philh

The prophecy has come true, he is our saviour: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6584229.stm Kryptonite is no longer just the stuff of fiction feared by caped superheroes. A new mineral matching its unique chemistry - as described in the film Superman Returns - has been identified in a mine in Serbia. Researchers from mining group Rio Tinto discovered the unusual mineral and enlisted the help of Dr Stanley when they could not match it with anything known previously to science. Once the London expert had unravelled the mineral's chemical make-up, he was shocked to discover this formula was already referenced in literature - albeit fictional literature. "Towards the end of my research I searched the web using the mineral's chemical formula - sodium lithium boron silicate hydroxide - and was amazed to discover that same scientific name, written on a case of rock containing kryptonite stolen by Lex Luther from a museum in the film Superman Returns. " Document from the future: "Of course Superman was real, we know this becuase the people that wrote the film described exact chemcial composition of unknown minerals well before science had discovered them. How can you explain this if not for the fact the holy ghost inspired the authros?"

i think his story - that GWB's white house was too dogmatic and arrogant to take the Aq threat seriosuly is a lot more resonable than they plotted to kill thousands of their own people.

Or much more likely the Bush govt was incompetent. Read Richard Clarkes book "Against All Enemies". He was inside the highest levels of the White House and the picture he paints is a dogmatic administration who were too stupid to listen to and act on the advice they were given.

I read your last page and I think there are many uinjustified assumptions first off: "It appears to me that he's either all-loving or all-powerful, but not both." or neither or he doesnt exist in the first place. "If we're all here by accident and are subject to chance throughout our lives, only eventually to die with no hope of a future, who cares about standards and values! If we're just advanced animals, let's behave like animals! (Gaukroger)" At most this quote tells us why we might want god to be real, but wanting something to be real does not make it real. I could just easily say a world without unicorns would nto be worth living in so unicrons must exist. Moreover we do behave like animals, studies of animal behaviour (especially primate) behaviour show many similarity with human beaviour inlucidng compassion, aggression, political manouvering etc etc. The reaosn to have standrads and for life to have value is precisely because we only get one life so we have to make the most of it. If you believe in an eternity in paradise the value of this life can be diminished and in no small number of cases this has can lead to suicide bombings , inquisitions and sorts of attrocities. By the way evolution is not random, it involves a random element (mutation) and a non random element(selection).

"Doesn't more heat mean more water evaporation, which means more clouds, which means more rain? I believe it's called a cycle. " Clouds have both positive and genative feedback processes.The negative feedback exists yes, more heat , more evaporation, more cover from solar radiation. But there are also positive feedback effects , in particular water vapour can act as a greenhouse gas. Cloud feedback are very complicate and not fully understood.Thats one of the main reasons why climate models vary so much. However , the majority of models still predict the Earth warming above normal cyclical variation and this is a major cause of concern.

Yes I think many atheists (me included) do say goddammit and other religiously decorated language. I (ad many others like me) do not deny the our cultural heritage, onl the validity of its assumptions, that a big differnce BTW I started to read your link but there was too much stufff, maybe you can sumarise your point here.

No one weather event is evidence of global warming. Aggregate data is what counts. Mosts scientists agree the globe is warming and droughts like these may become more common as a reult but any one event is not evidence either way.

Are you saying GWB is not righteous? he was chosen by god.

froma reviewer on Amazon: "He claims to be a doctor and names degrees, but not schools. I e-mailed his website and asked them where he went to school. They didn't give me a straight answer, but told me to do a "biographical search". Why would I need to do that? Why bother to answer me if they couldn't just name a school? I still couldn't find his alma mater. He got his "degree" from an online course, I'm now told. I've seen his videos - he doesn't come across as being very bright. I was surprised, until I found out that he isn't really, truly a doctor the way he would have us believe. I'm no doctor myself, but I know the human body is made up of various channels and conduits and systems. Some are supposed to be slightly alkaline; others slightly acidic. It's a delicate balance and if you really want to learn more about it, you might try a legitimate source like Dr. Susan Lark or Dr. Andrew Weil. Acid is not "bad"; what would we do without amino acids (proteins), for instance, ascorbic acid (vitamin C) or deoxy-ribonucleic acid (DNA)??? I'm no dummy, either, but I fell for this book until I found out more about the man. He is not to be trusted. And I wouldn't be saying this if I couldn't stand behind my statement 100%. "

You know, there is a large number of people out there who think that the equation of WMD's plus nuts equals bad." Well, this is true. It IS a bad thing. What makes it bad? WMDs, nuts or both? WMds typically do not evil when in the hands of a righteous individual. Nuts typically do no harm without an instrument of the harm.

Good point , if they believe this madman was doing gods will, then its not exactly a big leap for one of them to grab a gun and do gods will themselves. it might be an interesting question to those who are theists - if you believed god commanded you to kill would you do it? I hope many would say no but I fear there are people out there who would say yes.

As Im sure you would have seen by now the killer has released a manifesto. There was one cultural influence he did reference: "Thanks to you, I die, like Jesus Christ, to inspire generations of the weak and the defenseless people." Im sure if he said I die like Tupac Shakur everyone would have come out blaimg rap music or if he had mentioned Grand Theft Auto they would be blaming video games. but as you can see he mentioned Christ you think the same logic will extend? I doubt it.

"No doubt, the US is an extremely violent country compared to other countries. Hell, this country glorifies violence. Video games made it look cool to just kill for the sake of killing. Movies has shown a generation the cool gangsta way to hold a gun when you're popping a cap in some fools ass. Rap music has shown that it is cool to slap a ho or to kill anyone who gets in your way. It is not the fault of the gun but the fault of society that allowed this image " Im sorry but violent video games and movies dominate European and Asian culture as well, and rap music is very popular also; but yet you still see a huge disparity in the crime rate.I would try another cultrual influebnce if i were you.

"It's not the gun laws, it's the culture" Well thats a very broad statement and a problematic one becuase it assumes the guns laws are seperate from the culture and they are not. If we assume that one of the problems with the USA is its unhelathy cultural love of firearms how would we be able to say its the culture, not the laws? the laws come form the culture. What is interesting is that the if you look at nations that have similar income levels, similar political institutions and similar cultural influences (Music, movies, tv etc), such countries as those in Western Europe, Australasia etc (bascially G8 nations) - they all have much lower crime rates. So I woulld ask, what is it about their culture that you think is so dramatically different? Actually as I was typing this I did think of one big cultural difference and that is religion. The USA has a much higher percentage of believers than other wealthy democracies, maybe its that if not the guns? More importantly you assume that the gun crime in the USA is an either or thing, its either the gun laws or its the culture, you assume it cant be both. You assume the two cant interact and its very likley the true cause of the USa's crime rate is a mixture of more than one factor, the large amount of firearms being one of them, other cultural influences also playing their part.Let me ask a simple question lets suppose there are cultural influences in the USA not found in other similar nations that makes, for example, a teenager angry and want to murder dozens of people, will it be easier or mroe difficult for him to do it if he has easier access to firearms? I wonder if Europe banned high perfromance canopies and the USA was swarming with them and the USA had 8.5 time the skydiving fatality rate would you deny the canopy difference could be a factor? "To reinforce that "culture" idea, note that Japanese-Americans, with full access to all the firearms they want here in the U.S., murder each other at the same low rate as do the Japanese back home in Japan," Well you have just contradicted yourself because presumably Japanese in the USA are more subject to American culture than Japanese in Japan; so if it were cultural one would expect them to have a higher crime rate in the USA and you have just pointed out they dont. By the way I did screw my calcs USa's homicide rate is 8.5 not 11.5 higher , sorry but I dont think it alters the point . Yes the anti gun laws didnt stop one person getting a gun, but I dont know a single law in the world that has never been broken by one its citizens. To criticise Japans gun laws as innefective because they failed in one occasion is utterly ridiculous.

No ones saying laws are never broken even in Japan. My point was a simple one, if you are implying that the Japanese anti gun laws are worthlesss becuase of this one incident then such an implication is very wrong becuase the overall statistics (which real social sceintsts look at )speak otherwise. These are the facts I will restate them in case you missed it : USA had 11.5 times the homicde rate per capita then Japan, now what implication do you want to draw from Japans strict anti gun laws? That one guy got through the system? I guess if one rogue nation gets a nuclear bomb its not worth trying to stop nulear profileration?

its interesting that you got a similar result of about 10% of Chrsitians being not sure of gods existence. What this does indicate is that when polls show how many people are Christian they may be overstating the numbers. Possibly some popele ccall themselves christian because of cultural upbringing rathher than belief.

"Isn’t interesting how the word “prayer” is used so often after tragedies like the Virginia shootings? Newscasters and politicians (who would otherwise avoid a religious comment) say such things as, “Our thoughts and prayers are with them”. " My experience is that that is common in the USA not in Europe, it just reflects the more widespread acceptance of religion in the USA, so what? "Maybe this goes back to the old adage that “there are no atheists in foxholes”. " http://www.atheistfoxholes.org/about.php "A higher power is needed in situations like this whether or not there’s a separation of church and state. " a higher power, if it existed and was interested in our affairs, might have actually prevented the massacre. I think what you mean ia a blief in a higher power, thats not the same thing.

If you actually read the article it says: "The shooting was RARE in a country where handguns are strictly banned and only five politicians are known to have been killed since World War II."(my emphasis) number of murders in Japan per 1000 is .00499 numbers of murders in USa per 1000 is .0428 USA murder rate is 11.5 times higher than in Japan, so the point of your incident is what?

I used to think cospiracy theories were all junk until i saw this: www.websurdity.com/2007/02/28/uncomfortable-questions-was-the-death-star-attack-an-inside-job/

"The pastor at my church once answered my wife's question about the dinosaurs. He said that the sense of time depicted in the bible versus real time are not the same. A million real years might equal one day in the bible... That was his explanation to a tough question... " Isnt that convenient. Whats interesting is that no pastors made this point before the scientific evidence showed it. What this is a case of is... bible doesnt fit the facts, no problem just change what it means until it does. Its not exactly the height of intellectual honesty. The problem is there is in Genesis a day is clearly defined as day and night, so the 1 creation day = 1 million eyars (or whatever it is) doesnt work. It further doesnt work because the Earth is 4.5 billion years old and humans are only a few hundred thousand years old. So even if the Geneiss day was a metaphor for some other amount of time it wouldnt help. Lastly the sequanece of creation is incorrect as well. for example stars are created after the Earth and after plants!

Sorry for not responding I have been away for a long long weekend. i would like to respond to thhe allegation that i presume was directed at me, "is a straw men when you bring up the atrocities of state christianity as an argument against a personal choice for christianity" First off I think i should make myself clear that the effects of Christianity have no bearing on the truth of Chrstian claims; that the god of the OT created the universe and his son came, got killed and rose from the dead, all to forgive our sins. I have explored the legitiamcy of those claims and found no evidence for them. Historical evidence presented for the story seemed inadequate and when scrutinised the topic was changed to the effects of Chrsitianity on Steve. My response was not predominately to discuss Steve's expereince but to discuss the effects of Chrstianity overall. i think I clearly demonstrated no clear postivie effect for Christian belief or negative effect for lack of it. Why is this a straw man? Is it because you divorce yourself from the negative effects of Christianity that Im sure you agree occur? Im sure you do, but my point is that if a large group of people all have a certain belief then those beliefs will have effects, intended and sometimes unintended. As possibly the greatest intellectual opponent of socialsm, FA Hayek once said "The Road to Hell is paved with good intentions". Wrong opinions held by large groups of people can have disatorus consequenbces. For example, if everyone believes in the power of prayer over the power of medicine then perhaps people dont get good medical treeatment and infectious diseases can lead to the decimation of whol populations as they did during the dark ages and threaten to do so again.The fact you would be motviated to build your orphanages to cope with sucha landlside of calmity would hardly make much difference. Ideas matter.

Well then we are at an agreement then that you dont have the original Torah, what you have in your own words is "as original as you are going to get". I agree with that. That is not the same as having the original though. Now this may seem like a trivial point if we are treating the bible as literature. But if we are treating it as some kind of divinley inspired book then it is a very importnat. Lets say that the book is divinley inspired then the fact that the text we have now may be different to what it was orignally is a majjor problem for literalists. The documentary hypothesis is also a major problem. If there was a fallible man putting bits of the Torah together well after they were written, possibly putting bits from many different traditions together then we cannot trust the text we have now as anything more than a human construct of its editor and contributors. Anothe point: the bible before the Jews? I think there is some evidence that some stories form the bible may have come from traditions older than the Jews. The flood stroy may well be copied from the Epic Of Gilgmesh, many scholars believ that to be the case.

No one is denying that there arent charitable organisation who are Christian. There are also charitable orgisation who are not Christian. Bottom line: Christianity is not needed to be charitable. However to give up medical treatment in favour of holy water, to burn someone at the stake for heresy,etc etc that takes Christianity (or some other silly dogma that is not backed up by evidence). Im sure you can provide examples of Chrsitians doing good and I can provide examples of Chrsitians doing bad. heres the real issue: if there was any substantial corrleation between having good people and therefore a good sciety and belief in god, we should see those societies without belief in god either in turmoil or at least doing significantly worse than their believing counterparts. If we take societies that have a similar political and economic conditions but have one big difference - their belief in god , we find we do have some soceities we can look at and see the effects. Scandanivia is mostly non religious ,countries like USA and Portugal are very religious. they are both democratic, indutrial, capitalist socities so we can control for those factors. What do we see? Well the UN publishes a list of coutnries ranked by what it calls "human development" this tries to rank the quality of life in countries including more than just economic wealth, but political freedoms , access to education, health care , crime rate etc. Guess who consitently wins? Norway The list for 2006 was this: 1. Norway 2 Iceland 3 Australia 4 Ireland 5 Sweden 6 Canada 7 Japan 8 United States 9 Switzerland 10 Netherlands Now why would the 3 of 5 most non believing countries in the world be so high on the list? this shows without doubt that theism is not needed for good people or a good society. The fact that you personally might have improved after becomeing a theist is not really relevant in the grand scheme of things, we need to look at the bigger picture. Above I have done that and shown the theism leads to good societies hypotheis is falsified. On the other hand there are plenty of examples of oppresion and murder thats been motivated by theism. There is a very good quote whos details I cant remember but I think is very relevant, it something like this: bad people do evil things, good people do good things, but it takes religion to make good people do evil things. I would also add stupid things to that statement, like ecnouraging people not to use condoms in Aids decimated Africa or refusing medicine in favour of holy water. these are real effects of theistic belief.

Your reply is still about you and your work. You are still not addressing the wider issues I brought up.

"To say what you just said tells me you don’t know a lot about the Torah/Bible either. So you know about the Leningrad Codex? what of it? " Well it is the earliest complete manusript of the Torah. Thats what my Hebrew teachers told me at shul, maybe they are mistaken. You can back up your thesis that contempoary Torahs are the same as the orginals if you have the original. As I understand there are no original manuscripts so all you have is conjecture. Furthermore if you know your biblical scholarship you will be familiar with concept of the documentary hypothesis. This states there were at least 4 authors of biblical texts. Moreover genesis is considered to have at leats two authors.There was also controversey within rabbinical circles, you should look up Rabbi ibn Ezra views on Joshua he is more in line with the documentary hypothesis than other more traidtional rabbis, they are not shared by all,hence there is not the consensus amonst rabbis that you like to imply. More importantly many scholars believe Ezra was the editor of the bible, piecing together many different stories from several sources and traiditons, this defies your implication that there is one true original text. That is not agreed upon by scholars and the claim is not backed up by evidence.