Marinus

You might have a point there, and what's better, I've pizza, beer and oil and a neighbour with man-boobs.

Religion is very good in making claims, however, it's not the claims I'm interested in, it's the evidence to back up those claims. Oh we can read the Bible to look how a God-universe would look like. Seas splitting, donkeys talking, amputees regrowing limbs, Christians should be obviously blessed in measurable ways, they, for example, would be far more likely to survive cancer, believers would move mountains through faith. Etc. etc. there would be multitudes of well-documented miracles. I've yet to find proof for the first documented miracle. This universe looks like God isn't there, it looks like we're alone.

To illustrate things a bit: this is what the universe looks like according to the bible: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_tWhSj5H4CZE/TIFUmpTYNII/AAAAAAAABnw/OA6bG6q0Jnw/s1600/heaven_of_heavens.jpg If Yaweh exists this is what the universe looks like. This means that every scientific discovery that isn't compatible with that universe is flawed. This could of course be the case, but the chances of that being true seem to be a bit remote.

It depends on which god you're talking about. A deistic God that created the universe but doesn't interfere with it after that. Sure why not, we can talk about that, but such a god wouldn't be relevant to us at all. There's no way to put a probability on that, so if I'm not mistaken the chances of such a God existing could be anything. To us it would look like there isn't a God, so it's compatible with the reality as we know it. However, we can say something about the Christian god. Since it's in the Bible that we have to take the Bible literally, word for word, cover to cover, And there's a lot of extremely implausible things in the Bible, there's only an extremely minute probability that the Christian God exists. I acknowledge that that God could exist, but the chances of that are so extremely low I just shrug and think "Come on it's so out there that we can safely say that God doesn't exit.

You're free to believe that. I disagree with it, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. So enjoy your "victory" if you want, I'm among other things also an Utilitarian so I'm totally fine with that. But please don't bore me any longer.

I think I've been pretty polite with you. It's obvious you're not going to counter any of my arguments, because you can't. And now I start to loose interest in you. I'm not wasting my time on you any longer. Goodbye.

I might be apathetic toward God, but that doesn't mean that religion isn't interesting. I usually don't watch TV, but religion is the only thing that ever made me watch non stop for 10 days. I think it was the middle 10 days of September in the year 2001.

I only used one story from the bible. The Great flood. The changes of that happening without leaving a single trace trace afterwards, is impossible. And that's of course not the only impossible story. I was only being nice to explain there's theoretically a very small change everything happened like written in the bile. I didn't get the impression I learned anything from you. I begin to suspect it's very unlikely I'll ever learn anything from you. And scary, because if you start to really think about it, you'll discover that the stories from the bible are extremely implausible.

It's not for the faint of heart of course. The apathy only concerns god, religion and personal faith. And since I don't waste time on that, I can use my emotions, thoughts, concerns and excitement for reality. You huwt my feewings.... Or not of course, I was raised as a fundamentalist Christian, I was raised as a creationist. The first time I finished reading the bible, I was 7 or 8. I've practised Christianity till I was 22, then my faith slowly died and only at age 30, after 8 years of soul searching (Never found it by the way) I concluded that all religion has to offer was nonsense, and I simply stopped caring. They did a great brainwashing job on me considering the fact that first doubts arose shortly after reading the bible at age 8. But I'm pretty confident I can wipe the floor with you using only the power of my bible knowledge. See above, If anyone did explore religion in general and Christianity in detail, it has to be me. I took all the time of the world to draw my conclusions. You also might want to try to be a bit less condescending towards me. I've no problem with Christians in general, (This might or might not be because Western Europe mostly got the pleasant Christians) but I really don't like to be talked down too.

[Insert random remark about fat Americans and their man boobs] Yes, I know, cheap & easy

You make the mistake that non-believers aren't able to use their "spiritual" senses. Many people who stopped believing had "spiritual" experiences, before they lost their faith. I'm one of them, and guess what, I still have the same, what you would call, "spiritual" experiences. I only don't explain those with some made up story any more. It's just feelings now, and to be honest, it's much better to know it's just my own brain making me happy. I use other terms now since spiritual is just the next meaningless religious term, but words like awe and wonder pretty much do the trick for me now. Btw, "spiritual" feelings are reproducible in controlled experiments, so they're obviously natural phenomena.

@ skymama, thanks for the welcome! And you can bet I'll continue, I thought it all true, and I'll most probably start in spring 2012. I've thought about doing it now, but I'll change jobs next Monday, so things are a bit hectic for me now. If I start now, there's also a good chance that my AFF would be halted by winter too. I'm not an expert, but I reckon it isn't a good idea to have a pause of 4 or 5 months between AFF jumps. Also it has become autumn this week, so the weather kinda sucks, and usually it stays more or less suck-ish untill March or so. On the bright side of things: this way I can safe loads of extra cash which always comes in hand with the less cheap activities. But I'm way ahead of myself, now. Which is btw a promising sign.

Congratulations, and good luck with the rest of the course!

It's rather new and rather rare. I had trouble to decide whether I was an agnostic or atheist when I stumbled upon the term, I read a bit about it, and concluded that that was exactly what I believed. You should try it, it's young, it's fresh and it saves loads of time. The metaphor makes the point well, but it's a bit flawed indeed. But that's not it's main flaw, because, while I think it's very unlikely, I don't totally rule out the possibility that we prove the existence of a creator one day. But I'm rather sure that wouldn't change anything for us. It's main flaw is the fact that we already have abundant proof that planetary lifeforms that dance exist. Just look in the mirror to see one. God doesn't have that. If you take a deistic type of god, for example a god that sets the constants, hits the Big Bang button and sits back to watch the show, our universe wouldn't be different because that god existed. I'm using a rather broad definition of the concept "god" here. That God could even decide to put a signature of sorts in his creation for intelligent beings to find. There you have your proof and still nothing would change. I agree fully with the rest your wrote about the intervening type of gods. There's ways around it, god could use the butterfly effect for instance. He makes a butterfly flap its wings in the Amazon, and days later the plane crashes in a light breeze instead of a calm. The trajectory of the debris is changed slightly, and voilà you're not decapitated by a plane window. But yeah, that's just silly. The anthropomorphic Abrahamic god you mostly refer too is far more unlikely then that. With unlikely I mean if I start off with 0,000000000.... this moment and start typing zero's till I die of old age, I wouldn't have nearly enough zeros to have typed the probability of that god existing.

If we can't observe/measure god, nor his influence in this world, it pretty much makes god irrelevant to us humans. This is supported by the fact that religious folk don't agree on anything, that religion has no supernatural effect on this world and that religion has all the hallmarks of a human cultural phenomenon. So yes, I agree with you, both theism and atheism lack proof (although atheism makes much more sense) and so I'm not an atheist nor a theist. Because God is irrelevant, it's simply not worth wasting time in pondering the question whether god exists or not. There might be 3 legged creatures dancing the flabagra on planet flakulu 3000 lightyears away, but since it doesn't concern or affect me in any way, they irrelevant to me, whether they're there or not. God is exactly in the same category as far as I'm concerned. It's called apatheism. It doesn't answer the question if god exists, it simply states that the very question "Does god exist?" is so unimportant that it doesn't need to be answered.

Edit: woops, wrong button

In my situation, there wasn't a direct threat to me and my dogs after the initial, At least, not something like two pit bulls in kill mode. But in more dangerous circumstances, especially if the danger is caused by stupidity, I've been known to be rather fluent in "French". Judging from your story you reacted adequate to the situation, and saved an old ladies dog in the process, so kudos to you.

Probably more or less similar to Australia, but it differs between countries. At least in Western Europe.

Sometimes something happens to you that you need to share, immediately, and if not enough friends/family members are available that moment, total strangers (like you guys) are fine too. It had drizzled all day, and late in the afternoon, just as I returned home from work, the sun came out. So I decided to take my Jack Russell Terriers Jan en Jaap (John and Jabe roughly translated) for a nice long walk in the woods. There they're allowed to walk without a leash, and since they're good with other dogs, play till they drop. I was only just in the woods or suddenly, out of the blue a black Labrador (?) ran up to Jaap, bit down hard in his back, lifted him off the ground, and started to shake. Then he let go, and Jaap was lying motionless on the ground. The attack was over in mere seconds and ended spontaneous. Luckily I kept my head cool and first I started to examine Jake. There was no blood, and within seconds he started to move and shriek. Within a minute he was back on his feet, but limping and whining. I thought there might be a trip to the vet in the near future, so I politely asked the owner of the Labrador for her phone number, with the intention keep in touch, so her insurance could take care of the vet bill. I think that was rather reasonable. But the lady rather bluntly refused, claimed it was my own fault, because I had my dog unleashed. Like the attack wouldn't have happened if I would have had them on the leash. Anyway, there was a short discussion, between me, the lady and her friend who joint us in the meantime, and then they left, with the lady still refusing to take her responsibility. Since I'm not the kind of guy that beats up middle aged women in the woods, even if I really feel like it, I thought that that was it. I couldn't make them give me the phone number without ignoring a couple of my more important moral standards. And then, finally I got pissed. The civilized kind of pissed, btw, I'm not the kind of person that loses his temper easily. Jaap by now looked like he would survive without grave injuries, so I picked him up. I thought "If you don't give me your phone number, I'll just follow you home, so I know where to send the bill, and when I'm at it, it'll come in handy when I'll report the incident to the police too." I kept my distance, 100 feet or so, to make it clear that I had no intention to intimidate. We walked for a quarter of a mile or so, and then the ladies stopped where the path exits the forest. (The location is important because here the entrances to woods are usually blocked by boom barriers to keep motorized vehicles from going in. This one was too) I walked to them, making sure I didn't come too close, and then the ladies started to complain they felt really threatened. (Yes, a polite 180 cm 75 kg man holding a doggie in his arms is one of the most intimidating things two women could possibly ever face) I explained to them that they had nothing to fear from me, but that all I wanted was that the lady payed for eventual damage her dog had done. I also said I would stop following her if she handed me her phone number, like any decent citizen would have done right after the attack happened. She now said that it was no ones fault because both dogs were unleashed, I in turn explained that while my dogs could be walked without a leash, the only safe way to walk her dog was on a leash and with a muzzle. Then the "intimidated" lady released her dog, obviously to intimidate me. That didn't work out to well for her. I've had a paper route in a rural area for years when I was younger. I had to deal with about 125 rowdy farm dogs on a daily basis, so I know how to handle aggressive dogs. As soon as the dog again went for me and/or my dogs, it took one (apparently very intimidating) growl from me. Two seconds later the dog knew what its rightful place was, shivering behind its owner with its tail between its legs. Now the ladies became really nervous. The friend threatened to call the police. I replied that I was perfectly fine with that. I put Jaap on the ground, and waited. Nothing happened of course. And then the dog owner told me I would regret it if I wouldn’t leave. I asked politely if that was a threat. She said it was a promise and then started to elaborate what would happen to me. (Husband beating me up, the works) And then, suddenly I grinned, I wasn’t sure if I saw it coming myself, they surely didn’t, but what happened next was sweet. There a lady whose dog had attacked mine was now threatening me while I had kept my cool for the whole time. Something snapped, I don’t use violence when I don’t have to, but I surely don’t appreciate to be intimidated. I took a couple of steps in their direction, shouted BOOOOO!!!!. It had exactly the effect I wanted. Both ladies fell silent and stumbled backwards with shocked, wide open eyes. What I didn’t think off was the boom barrier, but sure enough they backed right into it. The friend managed to stay on her feet, but the dog owner didn’t. She landed on her back with legs in the air in the mud. There was an awkward moment of silence, in which I even forgot to laugh my ass off That actually came minutes later when I was walking home whilst giggling hysterically (teenage girl style probably). The lady now wanted my phone number for insurance thingies etc. I told her that if I was her, I would just follow me home to get the address. Then I looked down, and saw that Jaap was wagging his tail with a big fat dog grin on his face. I concluded that it was unlikely that he needed a vet any time soon, and walked home. Jaap is lying next to me, his back is sore, and he does have a lot of scratches on closer inspection, and he seems to be a little shell shocked, but I think he’ll be okay. A good outcome because the attack looked very violent. I really thought I had lost him when it happened, but apparently he's a tough little critter. THE END

Hi Anne, I've been thinking about that, and I might do it. However, I'll probably opt for a much more conservative approach. For now I only know that I really like skydiving (or even more precise: tandem-skydiving) I've no clue if I'm any good at it, so I'll probably try AFF level 1 first. If I'm not a total failure and/or danger to society whilst falling out of a plane I'll think about the next step. Edit, I asked Google about it, and it turns out that indoor skydiving is much cheaper then I remembered it was, even better I won't have to go abroad to do it. So now it's becoming a much more viable option....

OK, I'll bite 1. Whats your name? Marinus 2. How old are you? 34 3. Why did you decide to start jumping out of airplanes? I got curious about what is was like, booked a tandem-jump last week, which resulted in me really, really, really wanting to jump out of planes more often. 4. Are you single or taken? Married 5. Do you have kids? No 6. What do you drive? Hyundai Matrix (but I prefer to go by bicycle on short distances (10 miles or less)) 7. Have you ever done a kisspass? I've no idea. What's a kisspass? 8. Where do you live? The Netherlands 9. Do you have any pets? No, but the significant other has 2 dogs and 8 cats. I grudgingly admit I love them too, but it takes an hour of extra cleaning each day. 10. How many jumps do you have? Does a tandem jump count? 11. What color eyes do you have? Brown 12. What is your nationality? Dutch 13. Have you ever dated someone you met off the internet? Of course 14. Favorite Movie? The 1998 Canadian film "Last Night" 15. What do you do when you arent skydiving? Work, clean up the mess our pets make. 16. Have you ever BASE jumped? No 17. If not... do you want to? Probably not, ask me again in 2015 18. Do you have siblings? Yes, a lot actually 19. Where do you want to travel to the most? New York 20. What's your favorite color? Green 21. Where was the last place you flew to ( not skydiving )? The Netherlands (from Cyprus/Iraq)

Because all European countries are kingdoms? But to be honest, I don't have a clue why we still have a royal family. Hereditary rule does seem to be a bit out of place, in our otherwise rather progressive country. Btw, the Monarchy is not even two centuries old, we used to be a republic before that. I think there's several reason why we still have a Royal Family. They were too cute to decapitate, they did a rather good job on average, they've hardly any political influence, we can afford them and there's simply bigger fish to fry. How did we end up here again? It started out with guns and dope, and now we're talking politics. Quick! someone should throw religion into the mix.

Oh, I'm sure it's all connected, but you paint a picture that's a bit too one-dimensional, and shows only a couple of sides of the whole picture. The arms race surely played a role in the collapse of the USSR, but it was a bit more complicated then that. In the end the US didn't give E-G back to W-G unless you're a very creative historian. I sort of understood that, it was just my commie Anti-Americanism relapsing This, sir, is simply untrue. Of course we achieved less, but we (as you probably know) are much smaller. However on a relative scale we did rather well for ourselves. In many aspects we're better off then the US. And we're not the only Western European country that is just like that too. As for the Improved technology: I might be wrong about it, but a whole s***-load of technology-based stuff in my home isn't of American origin, so I think you're wrong there too. Because we had lemonade and cookies? Oh....

That part worked all right, during most of the ride (and until approximately 3 days later LOL) I had a silly wide grin on my face. Reportedly even during sleep. With a bit of luck I'll add a geriatric nurse to the mix in the near future. Thank you!

Congratulations with that! Winter is coming so I'll probably start the AFF next spring. I don't think it's even possible to jump in the late autumn/winter here, and since I really hate winter anyway, I'm waiting for a better season to embark on this adventure. Glad I'm not the only one. I felt a bit like a freak when I was back home manically googling on all things skydive related. I should have been relaxing with a cup of tea or even a beer, not trying to find a out how I could throw myself from a plane more often. Except for the first seconds, I was able to think more or less coherent during the whole thing. So that's kind of reassuring. The only thing that I had a little trouble figuring out is why I couldn't breath: it turned out I simply forgot to exhale. But since I knew the freefall would only last about 30 seconds it was only uncomfortable, not scary. Strangely enough I wasn't scared about the height: of course it's different because the brain doesn't seem to process that kind of altitude well, but only the thought of being up really high should have done me in. I really appreciate it