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The Lounge / Re: Decision 2008, Comprehensive Unbiased Poll
« on: June 06, 2008, 09:52:05 PM »
What about Bob Barr, the libertarian party candidate?
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The Lounge / MRO's amazing photo of Phoenix's descent
« on: May 26, 2008, 08:05:34 PM »
http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/230206main_9227-PHX_Lander.jpg
This photo was taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter of the Phoenix lander descending to a landing on Mars. This is an incredible shot, especially when you consider the great speeds and distances involved, and the fact that this all had to be timed from hundreds of millions of kilometers away with a 20-minute time lag. A testament to human ingenuity. Or if you like, a testament to the Conspiracy's ability to Photoshop an image to look so authentically grainy.
Geez, I haven't been around here in a while.
This photo was taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter of the Phoenix lander descending to a landing on Mars. This is an incredible shot, especially when you consider the great speeds and distances involved, and the fact that this all had to be timed from hundreds of millions of kilometers away with a 20-minute time lag. A testament to human ingenuity. Or if you like, a testament to the Conspiracy's ability to Photoshop an image to look so authentically grainy.
Geez, I haven't been around here in a while.
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Philosophy, Religion & Society / MOVED: The moon doesn't exist!
« on: February 14, 2008, 10:26:33 PM »
This topic has been moved to Alternative Science.
http://theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php?topic=19890.0
http://theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php?topic=19890.0
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Philosophy, Religion & Society / MOVED: so is god real?
« on: February 08, 2008, 08:33:19 PM »
This topic has been moved to Angry Ranting.
http://theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php?topic=19751.0
http://theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php?topic=19751.0
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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: The wrong argument
« on: February 07, 2008, 09:11:14 PM »The parasite becomes a separate entity, and thus a child, once the umbilical cord is cut and it can survive on its own.
That's an incredibly arbitrary distinction. A newborn can't exactly survive on its own, either; and babies born up to 19 weeks prematurely have survived. There just isn't any clear line.
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So, you consider murder to be the removal of body parts, parasites, and tumors?
Body parts and tumors have your genes. They are part of you by any conceivable definition. You have the right to modify your body in any way you wish. Parasites do not have human DNA at all, thus the moral standards that guide our treatment of other humans have no possible bearing on them. A fetus has human DNA, but not its mother's DNA (some of it is, of course, but that doesn't change the fact that the fetus has its own unique genetic code). The fact that it exists inside its mother's body and requires her body for survival does not make it part of her.
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What about rape victims who fall pregnant? Should they have to take responsibility for someone else's crime and carry a baby to term?
{b]Iff[/b] the mother is pyschologically capable both of dealing with the pregnancy and birth and properly caring for the child despite its origin, it would be the right thing to do. However, while donating an organ is also the right thing to do, no one has a moral obligation to do so. We all have individual rights that cannot be superseded by the needs of others, no matter how much more legitimate. Just so, it is wonderful if a rape victim can bear and even raise the product of that rape, but she has no obligation to do so.
Thomson's 'Violinist' scenario is applicable here. The scenario is as follows:
Quote from: Judith Thomson
You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist's circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. [If he is unplugged from you now, he will die; but] in nine months he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you.
This obviously applies to rape. It does not, I strongly contend, apply to pregnancy resulting from consensual intercourse. Because unlike in either the violinist scenario or rape the mother is, in a very real sense, responsible for the fetus' reliance on her body, she does bear a moral obligation to the fetus. Thomson's responses to this criticism of her scenario are profoundly silly.
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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Religious experiences/spiritual enlightenment
« on: February 02, 2008, 06:39:42 PM »Again, this doesn't invalidate the experience.
No, but it makes additional explanations of it, such as "there actually is a god and the reason I had this experience is because he caused me to have it", entirely superfluous.
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You can always boil it down to "oh he was on drugs"" or "he was sick" or "it was nice and all, but it doesn't really reveal anything of importance" but it most definitely does - at least to her, and that is what matters.
You're absolutely right that the only person who can determine the importance of such an experience, in subjective terms, is the one who experienced it. However, it is entirely a different matter if you try to use such an experience to bolster objective claims about the nature of the universe, whether physical, metaphysical, or supernatural.
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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Homosexuality
« on: January 30, 2008, 08:12:29 PM »True. But my point is that if a government says that gay marriages are legal, then to deny that right, a church must pay taxes instead.
I don't believe churches should be automatically tax-exempt anyway just for being churches; I think that gives religious organizations an unconstitutional special standing. They should have to demonstrate substantial charitable work to earn tax-exemption, just like any other charity.
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Philosophy, Religion & Society / MOVED: religion and philosophy
« on: January 25, 2008, 05:37:42 PM »
This topic has been moved to Angry Ranting.
http://theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php?topic=19529.0
http://theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php?topic=19529.0
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The Lounge / Re: Tom Cruise Scientology video leaked
« on: January 24, 2008, 10:47:53 AM »I just don't understand why smart people would waste their lives doing pointless shit like that.
They aren't smart. Same goes for all religious people.
That's a ridiculous assertion, given the number of religious folks who are very obviously extremely intelligent.
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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: There is no god.
« on: January 21, 2008, 07:37:43 PM »My variant doesnt have illiterate people reading gold plates from a hat left by jesus or an angel in america.Lol, Mormonism.Both God and Religion are just hopes, honestly. It's a way for people to blame their misery, happiness, whatever, on something greater than themselves. Without religion, everyone would realize how truly damned the world is and just kill themselves. But they dont, because they'll "go to hell". o no
Ok.. well in that case... Trust me... there really is no hell and heaven is a wonderful place. No worries mate.
You say that like your preferred variant is less ridiculous...
No, but it has lots of other absolutely hilarious stuff.
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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: There is no god.
« on: January 21, 2008, 04:48:25 PM »Lol, Mormonism.Both God and Religion are just hopes, honestly. It's a way for people to blame their misery, happiness, whatever, on something greater than themselves. Without religion, everyone would realize how truly damned the world is and just kill themselves. But they dont, because they'll "go to hell". o no
Ok.. well in that case... Trust me... there really is no hell and heaven is a wonderful place. No worries mate.
You say that like your preferred variant is less ridiculous...
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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Creationism
« on: January 19, 2008, 07:50:24 PM »I'm religious, but the problem with us is that we are more likely to commit crimes, if you see what I mean. I can rob a bank then pray for forgiveness, but an atheist has to live with the guilt. I think that atheists are more likely to have morals than some religious people, because they don't believe they will be forgiven.Has there actually been a study that shows that religious people from the same background etc are more likely to commit crimes?
Methinks he kids.
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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: There is no god.
« on: January 19, 2008, 07:41:07 PM »
Actually, 'Is God possible?' was a rhetorical question. Certainly it is a philosophical question whether God exists. However, Raist's assertion was that God would arise in an infinitely old universe. This relies on the assumption that in an infinite universe all things are possible; this is not the case. Rather, in an infinite universe all possible things are inevitable. It is a philosophical question whether God exists in a spiritual realm outside the physical universe we know; it is entirely a scientific question whether God will come to be in the infinite lifespan of the physical universe. A scientific question answered readily enough: the answer is no.
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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Creationism
« on: January 19, 2008, 09:13:18 AM »Whats so hard about believing in hell if you can believe in an infinite amount of universes, all with their own rules? At least one of those should resemble hell.
Not if they all branch off from the same universe at the Big Bang, meaning physical laws and constants should be the same as ours.
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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Creationism
« on: January 18, 2008, 07:58:37 PM »Erm, I should think that hell is the outlandish claim, and saying there is no hell is no more outlandish than saying there are no fairies.No one goes to hell. There is no hell.
You know you had it coming:
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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: There is no god.
« on: January 17, 2008, 09:35:17 PM »Althalus, you don't seem to understand how definitions are laid out in dictionaries. When you have a definition in the form <word><part of speech>< def. 1><def. 2><def 3.><def. ...>, these are multiple possible definitions being laid out, not multiple parts of one definition that must all always apply. For instance, if we look at Oxford's definition of 'dog':Quotedog
• noun 1 a domesticated carnivorous mammal with a barking or howling voice and an acute sense of smell. 2 a wild animal resembling this, in particular any member of the dog family (Canidae), which includes the wolf, fox, coyote, jackal, and other species. 3 the male of such an animal. 4 (the dogs) Brit. informal greyhound racing. 5 informal, derogatory an unattractive woman. 6 informal a contemptible man. 7 dated a person of a specified kind: you lucky dog!
We see that no one use of 'dog' could possibly meet all these definitions. These are simply the several different accepted uses of the term.
Thus, since 'fictional' is only one of the possible definitions for 'mythical' or 'mythological', and God meets every one of the other given definitions, God may be considered mythical.
Still waiting for Althalus to respond to this.
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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: There is no god.
« on: January 17, 2008, 09:32:34 PM »I say the laws of probablitly says that if the universe becomes old enough god eventually has to happen.
In an infinitely old universe, yes, all possible things would occur. But who says God is possible?
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Philosophy, Religion & Society / MOVED: Awesome site that disproves Round Earth
« on: January 17, 2008, 01:15:30 PM »
This topic has been moved to Angry Ranting.
http://theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php?topic=18933.0
http://theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php?topic=18933.0
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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: There is no god.
« on: January 15, 2008, 10:35:37 PM »There are no odds on a non random event.
Ok, so you can't tell me whether it's more likely that I will find a tree in my backyard or on Mars?
Can you?
I think so...
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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: There is no god.
« on: January 15, 2008, 06:52:02 PM »There are no odds on a non random event.
Ok, so you can't tell me whether it's more likely that I will find a tree in my backyard or on Mars?
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Flat Earth Q&A / MOVED: Rabits
« on: January 14, 2008, 09:11:45 PM »
This topic has been moved to Complete Nonsense.
http://theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php?topic=19298.0
http://theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php?topic=19298.0
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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Creationism
« on: January 14, 2008, 07:45:54 PM »abiogenesis is life poofing into existence from nothing. However, in reality, amino acids were formed in the primordial soup and eventually became PNA, which became organic molecules.
'Spontaneous generation' is life poofing into existence from nothing. 'Abiogenesis' is the general term for any way by which life may arise from non-life, of which spontaneous generation is a subcategory. Also, you should refrain from stating as certainties hypotheses, such as the 'RNA-world' hypothesis and its variants, which as yet do not have conclusive supporting evidence.
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Flat Earth Q&A / Re: Admin Dance
« on: January 14, 2008, 05:34:54 PM »
Sorry I haven't been around a ton lately. I'm doing my best to combat the trolls. Just keep reporting their posts and I will take care of them.
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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Creationism
« on: January 14, 2008, 05:32:09 PM »Life evolving from non-life does not equal abiogenesis.
Err, yes it does, that's kind of the definition of the term.
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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Creationism
« on: January 14, 2008, 11:03:59 AM »Yeah, well both Watson and Crick have gone senile.The proposition of life originating on an asteroid even harsher than our own planet is quite ludicrous.
Althalus' proposition was only that left-handed amino acids emerged on an asteroid, which is entirely plausible as we've found meteorites with nearly a hundred different amino acids including nearly all of those found in modern terrestrial life. However, there's no reason for them to have so arisen, as current evidence indicates the conditions would have been just fine on Earth as well. Of course, Crick and company do go considerably farther than Althalus in their panspermist claims.
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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Creationism
« on: January 14, 2008, 09:42:25 AM »I like how he even denies nuclear fusion. He does raise some interesting facts about abiogenesis, but ignores the modern scientific proposition of life originating on a planet without oxygen (thus making the formation of left-handed amino acids much easier) and coming to earth on a comet or asteroid.
Actually that's panspermia, which isn't taken seriously by any outside of a minority of scientists (though that minority does include such notable figures as Francis Crick, one of the discoverers of DNA). The mainstream view is that Earth was once a reducing atmosphere with very little oxygen, which seems to be borne out by the evidence. To early life, oxygen would have been a poison (as it still is to some so-called 'extremophile' organisms today). When photosynthetic bacteria emerged, raising oxygen levels, organisms were forced to adapt.
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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: There is no god.
« on: January 11, 2008, 12:33:03 PM »Third, any creator must be at least as complex, or more so, than their creation. Having a God create the universe creates a new issue: Where did God come from?The first statement is an assumtion. Everything in the known universe requires a creation, but God predates time.
Presumably, so does the 'cosmic egg'. Also, you haven't addressed my last post.
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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: There is no god.
« on: January 10, 2008, 09:10:18 PM »
Althalus, you don't seem to understand how definitions are laid out in dictionaries. When you have a definition in the form <word><part of speech>< def. 1><def. 2><def 3.><def. ...>, these are multiple possible definitions being laid out, not multiple parts of one definition that must all always apply. For instance, if we look at Oxford's definition of 'dog':
We see that no one use of 'dog' could possibly meet all these definitions. These are simply the several different accepted uses of the term.
Thus, since 'fictional' is only one of the possible definitions for 'mythical' or 'mythological', and God meets every one of the other given definitions, God may be considered mythical.
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dog
• noun 1 a domesticated carnivorous mammal with a barking or howling voice and an acute sense of smell. 2 a wild animal resembling this, in particular any member of the dog family (Canidae), which includes the wolf, fox, coyote, jackal, and other species. 3 the male of such an animal. 4 (the dogs) Brit. informal greyhound racing. 5 informal, derogatory an unattractive woman. 6 informal a contemptible man. 7 dated a person of a specified kind: you lucky dog!
We see that no one use of 'dog' could possibly meet all these definitions. These are simply the several different accepted uses of the term.
Thus, since 'fictional' is only one of the possible definitions for 'mythical' or 'mythological', and God meets every one of the other given definitions, God may be considered mythical.