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At 5/30/08 11:36 PM, Grammer wrote: Do you have faith that your girlfriend will make it to the movies on time, with only her word to assure you?

No.

Anyway, on topic:

My faith goes hand and hand with logic, they aren't necessarily based on each other. One or the other isn't the fundamental stepping stone of the other, I mean. They're both necessary and equally considered when interpreting The Bible.

I'm not quite following. Can you perhaps provide me with an example?

Ah well. Either my memory is faulty, or I got a heretic for a high-school religion teacher (I'm leaning towards the latter).

At 5/30/08 10:08 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: Are you saying that the government has the power to tell god whether or not to respect the marriage of homosexuality?

No, but some politicians think they do.

or that the government has the spiritual insight to know already that god accepts the marriage of homosexuality.

No, but again, some politicians think they do.

And this asside i thought that god wasn't supposed to be a part of politics, so how is god's word relevant to fiscal policy.

It isn't, except politicians think that it is.

The whole semantic debate boils down to what will make the government look the best. That's all.

At 5/30/08 10:01 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: So if the government makes gay marriage legal, the entire country will become religiously accepting of homosexuality?

No, but it implies to other countries that the government thinks that God wants gays to get married, while civil unions don't have any religious implications at all. It's pretty stupid, really, but that's how politicians think.

At 5/30/08 09:41 PM, Creek wrote: You're not in the place to be the judge, you don't know me, stop accusing. Proof Merriam-Webster can be the judge. Here is the definition I want to focus on. Proof - something that induces certainty or establishes validity.
...
You're not arguing your point, you're arguing the definition. Here is the definition. If you are not sure what the definition is, look at a dictionary.

This is a common point of confusion. Scientists use the words 'proof' and 'theory' completely differently from how they're defined in the dictionary. Think of it like lawyer-speak. To a scientist, a 'theory' is a hypothesis that has been validated by many experiments. There is no higher level of validity than theory.

Though I hesitate to use wikipedia as backup, I would recommend you see their excellent articles on theory and formal proof.

Legally, the difference is minor. Politically and religiously, however, there is a great difference between the two. 'Gay marriage' implies religious acceptance, while 'civil union' does not.

At 5/28/08 12:59 AM, SolInvictus wrote: well i meant doctrine-wise, i have never heard any negation of God having originally created everything.

After a thorough search, I'm afraid I can't turn up any evidence for my claim, besides remembering learning it in Catholic school. Anyone have access to a one of those Catholic study bibles, the kind with the commentary that they use in the schools?

At 5/30/08 08:42 PM, Grammer wrote:

Faith is inherently illogical,

2/10

Sorry, but I'm too smart for that. Only as idiot would say such a thing that you just did, and I'm not going to feed the troll.

If your faith is based on logic, can you tell me what the premises are that lead to your theistic conclusion?

Sorry for the double post, but I thought I would add that that was a thoroughly enjoyable video. I really don't know enough about the history of science.

At 5/30/08 08:25 PM, poxpower wrote: dear god..
Science is the opposition of science.
Theism doesn't deal with science in any way. It doesn't "oppose" science, it ignores it.

I'm sorry, I misstated my point. I do, however, understand the scientific method, what with a background in biology and all.

My point is, that unless there is someone proposing creationist ideas, there can be no valid assessment of said ideas. Without at least some people professing religious beliefs, an entire area of possibility is ignored. Even if this area proves to be false, humanity is improved by the act of examining it.

At 5/30/08 08:12 PM, poxpower wrote: What, pray tell, do theistic ideas have to offer to any science?

Opposition. If you have no opposing ideas to test yours against, your ideas might as well be useless.

I could also point out that, were it not for the preservation by the Catholic monks, we would know next to nothing today about Greek and Roman culture.

At 5/30/08 07:06 PM, Christopherr wrote: What the hell did we do wrong? They are a capitalistic democracy because we gave them an example of one.

If teaching Russia how to be a democracy and be capitalist is something the U.S. did, then its something the U.S. did wrong. Russia has failed at being either.

As I've already pointed out here, religious debates are, at least to me, fun to watch and sometimes fun to participate in.

On a more serious note, religious debates, like all debates, always have the chance, however slim, of making people think about their beliefs and why they hold to them.

The Swastika:
Hindu Religious symbol -> Theosophical Society emblem -> Thule Society emblem -> Hitler's personal symbol -> Nazis

At 5/30/08 10:26 AM, GeorgeAllen wrote: 9. Too short school holidays. In the USA and Canada I think they break up in May and go back in mid September and they have about a month of at Christmas. Over here, we break up late July and Go back in early December. That's a good 2 or 3 months less. Plus, my christmas break is only 1 & a half weeks and I go back the day after New Years Day,

It's pretty much the same in the U.S. School breaks for summer around June 30th, and goes back on September 2nd, totaling about the same summer break. The christmas break is usually about a week and a half to two weeks, going back January 2nd or 3rd.

Mind you, it might be different in Canada, but in the U. S. the number of school days is mandated by federal law. The states do it or they lose their funding.

Damn, forgot newgrounds wont let you do that.

Anyway:

Take a look at this.

<img src="http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/
z216/alephzamiel/Your_future_al-Zarqawi.
jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket">

Far worse than anything being done to the balls: Getting an injection into a fingertip.

Oh, and from personal (accidental) experience, getting shot doesn't hurt until later.

Ever seen the movie 'Reefer Madness'?

That's what some people believe about drugs. Yes, people actually think that marijuana does that.

The drug problem in the U.S. is caused by just these sort of lies. Unlike the much more successful programs in Europe that tell the truth about the effects of drugs, anti-drug programs in the U.S. desperately try to convince people of any radical claim they can.

If I ran an anti-marijuana campaign, it would go something like this:
Marijuana doesn't make you kill people. It doesn't make you hallucinate. And it won't turn you into a serial killer. But it will make you act like a hippie. Please, no more hippies. They're annoying and smelly. Thanks.

An interesting article. The numbers it used are a bit outdated (I work out a cost of $1,606,000 for a life sentence using the current numbers, as opposed to the $805,000 estimate used in the article), but it is likely the other costs mentioned in the article have increased as well.

However, there is a serious flaw in the argument. The article factors the cost of appeals into the total cost of an execution, but does not factor the cost of appeals into the total cost of imprisonment. Neither my number nor his includes this cost. Remember, a person given life in jail can appeal his sentence just as much as a person on death row can.

If you can find a source showing the total cost of life imprisonment including appeals, I would be glad to look at it.

Now even if, with the cost of appeals added to the cost of incarceration, the death sentence still turns out to be more expensive, would this not suggest that reforming the appeals process is necessary rather than the elimination of the death penalty?

At 5/30/08 12:11 AM, yeahitsme wrote:
its true, if someone wants to believe, they will, and if they don't they don't. the end result is that the argument results in two people banging their heads on the wall

Something that is intensely amusing to all onlookers, thus reinforcing my point that I don't see any problem.

At 5/26/08 04:44 AM, Ravariel wrote:

:My only argument is that it costs more to put someone to a quick death than to curse them with the slowest of deaths in the darkest of all places.

Can you explain this bit a little further? I'm not quite seeing what you mean. Are you suggesting that incarceration is cheaper than execution, or are you suggesting locking a person in a room until they starve to death as the cheapest method of execution?

But even if arguments between atheists and the devout are impossible to solve, they're such fun to watch. Please continue.

News outlets exist to make money. Its the duty of any corporation to make a profit for its shareholders. As a result, the media is required to present the news in a fashion that people want to hear. If the news is nothing but pointless drivel, it is the fault of the consumers who buy said drivel, not the media outlets.

At 5/29/08 10:36 PM, Mr-Silv3r wrote: My other points about screwing up the economy of the EU and further destroying Japan's hopes of ever getting out of their slump by increasing their already sizeable deficit still remain.

I personally agree with you, just thought I would throw some data into the mix.

In addition to the problems previously mentioned, I also question the idea that adding more money to the U.S. economy will solve its problems. Adding money would give a short-term boost, but unless the fundamental flaws that lead to the current recession are fixed, the money would just leak out of the system and we'd be back to square one.

(I'm focusing on the U.S. since I don't know much about how the U.K.'s economy works, but I think a similar point would apply)

The way I see it, it doesn't really matter if global warming is caused by humans or not. Its safest to assume that it is. That way, if it turns out that it is, we're already doing something about it. And if it turns out that it isn't, most alternatives have us thoroughly screwed anyway so any economic damage done by global warming prevention wont matter.

*Sigh* Look, EVERYTHING is a theory. Everything. Relativity, motion, light, existence, everything. So the fact that the theory of evolution is called the 'theory of evolution' has no bearing on its validity.

Sorry, I just get so tired of that argument.

At 5/29/08 08:29 AM, Mr-Silv3r wrote: You're kidding me right? Germany and Japan have the strongest economies in the world?

Have you been frozen for the last 15 years? Isn't it amazing how fast the internet is now, and iPods, wow! No more flimsy tapes or cds for your music!

Germany's economy is doing okay, but it certainly isn't a superpower, re-unification took a bit of a toll on that. Plus the addoption of the Euro would essentially make billing them for reparations for a war that the majority of their citizens weren't even alive to witness would fuck up the economy of a lot of other nations, therefore: never gonna happen.

And Japan, hah! They've been going through a very lengthy economic slump for around the last decade. Their deficit is pretty bad, I doubt they would have anything to give. Maybe you should just go door to door in Iraq and Afghanistan and ask for donations.

World economic powers by GNP:
1)U.S.
2)Japan
3)Germany
Source

The U.S. has really fallen behind on its propaganda lately, though. There was a day when the War Information Department could craft a poster that would make everyone want to pick up their gun and fight the Hun.

Come on, DoD! Get your head in the game. 'Islamofacists?' Lame. . .

Those that blame school violence on video games would do well to remember that, up until the Virginia Tech Shooting, the most deadly school shooting in the U.S. occurred in 1966. Can't blame video games for that one.