on welfare - which is costing our government bundles of money too, by the way, or the people die off, which is not sustainable, which affects you even if you don't care about the people) then there really aren't too many options, either. Minimum wage is supposed to reflect a bare minimum in order to live off of (or at least make it worth the gas/bus fare to get to work, in the first place), which for the past few years it hasn't been. Periodically minimum wage needs to be increased to reflect inflation/rise in the cost of living, if you want it to make sense anymore.

Makes certain types of employment illegal, because it prevents potential employees from negotiating a reasonable price with an employer. Which stilts everything, if you're an actual job creator (not a large conglomerate who can just absorb costs and cut quality, and then pass legislation for force people into buying your shit anyway), like a small business, high minimum wage FUCKS you. Let's say Mr. Harrison owns a shop making clocks. The clock business is doing quite well, and he needs more guys to help him make clocks due to increased demand. So, a kid comes in, with little experience and says he wants a job. It is law that this kid be payed $9. Which, maybe too much for Mr. Harrison to afford. So, he either makes the kid work part-time, and can't make as many clocks, hire him full time, and put all of his money into paying the new kid instead of materials or possible expansion. Either way, he'll have to raise the prices of his clocks to offset how much he's giving the kid. OR he could just not hire the kid at all, and his business won't expand anyway.

It's very easy to argue from one side - how about looking at the other? The clock maker sets up a job opening, and the only people who try to take him up on it are people who only need the money for a little spare cash, or just want to pass the time. Good for the clock maker, but for the rest of the people that really need a job in order to survive that clock making job is worthless, as it doesn't cover their basic needs. They need to turn it down and look for more substantive work, or live off of welfare (which would give them more money and support than a lower paying minimum wage job, to be honest - why would you work less than minimum wage at all?).

These jobs don't do anything to stimulate the economy, as the people taking the jobs can't afford to spend the money on anything else other than the bare essentials. That clock maker needs customers in order to stay afloat - who are these customers going to be? Unless he just so happens to be a very lucky clock maker and attracts the very rich, he's going to need people who can afford to purchase something outside of their bare essentials every once in a while. Raising minimum wage helps him out on that front.

It also contributes to the illegal immigration problem because of the above. Employers seek illegals because they don't have to pay them minimum wage.

True. I doubt it would exacerbate the problem any more than the current state, though - people who are going to avoid minimum wage will keep doing it regardless, while people willing to pay it will probably keep paying it, regardless, in order to keep their name clear. If you want to fix the immigration problem then it's better to focus on the immigration problem (which is a problem, and I'm not sure I'm on Obama's side with that one) - lowering minimum wage (or keeping it too low) to reduce the immigration problem is like ripping a hole in your gut in order to minimize weight gain. It might help avert that problem, but at what cost?

I do not understand why it's mandatory for employers. The federal govt should have no say in the employee/employer relationship. You mean to tell me, the government has the power, to keep me from naming my price to work? What if I want a job really bad, but potential employers can't pay $9. You're telling me it's ILLEGAL for me to say "Hey man, times are tough. I'll work for $6 instead." What the fuck is that?

It's probably perfectly legal to say that - it's not illegal for the worker to willingly donate part of his paycheck to the company, so you could make a workaround, if you really wanted to. If you can pay your bills, eat, travel and manage to make a meaningful contribution to the economy at less than a thousand dollars a month without benefits (assuming you're working 40 hour work weeks, which is a pretty big assumption nowadays), then go for it. I sure as shit can't, and I doubt most people who live alone couldn't do so, either, but if you can, power to you.

It's illegal for a company to say "Hey, we need workers, but we're going to pay you less than you need to survive, and there's nothing you can do about it.". That's very different than what you're proposing, as it protects the well being of those that work for a company. Just because you would be able to survive on 6$/hr doesn't mean most others could - raising minimum wage gives those that are employed a fighting chance to get back on their feet.

Look, raising minimum wage hurts businesses that rely on paying it's workers the lowest amount possible - it will drive costs up for everything accordingly. The reality, though, is that either option is going to fuck the same people over in one way or another. Would you like to increase minimum wage, hurting small business, or keep it low and have things like welfare and unemployment taxes eat the small business away internally (currently welfare takes about 35% away from the employee as well as another 35% of the employee's paycheck away from the employer, if memory serves me right)? Or the third option, which is to cut welfare drastically, which would lead to the starvation of the people that rely on it... which in turn would leave companies without the low wage work force in order to keep their prices low, anyway (leading to the raise in prices of food/gas/etc. due to the need to pay higher wages to attract workers again)?

Reality is a bitch - prices on things must go up in one way or another in order to survive as a state, as a country, and likely as a planet.

At 2/7/13 07:24 PM, poxpower wrote:

At 2/7/13 06:32 PM, Gario wrote: (e.g. wasting my time in a fruitless endeavor instead of spending it elsewhere).

Well you could consider that arguing with people makes you a more informed citizen and a better person overall.
I have certainly learned a lot of things over the years by researching things to yell at people at with. It's fun!

Oh, I argue with plenty of people (though not on here for a long time). Arguing about things isn't a waste of time, per se - it's very informative when there is discourse, give and take, viable reasoning, etc.. Trying to argue with people that are not going to listen and insist that you are wrong and they are right is a waste of time, which arguing about religion generally devolves into.

At 2/7/13 05:24 PM, poxpower wrote:

At 2/7/13 05:02 PM, Gario wrote:

I don't understand where you're coming from, on that one - if you're baiting, you hooked me and got me all curious.

It's called the "true Scotsman fallacy". When you start to quiz religious people about what they believe, you very quickly realize that no two of them believe their religion in the same way, but they all think that only they have the "truth", which leads them to say shit like "Oh the Pope isn't a REAL Christian because he's rich" etc. etc.

I understand that fallacy. It didn't apply until there were people disagreeing what a 'real' Christian was, though, which was during the schism. Ask anyone in, say, 500 AD, and they'd give you the definition that I gave, unquestionably. I'm not questioning that it makes little sense today, but I do question that it never had meaning when it was first developed.

It's a really boring, wasteful and fruitless battle, though, so I recommend the first option.

Well you're still here doing it so.. :P

Not really, up until now. I was soapboxing earlier, calling people out for being stupid for saying the article proves there's an atheist church. Your comment made me make another statement on a separate issue. In this post, I'm making an argument because I'm avoiding doing the things that I'm supposed to do, atm. I argue when I'm procrastinating (e.g. wasting my time in a fruitless endeavor instead of spending it elsewhere).

At 2/7/13 04:13 PM, poxpower wrote:

At 2/7/13 12:57 PM, Angry-Hatter wrote: Much like the word "Christian"

But that didn't mean anything in the first place. There was ever, at most, like one Christian on earth haha.

Wait, what? There used to be a pretty solid meaning to that word in the past - those that followed a single doctrine divided among the twelve apostle's churches. It wasn't until the break with the Orthodox Church that Christianity was divided and meant more than one thing. I don't understand where you're coming from, on that one - if you're baiting, you hooked me and got me all curious.

Now this is just going to make it even harder. Morons will point to this and go "SEE? ATHEISTS HAVE A CHURCH, THEY'RE LIKE A RELIGION!!".

There are people out there that will try to take the definition of atheist and make it their own, somehow, and muddle it's meaning in some form or another (both within and outside of the group). It is pretty analogous to what happened with Christianity (What does that even mean, nowadays?)... granted that it makes even less sense in the context that people are telling other people how not to believe in something, when it comes to atheism. Can't say I understand how that works, but people are doing it, nonetheless. Such is life.

Much like un-fucking the meaning of my own beliefs are my problem, un-fucking the concept of atheism is yours. Or, alternatively, you could just not give a shit what other people think, call them idiots and move on with life, like I've been doing for years now. What are people going to do, call you names? Make it harder to explain to others where you stand on the issue? Deal with it. People childishly call other religious people names and skew what they believe in all the time; you just have to face that people will call you names for being atheist and skew your personal standing on religion, too. Either rise above it or get down and dirty and join the endless battle of correcting people. It's a really boring, wasteful and fruitless battle, though, so I recommend the first option.

At 2/5/13 10:33 PM, poxpower wrote: There can never be any official atheist church or dogma like there can never be rules for the non-hockey league that tell you how to play the sport of not playing hockey.

Eh, hypothetically there could be a church dedicated to avoiding the belief in a god - if a group of atheists created a dogma as to what they have to reject, and in turn these things lead them to living life in a way that they might otherwise not have due to an anti-theological structure (e.g. not allowing its' members to even talk about a god, even in jest), then I would call it an 'atheist Church'. Seeing that I've yet to see such a thing happen with atheists - a few books on the subject don't count as an official 'anti-theological structure' any more than Catholic writings on Christianity that are not sanctioned by the Church - it's completely irrelevant to reality, and the idea is silly, anyway.

Just saying - in theory it could happen.

At 2/4/13 09:58 PM, Proteas wrote:

At 2/4/13 06:54 PM, Fim wrote: THOUGHTS?

I think what we have here is a contradiction in terms, especially from the individual who said (and I quote) "It's not a church, it's a congregation of unreligious people."

There are two other definitions of congregation in there that would fit the description perfectly, actually. No contradiction, there.

What do I think about it? It's a bunch of guys gathering together to form a community based on the fact that they're new atheists trying to fill the community void that leaving religion created. Power to them. Is it a bit of a mockery to Christian religions in it's organization (gathering in a building, having sermons, etc.)? Maybe. I'll give the benefit of the doubt that it's structured like that in order to create a community as effectively as religious churches have in the past (theist or atheist, you can't deny that the church structure creates an overwhelming sense of community, for those involved).

It shouldn't bug anyone, unless the people in that church/congregation start coming out and attacking you for what you believe in. Doesn't look like it yet, though.

Note: The article named it a "church", and the physical location is a former church, but from what I read the group themselves don't consider themselves a church. That's something to consider before calling this group of people hypocrites.

At 11/22/12 09:38 PM, poxpower wrote:
I've watched countless religious debates by now, I'm still waiting for a smart religious apologist to show up to one of them.

That's because smart Christians go out and do things that are productive in the world rather than wasting time on arguing with people that don't really care. Smart atheists do the same thing, in fact - why enter an argument with someone who doesn't care about what you have to say?

The only difference between the trial and evaluation periods (which has no time limit) is that one has no pop-up telling you to purchase the licence. That non-reminder period has been extended to 60 days. Um, good, I guess?

I don't really thing that's huge news, as long as the product remains free after the period is over.

At 10/20/12 03:28 PM, Sequenced wrote:

At 10/20/12 02:39 PM, Lageira wrote: A nice free recording sfotware, if youre planning on using real instruments, is Audacity you can google it up

ehhhh I wouldn't go for audacity.

Solely for recording purposes, why not?