winsor

One thing I find vastly amusing is fact that being martyred is viewed as the penultimate goal of jihad, being a free ticket to an eternal islamic Disneyland and whatnot, yet it is also the biggest source of bitching by those who espouse that particular brand of nonsense. If a group of Sunnis kills your Shiite family, it would seem that a thank you note would be more in order than a counterattack. "Thank you for sending my loved ones to the best place imaginable. With your able assistance they do not have to spend another minute in this disease ridden shithole, and are assured infinite bliss. You have done all of us, and the world in general, a great favor." Then again, maybe getting all pissed off is a hint that somebody has a sneaking suspicion that is is all bullshit.

So what you're saying is that the data cited is what it is, and the interpretation is unimpeachable. The only thing you have to attack is to attack the person offering the opinion. This is prettymuch what I've been saying for years. Because I look at the data and look out the window. The earth is warming. Human activity plays a role in it. But the warming has been marginal, will continue to be minor, and well-within human and natural ability tro adapt and will not be remotely disastrous, except to those who have a short memory about what is precedented. Even the deniers aren't really deniers. Sure, they do deny that we will die in fire and brimstone under a mile of liquid water by 2070. Which is the actual dividing line in this whole debate. Heresy! Burn him!

Too complicated for me. I'm not that way. It always meant to me, you made me think of question for you. I do not know how that got garbled up, but I think the link is fixed now. Irving M. Copi, in his "Introduction to Logic," used an example of Petito Pricipi along the lines of: People with good literary taste are more likely to read Shakespeare than Harold Robbins. How can you tell if they have good literary taste? They are reading Shakespeare, not Harold Robbins. Here the premise is the conclusion. The answer is thus begging the question. BSBD, Winsor

" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question." aka Petito Pricipi, is a version of circular logic. The expression almost always misused. IIRC, a Ph.D. trumps a Th.D. by a long shot. I have a D.D., which is on a par with a Th.D., as well as an M.S., B.S. - and am a B.M.F. as well. (Apologies to C. Marin) BSBD. Winsor

It, like my unicorn, is invisible and pink.

You have it exactly backwards. Let N be the number of claimed gods. (There may be some gods that are, as yet, unknown to us). Christians believe that N-1 of these are non existent. Adherents.com claims to have figures for 4,200 religious groups currently existing on Earth. Using the ratio of current population to the total number of people who have ever lived, we get an estimate of 63,000 religious groups throughout human history. (Only Homo sapiens' religions are being considered. It may well be that other hominids believed in god or gods, but it would be pure guesswork to estimate the number of gods they believed in.) The modern dominant religions are monotheistic but they are few in number. Wikipedia lists 309 Hindu deities. The ancient Hittites claimed to have 1000 deities in their pantheon. So for a rough estimate of the average number of deities per religion, we'll take the average of these 3 figures, giving 440 deities per religion. This gives an estimate of N = 28,000,000. How many gods do atheists not believe in? Answer = N For monotheists, the number of gods they don't believe in will be N-1, which, of course, will be very close to N. If the estimate above is correct, then (in some sense) atheists and monotheists only differ by 0.000036% in their beliefs. I understood that there would be no math. In Biblical math, pi = 3 exactly. (See 1 Kings 7) Sure serves to simplify things, eh? You need at least a 4-function calculator to get 355/113 (though a slide rule will give you the first 3 digits).

So, to your mind, what's the difference between an atheist and an agnostic? Agnostics apparently deem the issue to beyond the ken of mankind. Atheists are willing to go with the odds (10^-100,000,000,000,000 = 0 for all intents and purposes).

You have it exactly backwards. Let N be the number of claimed gods. (There may be some gods that are, as yet, unknown to us). Christians believe that N-1 of these are non existent. Adherents.com claims to have figures for 4,200 religious groups currently existing on Earth. Using the ratio of current population to the total number of people who have ever lived, we get an estimate of 63,000 religious groups throughout human history. (Only Homo sapiens' religions are being considered. It may well be that other hominids believed in god or gods, but it would be pure guesswork to estimate the number of gods they believed in.) The modern dominant religions are monotheistic but they are few in number. Wikipedia lists 309 Hindu deities. The ancient Hittites claimed to have 1000 deities in their pantheon. So for a rough estimate of the average number of deities per religion, we'll take the average of these 3 figures, giving 440 deities per religion. This gives an estimate of N = 28,000,000. How many gods do atheists not believe in? Answer = N For monotheists, the number of gods they don't believe in will be N-1, which, of course, will be very close to N. If the estimate above is correct, then (in some sense) atheists and monotheists only differ by 0.000036% in their beliefs. I understood that there would be no math.

Enlighten me! No problem. Assuming you have the credentials to get in as a Freshman (by no means a given), a good four years of pressure cooker study should get you going. That's if you really work hard, and can afford the tuition.

You overthink it. Given that nuclear chain reaction is well described as a stochastic process, there is a finite possibility that the chair on which I am sitting will undergo a spontaneous chain reaction and go supercritical at any time. The possibility of this event happening is so remote, however, that the likelihood works out to be zero to anything resembling significant digits. Similarly, the likelihood that anybody's definition of a 'god' has anything resembling a physical manifestation is vanishingly small. As a prime mover of the universe, let us list just some of the characteristics that were favored by my Bronze Age forebears and see how they stack up. Undetectable. Is anthropomorphic. Orders of magnitude more massive, powerful and complex than the entirety of the known universe. Given to actions for undiscernable motivations - variously described as mysterious, arbitrary or capricious, depending on who you ask. Is greatly concerned with the granular and nuanced details of events on this particular planet. Knows when we're naughty and when we're nice. What's naughty and what's nice depends entirely on who you ask. Has a propensity for warehousing at least one species of the entities of this planet ad infinitum (depending on whether they've been naughty or nice). And so on and so forth. Saying that any of that nonsense is as likely as my chair spontaneously undergoing a nuclear chain reaction is beyond generous. We are talking 10^-n where n -> infinity. This is to say nil, nada, zilch, zippo, squat for likelihood. This is a finite possibility so small that if it were any smaller it would be negative. Is it possible? Only for the sake of argument. If one thinks it is at all likely from a practical standpoint, thinking is not their long suit. BSBD, Winsor

Jesus, it pains me to consider that there could be a subject where we agree at all, but I think this might be it. I am less than impressed with our government's track record regarding the containment of lethal and communicable diseases. AIDS comes to mind. BSBD, Winsor

Umm no. An atheist uses the lack of any FACTS or EVIDENCE of the existence of any deity as the basis for their logical decision, not faith. The other major difference is were there actual proof of a deity, atheists and agnostics would be open to it, whereas as the religious would dispute any facts, such as they do evolution, the age of the earth, etc. This is all a logic fallacy as the question should not have ever been "Prove (insert deity name here) does not exist" but should be "Prove (insert deity name here) does exist." “That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.” ― Christopher Hitchens

Oh, some people find it comforting.

There are easily 7 times as many gods as there are leprechauns. Gods are a dime a dozen.

Yeah, John Kerry a turkey... NOT. The honorable John Kerry is highly decorated veteran excoriated by the Reich Wing America haters in 2004. The same people who pretend to shit a brick if anything bad is said about any other veterans. Those scumbags shit all over the Purple Heart medal with their band aids shaped like the medal. John Kerry speaks four languages fluently. He has multiple advanced degrees from top rated universities. He married a billionaire widow. He must be really stupid to be able to perform that well in so many areas. Shrub was and is unqualified to launder John Kerry's jockstrap. Shrub caused the deaths of thousands of Americans on 9/11, by his total lack of action, in spite of the warnings provided by Richard Clarke. Shrub killed thousands more Americans, and gravely wounded many thousands more, by conducting the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Not to mention the tens of thousands of Iraq citizens killed, and the hundreds of thousands that became refugees. John Kerry has all that money and he still worked to help the average citizen when he was a Senator. He continues to help the USA as SecState. For the Reich Wingers, that makes him a turkey, apparently. Scary, isn't it? How abjectly clueless is it possible to be? You have rather conclusively demonstrated that. Repeatedly.

thats true The only numbers that count are those on election day "It does not matter who votes. It matters who counts the votes." Josef Stalin

Um, isn't that what the US also does WRT operational security in a lot of cases? That's totally different. Totally.

Mine's registered in Delaware.

No, John Kerry IS a turkey.

More like Stone Age. Q: Why did cave men drag their women by the hair?

It would be entertaining to see how the current incarnation of Wild Weasels would fare against the antiaircraft deployed against Ukrainian forces. Even first generation HARMs were impressive, indeed. BSBD, Winsor

The war on drugs is over. Drugs won.

WBC gives mass-delusional malevolent psychotics a bad name.

About three firecrackers should do the trick.

I disagree. I think we should accept them and give them asylum - on Attu Island only (or maybe Kiska). You want the US of A? You got it! BSBD, Winsor