Dudde

Also keep in mind, online MMO's require being online - and those games might leave a port open that anyone can just reach into and grab your account info (although it might be a waste of time if all you do is game, there won't be much sensative data) I'd at least get a firewall

I think we'd be better off if the US had more people like these guys 1: I think as long as it benefits them, politicians encourage a ridiculous amount of bad behavior - fueled by large amounts of misinformation. And who cares if a previous democratic or republican party did it too, that's largely irrelevant to fixing the issue at present 2: No - but I agree with much of what Bascule has been arguing in this thread in regards to the tea party movement as well as the anti-war protests. Protesting war and laying out coffins in front of the white house is arguably different than calling someone 48 times to make threatening phone calls, or threatening to kill your representative for voting on the HC bill (there are two links here, one dem, one rep) - these kinds of actions should at least be backed by correct information and legitimate fears, something more thought out than what they're going to do before they kill you (I believe in relieving fears about the bill, but have you tried explaining some of the issues they have with the bill? They didn't read the bill, but they seem to know what's in it, and they seem to know everything I know is a lie)

I'm not religious whatsoever and I practice lent every year, just to see if I can give something up for that long (and no meat on fridays) last year was caffiene, this year was pop. You should do it just to put some variety in your daily practice, it's not like it's bad for you

I'm not necessarily an expert, but a quick search turned up this: Link It could be that the quality of fly-ash your'e using is increasing permeability of the concrete, which certainly wouldn't be good for the strength

I don't necessarily agree with morality coming from a divine savior - but I do agree that a system saying something is bad because it hurts or disadvantages another isn't a good one. In the example given, raping a coma patient, I'd say is completely immoral simply because you have no consent from that person to do what you're doing (and the fact that you're doing it to someone who can't protest or do anything about it is detestable) In the blow-up doll example, that's really nothing more than masterbating with something to assist - I don't like the idea, but I don't find it immoral, whatever makes you happy in this respect. Dolls are neither people nor do they harm anyone using them (or not using them)

from your link: That's kinda scary, makes me want to have children just to homeschool them, so I can make them integrate into normal child society and mess with all the theologically taught children

That's a good answer JohnB, I'm glad you know how to handle tough situations I think this is a good question: Personally, I would want to know if there was some jerk hitting me every 12 seconds for no reason at all, but if I didn't, it really wouldnt' matter. At this point, I would agree with Phi that it would depend heavily on your own sense of morality since the victim wouldn't remember enough to care - and personally, I would find it highly immoral, the same as beating on someone that is unable to defend themselves

On the contrary, I think this is part of the question "Should science be secular" - to be honest, science isn't really around to provide everyone the soft squishy answers they're looking for, we use science to provide evidence or come up with raw data - I think the kind of questions you're talking about are simply people wanting to lie to themselves to feel better. Do I condemn their decision? Of course not, but nor do I openly invite them to ruin solid information with emotional qualms. There's a time and place for everything, lying to yourself is a place for the home, something that affects only you - scientific data, decisions and progress that affect us all should remain secular in order to better progress humanity, as opposed to riding the agenda-train of any particular religion EDIT: No offense intended by the 'those who want to lie to themselves' bit for anyone who may have taken so

There are plenty of reasons you could give, this last statement makes me believe you're not prepared to accept anything other than what you've given though. why did she die saving you? The current overpowered her when she was trying to swim to safety with you, so she did what she could to at least save her baby, most likely - I know several mothers who would risk their own life to save their child, emotions can play a deep and important role in daily decisions, but that doesn't mean you have to attribute them to religion, even while not attaching them to science. I, for one, would never tell a child that their mommy died because some all-powerful entity in heaven wanted her to die, why turn him bitter against God that may or may not exist, when you can make sure he understands how important his life is so he can make something of himself and carry his mothers memory through legacy? the question 'why' is answered in the how, 'because the light being diffracted by the molecules etc. etc.' If the question was 'why did somebody want the sky to be blue', you stop asking scientific questions and start looking for a divine answer

This sums up what I was going to say pretty nicely. The argument that "saying the pledge is optional" is ridiculous and selfish - of course it's optional, so is having the usage 'God' in the pledge. the difference between the two is that without the word, everyone who loves their country can say it comfortably and show patriotism, whereas with the word included is kinda like saying "you don't show allegiance toward your country unless you believe in God" - and again, I'm fine with not saying the pledge, or just saying the word God because I'm non-religious and it doesn't bother me, but to pretend that this absolutely can't offend anyone because they don't have to say the pledge is pretty myopic

Unfortunately, in this set of tools, only one of them is going to better protect people in the future from a glaringly obvious recurring effect - in this case, science would tell us to build a better dam or move the inhabitants so they stop dying everytime it breaks. It's great that one or two people can alleviate the loss of family members or friends by thinking of a higher power, but sometimes you're just not ready to let them go to something so easily preventable. Science should be secular especially in this example, given that

The capitalization of the word God is indicative of a name, not a deity. One nation under god would uphold this phrase. I agree with iNow, I don't give a dang about whether anybody wants to openly practice and love their religion, but thinking that the pledge referring specifically to "God" isn't religious is ridiculously blind sighted.

While I agree to most of your points, I must strongly disagree here. The selfish thing to do may be to reason away what happened via God and be sad, but that hardly fixes anything. Your initial questions of "what caused the dam to break and what can I do to prevent this from happening again" is surely an infinitely better choice - otherwise you condemn someone in the future to undergo what you're going through, or worse. I believe this should be true, only vise versa. A lot of scientists who try to rationalize religion are or were once religious themselves and looking for answers, hardly reasonable to tell someone practicing a faith not to seek answers.

Sorry I didn't actually see this response til now, To the fertilized egg the womb IS the external environment because the egg does not share the genetic code of the surrounding organ. It is therefor a separate organism. I don't accept this answer, you're denoting that a fertilized egg living inside the mother and with a direct attachment to suck nutrients out of her to *survive and grow* is a self sustaining life form and thereby a unique individual who's life is to be protected. I'm fully for the notion that we should set a trimester limit for prerequisites in having an abortion, but your case eludes me as to why this organism is to be protected, whereas ringworms and virus' are to be removed immediately.

caught a typo for ya I remember having all these great teachers growing up, all the way through highschool - graduated 2003, so not that long ago. However, I've had to talk with several of my younger brothers' teachers (he's 17) and never had I wanted to punch someone to make them shutup and listen more

My mistake, I meant to replace "you" with "one" - it was not directed as a personal attack, rather, it's a common argument I hear against abortion in reasons to ban it. Of course you have a right to believe most abortions these days are immoral, and I agree that there are probably women are using it as birth control, which is infuriatingly against what my arguments are for - however, they have that choice, whether I like it or not, and I certainly wouldn't attack (or kill) anyone for believing otherwise.

Not necessarily, I think the terms to be pretty apt Pro-life: no abortion, life is too precious, pure and simple. A few give way to certain horrible scenario's, but for the most part, pro-life, no choice pro-choice: Does not advocate abortion or death, merely the freedom to choose what's right for their own situation. I know several pro-lifers who accuse me of wanting to kill babies, but it's simply not true - I just want their dirty hands off my personal choices

This bill kinda tells me that the legislators of NY simply don't have enough important issues to keep busy on.

... this differs from a fertilized egg because the egg can be extracted and survive on its own? I'm not sure I follow this example

the only real moral issue is of stealing the hard work that someone else does to know and complete the required information - I think after that, cheating is really just cheating yourself. If I copied off my neighbor in a computer class (assuming they knew what they were doing) and applied for the position I have now, I would've been fired within a week for incompetence, and I think a majority of higher education positions are like that

What you feel is irrelevent to the fact that you're taking rights from those who don't know you and who may believe things that you yourself do are immoral, and doing all this without even caring to learn their stories and reasonings Nobody I've ever met who was pro-choice ever advocated getting abortions, and several I know personally volunteer to teach safe sex as well as much better alternatives to abortion - personally I know someone very closely who believes strongly in abortion who became pregnant with a child she didn't want, knew she couldn't take care of and never wanted to see the father of the child again. Contrary to knee-jerk reactions, she spent months trying to find any gay/lesbian couples, couples who can't have children, etc. who would want to have a son they may not otherwise have (this child ended up going to close friends of the family who wanted a baby but were unable to produce) It's always been the pro-life crowd conjuring images of teens getting abortions every weekend and the like, in reality, the decision is almost always much more difficult, and has quite a few negative health impacts on the woman usually

I've done this in a few 90's series cars, the only thing that happened was a loss of forward acceleration due to fuel injection - however, if I remember correctly, it doesn't work with my '99 cavalier (although I may not have tried it yet, I'll get back on this one)

A lot of arguments I hear are that the government and lefties are just trying to prevent us from driving large vehicles and get rid of economic stability brought by having a major resource like gas and oil - and while I find that a perfectly stable and acceptable argument, couldn't the effort be made at least so that we stop being huge lazy slobs as a society as a whole? Don't get me wrong, I like polluting my own drinking water as much as the next guy, and I love developing this cough just because I can't go outside without 50% of the air I breath being pollution, but to relate it to another thing I hate - it's like walking through walmart's parking lot and seeing 10,000 carts 4 feet away from the cart drop-off thingies. I don't necessarily feel that we should need to go through several decades of arguing amongst ourselves in order to decide to clean up a bit, it's not like starting to promote a healthy environment and less dependency on these materials is going to end up doing anything bad, and it's not that expensive for us to stop being so lazy. This is also the best argument I usually use against deniers IRL, because they don't want to look like a slob (and truthfully it doesn't work unless you have others listening to your conversation, otherwise they start talking louder until you stop)

This was very interesting, and I feel that I'd like to research some of that independently to check it out. sadly, her effort to make us want to read her book worked, I kinda wanna read the book now