JackC

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Everything posted by JackC

  1. JackC
    That sounds really cool. I'd like to get a really nice katana at some point but for now I've got an old japanese gunto. I was lucky to find one that was traditionally made by a half competent smith but it took me several years and hundreds of peices of junk to find it. It actually doesn't make a bad iai-to believe it or not.
  2. JackC
    It's the first one I made. A hand forged tanto from W2 tool steel, differentially hardened using the traditional clay method. I also made a Khukri and a european style pillow sword which needs finishing. Unfortunately my forge wasn't really big enough to do anything larger than a wakisashi and it got trashed when I moved house.
  3. JackC
    Here's one I made earlier.
  4. JackC
    The entropy of a closed system always increases. Evolution in itself isn't a closed system, it's part of a much larger system. There's nothing that says you can't have a decrease in entropy in one area at the expense of an increase in another area so long as the total entropy increases.
  5. JackC
    I eagerly await the reference to the journal article. I doubt it is as you describe though. Creationist do produce these arguments from time to time but I've never yet seen one stand up to scrutiny.
  6. JackC
    Exactly. If you train to pull a punch, guess what happens... Not that other martial arts can't be fun, I really enjoy iaido but it is virtually useless.
  7. JackC
    It's really not worth discussing anything with you then is it?
  8. JackC
    I dunno, I've blocked jabs that came completely out of the blue. I wouldn't have been able to do that if I hadn't been doing loads of MA training. Haymakers you can see coming a mile away, there are much better things to do. A lot of martial arts are overrated though, not least because they take a long time to get proficient. I reckon the best bang for the buck is wresling and boxing or kick boxing. Some eastern martial arts and their variants are OK, most are overrated though. Whatever MA you try, training without sparring is like skydiving without ever jumping out of a plane. And pick something agressive.
  9. JackC
    I think half your problem is that you're confused as to the meaning of the word theory. In science there are facts, like gravity, electricity and magnetism and yes even evolution. Then there are laws like Newtons Law of Universal Gravitation, Ohm's Law. A law simply describes the facts, like Ohm's law simply describes the relationship between resistance, current and voltage. Laws do not attempt to explain why things happen, merely the relationship that they adhere to. Then there are theories. Theories provide an explaination as to how and why certain things happen. For example quantum theory explains how fundamental particles interact with each other. Natural selection is the theory that explains how the fact of evolution leads to different species of animal. Theories cannot become laws and a law has never been a theory. You said how you respect those that are diligent in anything that they do, perhaps you wouldn't be so confused if you applied some diligence to your learing about science?
  10. JackC
    It is still just a game that needed a force in order to be played. It doesn't matter how the letters change to get the point of the excercise but in this game you'll need to do it yourself, obviously. Now are you going to play or not? How many iterations do you need for microevolution to become macroevolution? Is a straight answer too much to ask?
  11. JackC
    Phil, I would have thought the answer was self-evident. All science is either physics or stamp collecting.~ Ernest Rutherford,
  12. JackC
    I'll give you micro evolution...but that's all...and you very well know that's all you can expect. From a creationist, yeah, that's pretty much all we would expect. Here's a game for you to play. Take a string of 100 ramdom letters. Next change 1 letter at random. Keep doing that and every time you see a recognisable word fragment in the string, keep that fragment and change one of the other letters. How many iterations does it take for you to get a usable word somewhere in that string? Does iteration #1 look the same as iteration #223462345782? If you compare iterations #236 and #237, and call that change microevolution what happens if you compare iteration #245 with iteration #284571457? Is that still microevolution?
  13. JackC
    Given what He had to work with I think He did a pretty good job. A bad workman always blames his tools For an omnipotent workman, there's really no excuse.
  14. JackC
    I don't know that. The implication I got didn't go any futher than spirituality is an emotion. He might have wanted to imply something else but his explaination was incomplete to say the least. I did. The only entity capable of writing a book in the 1st century that would stand up to 21st century scrutiny would be god. Man would be able to write to his generation but he wouldn't be able to see much further than that. A real omnipotent omniscient god would be able to inspire a much better written book than the bible.
  15. JackC
    I'll buy into that theory but I'll bet we differ on what it was inspired by. It makes some sense actually, especially when you combine it with SpeedRacer's "spirituality is an emotion" hypothesis. It would go along way to explaining why the bible is such convoluted gobbledegook and no one can put their finger on exactly what it means, why god is such an incoherent concept, why trance and ritual plays such a big part and why it's such a big pain in the arse to elect a new pope. Yep, the bible is the incoherent "stream of consciousnes" dribblings of a bunch of bronze age hippies possibly with the help of chemically enhanced brain gravy. As a hypothesis it's substantially more plausible than godidit.
  16. JackC
    I was talking about the stupidity of doing away with evidence in favour of assumption as a general principle but to answer your question: In a religion class, I'd want someone who can teach what everyone believes. I wouldn't want religion in a school taught by a preist or an imam, I'd want it taught by someone who can remain objective not someone who is defined by their subjectiveness.
  17. JackC
    One emotion, a cocktail of emotions it doesn't matter. They have no reality outside of the person feeling those emotions. No matter how real they are to the person, and they are real, they are still personal and subjective. And science can investigate that interaction despite you saying it can't or shouldn't or you personally not wanting to. Giant so what? If you have a point beyond "emotions are real" I'd appreciate you hurrying up and getting to it. That's only true If I accept your emotion=spirituality definition. If I take the dictionary definition of spirituality, then you're wrong. Again only if we accept your emotion=spirituality definition. If we accept the dictionary definition, you haven't pointed out anything.
  18. JackC
    Really? You really believe that? OK let's assume I'm a teacher of medieval English literature. I teach the unfounded assumption that when Chaucer wrote "Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote" he wasn't actually indicating the start of spring and the end of a brutal winter as is usually understood but instead he was explaining how his girlfriend Aprill, left him for some bloke named Shoures Soote. Because of my assumptions all my pupils fail their exams and I get fired. Yay for me. I'm not buying it.
  19. JackC
    It does not take religion to make a man moral so that's a strawman but that aside, from your argument I take it you're prepared to say the ends justify the means? How much does it really benefit society to do away with evidence in favour of assumption. Guantanamo is full of assumptions.
  20. JackC
    Speedracer, all you have done is asserted that spirituality is an emotion. Emotions are caused by chemicals in the brain interacting with the synapses. If that is all spirituality is then why the hell are we having this discussion? I'll happily agree with you that the chemicals in your brain make you think god loves you. I'll even agree that the feeling you have really exists and is quite powerful. This in no way proves, or even establishes a precident that your emotions are based on a real entity known as god. Throwing out the rational, anylitical, scientific method of thinking when it comes to spiritual matters wont help to figure it out for yourself.
  21. JackC
    Sure they do. Just because you don't want them to or can't think of a way of using them doesn't mean they can't be applied. If there is a question, you can be damn sure that a scientist somewhere is trying to answer it, no matter what it is. If something is to be a real "thing" surely it must exist independent of the observer. If it doesn't, then it's no different from any imaginary construct. If you're saying that god/spirituality is just a feeling then OK, I'll give you that, but if you want me to believe that god is a real thing that exists and isn't simply a halucination caused by the interaction of your synapses and your brain chemistry then you'll have to do better. Much better.
  22. JackC
    What the fuck?!!?!??!!! How in blue blazes can believing an assumtion and ignoring all the contrary evidence, even when it is overwelming, be anything other than inherently bad? Sorry Bill but I cannot describe how monumentally stupid I think that comment is.
  23. JackC
    Why not? The scientific method is a damn good way of telling fact from fiction. Can you give me a good reason why you refuse point blank to use the best tool you've got in order to test the truth of something so important?
  24. JackC
    But it doesn't bother you that two scientist can look at the same "evidence" and come up with two hypothesis? I don't know about Phil but it bothers me, hence my profession. But to quote Albert Einstein: "If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?" Science is a self correcting discipline for the most part because a theory that doesn't fit the facts is wrong and must be revised. Unlike religion where if the theory doesn't fit the facts, they change the facts.
  25. JackC
    That's not what I said at all. I base what I believe on what I know. I don't know anything at all about the deist god because he is by definition, outside of the box I am limited to and has never been inside. But belief in the deist god would be irrational because belief implies some knowledge of the object of my belief. I have no knowledge so I'd be an agnostic atheist towards the deist god. The christian god is different, he has allegedly been in this box and has inspired books so I can know quite a bit about him. From the stuff he is supposed to have inspired (or even written) he turns out to be about as logical as a square circle and my disbelief is justified on those grounds. I cannot categorically state that no gods exist since I am not omniscient. But I can say that all the gods I've bothered to investigate are very, very improbable indeed. Is that better?