karenmeal

What if this scientist was working on vaccines for your kids, cancer cures that your wife or mother could benefit from.. or other sorts of research. C'mon, wouldn't you really rather the scientist did actual research and didn't just come to a conclusion based on one book? Maybe inadequate research could lead to a vaccine that causes autism in kids or maybe your wife or mother dies of cancer because she was fed magical herbs that an ancient tribal medicine book said would work. How did you know it was true? All of a sudden you were just enlightened with omniscience and the ability to sense truths? I know some people who see an advertisement on TV for a cold-prevention drug that they try, just knowing that it will work. One placebo effect later, and the cold-prevention drug has "proved" to them that it works and they will forever recommend it to friends despite awareness of a large scale double blind research trial which fails to provide evidence of efficacy. They convince themselves of the truth and then are stubborn to accept the facts. "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

I'm eating celery with salsa right now. It actually hits my blood mary craving quite well. "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

I will see if my school library has that book tomorrow. I definitely disagreed with a number of things that Dawkins said. In particular I disagreed with his opinion that science will one day be able to discern the truth about the supernatural; specifically whether god(s) exist or not. Frankly, I feel that if there is a supernatural realm, that defies natural laws, that much of science won't be of particular use to figuring that sort of thing out. I suppose that is where my agnosticism comes into play. I feel that if there is more than the natural world, that we'll never truly be able to know when or if we have it all figured out. But I do maintain my very very strong feeling that the Christian god is certainly not what it's about. Edited to add: Where did you disagree with Dawkins? "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

My point has obviously missed you. Would you respect the work of a scientist who only studied one book ever? Or would you be skeptical of their conclusions? Please answer that question directly. I certainly hope that you would be highly skeptical of anyone who describes that as research. But really, that is what you are doing. Basing your belief system all on one book. Talk about putting all your eggs in one basket. Sure, some historical events in the bible are true, in fact many works of fiction are loosely based around a collection of facts. The fact that several things in the bible can be verified with historical documents is actually fairly meaningless. Have you ever noticed in your reading of the bible (which I hope you have atleast read cover to cover once) that even the gospels don't agree? What about all the books of the bible that were left out due to not fulfilling various political agendas throughout the years? Don't you wonder about those theoretically inspired words of god and what gems of knowledge and inspiration you may be missing out on? And let me guess.... at least one of your parents were/are Christians? Could it be, that you may have been brainwashed and lead to believe that the most righteous way to be is unquestioning? Why would a god have given you a brain if you weren't meant to use it? "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

I can see why everyone may want to get aboard your train too. Believing in an afterlife where you're rewarded for all eternity just for doing as you're told and not exercising independent thought does sound awfully nice, doesn't it? Unfortunately, I really highly doubt that that is the case. If you read my previous posts, I don't need my brother to become an atheist to be happy. I just want him to think for himself. Unfortunately, his peers praise him for his blind faith. "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

If he thought for himself and still had that opinion, that would be fine. However, his research consists of essentially reading one book; over and over. He learns small bits of other religions from his Sunday School teacher. (Likely handpicked bits designed to try and reinforce his belief system.) He has laughed while recounting to me the belief system of the Mormons. He somehow places a major distinction between his extreme beliefs and theirs; the Mormons being crazy in his view and destined for eternal damnation. What scientist would ever gain any sort of success if they adhered to that style of research? Oh.. and to add one more thing. If it were not for the fact that it's gotten so bad that I can't have a conversation with my brother without him trying to get me to talk religion, or without him reading me bible verses and praying for me over the phone, then I would not make any attempt to try to get him to investigate things a bit further. I never bring up the subject of religion around him. The fact that he has become so brainwashed over the last 5 years or so is really frightening and it was put a MAJOR strain on our relationship and family gatherings. "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

Could you qualify this a bit more? Because after having just read the Selfish Gene and The God Delusion in one week, I really have no clue what you are talking about. As far as preaching to the choir, I think in a great sense, that is quite often inevitable in these sorts of matters. For someone to feel like he wasn't just addressing his arguments at atheists he would probably need to lie and say that he agrees with major aspects of Christianity or some other religion just to get people to listen. Without doing this, I can imagine that many Christians (or other religious folk) will disregard anything that comes out of his mouth as rubbish simply because he doesn't agree with them. "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

His beliefs absolutely do impact me in a negative way; directly and indirectly. I am constantly subjected to his criticism and abhorrence that I am an atheist. He buys me books about Christianity, frequently quotes me bible verses that he then expects me to argue against. Inevitably when he realizes that I am no more likely to become saved by Jesus than I am to join a magic pixie cult, he gets angry at my pestilence and tells me that he has to convert me in order to save my soul from eternal damnation, because after all, I am his sister and he loves me. Frankly, I feel like I lost my relatively simple-minded brother to a cult. He has never been book-smart or particularly inquisitive about things beyond flying airplanes, making money and other sorts of materialistic obsessions. Perfect for the Southern Baptist movement. He went to a Southern Baptist Student Union during college and well, it feels like we've lost him. He has lost what little ability he once had to exercise independent rational thought. And what is worse than this, is he will soon be creating a new generation of automotons who are only capable of thinking inside the box that was presented to them upon birth. His faith says that there is no use for science. Which, I suppose if you truly believed with your heart of hearts that the earth was only several thousand years old and you had a book that told you all of history, why would you need science? Basically it would be just to make pretty observations about the way a god worked things out. But I think that is sad. Basically, I want to encourage my brother to exercise rational independent thought. Frankly I feel that the more people like him in the world, who advocate concepts such as blind faith, the worse the world is in general. If I got my brother to admit that there was a very good chance this his belief system was wrong, that would be a huge success, because he would at least be thinking for himself. That is all that I want. If he thought about it and converted to a muslim and then back to a Southern Baptist, even that would be a step in the right direction. Like so many people, he is incapable of feeling like he can even begin to rationalize the matter of religion. "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

Wanted: Well-read and reasoned individuals with which to discuss interesting matters with. Found: A bunch of superstitious twits. "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

I just finished reading this book.. now I have to go back for a second time. I would highly recommend this book to people who are interested in reason and logic and also to those who aren't. I can think of so many people who I would like to buy this book for. Dawkins has said that his goal with this book is that religious people who read it will become atheists. I love that Dawkins does not adhere to the normal cultural expectations of extreme sensitivity in the dicussion of religious issues. While his arguments may seem harsh given the superstitious nature of our culture, I have to agree with him that there is no reason to tip-toe lightly around religious subjects for fear of offending people. Hopefully this book will provide me with some fodder to win back my brother from the clutches of the Southern Baptist movement. I would love for a religious person to read this book and then respond to this thread. That is the sort of debate that I would be oh-so-happy to engage in. "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

I'll give you $35 for the magic rock. "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

You could do a jump without a cypress.. I had my cypress end up going back to Germany once and it took about 6-8 weeks. So that doesn't seem too excessive to me. But, I'm my own rigger, so the fact that I was the one that shipped it off and was the one to receive it probably reduced some of the total time that you may experience. "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. Very applicable to life in general. "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

I've never experienced something like that. I know when I was younger and had meningitis I had a really sore throat and a very stiff painful neck. As far as pain localized in the larynx, are you a smoker or do you have issues with reflux? I know that those can lead to contact ulcers/granulomas on the vocal fold and that can cause pain/irritation in the laryngeal region. "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

Don't forget to keep your pipes thawed out! "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

Well, so I called the landlord at 1:00 am. He brought his wet-vac over and got to work. We got the place pretty much drained, the carpets just need to be dried. Our friend, the carpet guy, is coming in a little bit to salvage some of the carpet, and our bedroom gets new carpet. (yay!) The main worry now is how hard it will be to find the leak and fix it. The plumbers in Seattle are fairly booked right now as this was extremely atypical weather and a lot of people have this problem. Oh man, last night sucked. But it was sooo good to have a landlord who came over and took care of things. As far as our stuff getting damaged, the floor is not level, and thankfully our spare bedroom with the computer and a bunch of rigs waiting for repacks and the entertainment portion of the living room are on high ground. The only real damage we sustained was to a Richard Dawkins book that I was reading. But that is a little sad. This is the fifth time in 2 and a 1/2 years that our home has flooded! (We moved in June.) When will it end?? "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

Fuck. House is flooded. What do I do now? "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

Not really new to cold climates.. we just didn't think it was that cold. My boyfriend lived in Montana for about 7 years and he was shocked that there was a problem. But the place we are renting is the exposed basement of a house, I think it was converted over into a duplex in a somewhat shoddy manner.. cheap plumbing add-ons with out insulation. "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

I ran out of beer. "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

There is no place to crawl! I wouldn't know where to look to check and see if they burst. Oh, and we have the hair-dryer pretty much directly on the pipe. The pipe is warm/hot to the touch. "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

So... some of our pipes are frozen! I know, I know, we should have left them dripping at night. I just didn't think they would freeze that easily. Now that they are frozen, we've got a hairdryer that's been warming the pipe for about an hour and a half and we have the water turned on. It is starting to drip sporadically. Since it is dripping, does that mean we're out of danger for having our pipes explode? And are there any other remedies that will help me expedite this process so that I don't have to wash our dishes in the bathtub? "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

Jonah LOVES snow.. being a Montana baby and all. I did not go into school yesterday. The roads were solid ice, Jeff left to go into work and turned around and came back, seing 3 accidents in less than a mile. To be honest, I'm not good at driving in snow/ice so I didn't push it. But I'll be leaving to go into Seattle in just a little while. "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

OK.. I have to post another snow/dog picture but with a cool sunrise. I love snow!!!!!!!!!!!! "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

Being a professional skydiver probably won't work out, but you should jump your ass off for a couple years anyways. Oh, and Billy is a prick, but he is going to blow his ass up launching a buttle rocket - make sure to offer to hold his beer. "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

Well, the problem with the snow here is that it melted and then turned into ice. Since most people don't own chains, that stuff is really hard to drive on. Especially with a hilly terain. "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham