Ten oz

Yes, warm up. http://www.livestrong.com/article/462832-should-stretch-cold-muscles/

Spirits and non-human form existence beyond this world is a basic concept in religion. It is as though you are removing god then challanging us to be objective about heaven, hell, souls, and eternity. Only you are giving these terms different names: Soul - "It could be that even spirits and ghosts are actually dinizens of some inter-planetary "Hades", " Heavan/hell - "experiencing some dimension which we cannot comprehend." Eternity - " May be some people tap in to the "event horizon" " ESP, Deja vu, Intuition, and etc can be discussed individually. When a larger mechanism is implied that transends what is known about the human experience religion will always creep in to the discussion.

In the name of religion society doesn't mind parents home schooling kid with their own beliefs, living on compounds, using prayer over medicine, and a laundry list of other nonsense. We have a growing movement in this country of parents who aren't vaccinating their children and society is fine with it. Parents rights and all that. Yet somehow parents being gay is of concern? Do as you will in the name of Allah or Jesus but society draws the line at same sex parenting.....smh

Explosions could send microorganism traveling into space. Many theorize that is how life is seeded throughout the universe. I personally don't advocate such however. I agree that an alien species with an intelligence that mirrored our own would be easier to spot. For that matter life on a planet similar to our own would be easier to spot as well. We're looking for the familiar. We don't have enough information to say one way or the other if intelligence throughout the universe is generally accompanied the industries we have created on earth. Humans may be the most advanced of all industrious life forms or so destructively ignorant that other life forms in the universe may not even consider us intelligent. Until we find life elsewhere in the universe we won't know how the scale for intelligence is messured. As of now intelligence is a subjective term that only applies to the way humans feel about each other and animals here on earth.

There is nothing in us that's unique. We are carbon based life forms. The elements in us are in abundance throughout the universe. If we were the only living things it would be far more miraculous than if we weren't. It would challange our understand about what life is and how it is created. Like so many ignorant skeptics years ago who challanged evolution by demanding "the missing link" life on earth being the only life in the universe would question a "missing component" to life. Seperately I think it is pointless to differentiate between life and intelligent life.

You stated better than I did. great post.

Richard Dawkins is terrific but I don't really have a favorite book on Atheism. God is a fairy tale and I am mildly annoyed by all the hard work that is put into being an atheist. Somehow our society twists the burden of proof on those who don't believe in fair tales while allowing a lack of evidence to be its own form on evidence in defense of fairy tales. I don't believe in God because there simply isn't anything to believe in. All major religions can be disproven by a variety of disciplines be it historical record, biology, or cosmology. All other forms of mysticism are so loosely defined they don't deserve consideration as they are merely ideas of their creators still in their infancy. God does not exist. As such the study of God not existing should not be necessary. Atheism isn't a type of movement any more than people who don't believe in the Lochness Monster are.

Some theorize the universe is energy neutral. Lawrence Krauss in his book a universe from nothing advocated such. A big crunch into an explosion would require massive amounts of energy. Levels that don't appear to exists. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-energy_universe

Aboriginal people are believed to be the oldest living isolated population on earth. They left Africa and traveled through Asia 20,000 years before Asia was populated. There migration out of Africa was a seperate one they have remained isolated. http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2011/09/dna-confirms-aboriginal-culture-one-of-earths-oldest/ Race is skin deep. All humans have shared DNA and go back far enough and we are all related. The prevalence of one trait vs another has a lot to do with who killed whom, who raped whom, and who thought whom was attractive. http://web.mit.edu/racescience/in_media/what_dna_says_about_human/

The story of Noah is silly. It goes without saying Noah would never have gotten two of everything on a boat. That is the least of it though. It was obviously conceived but people who did not fully understand their world. More important than Lions, giraffes, and doves would've been plants, insects, and bacteria. Large mammals would not have been the key to rebuilding life on land following a massive Flood that killed all life.

What is the goal: speed, strength, stamina, or vanity?

Life skills are nice but there are so many factors that impact child. Millions of children are sexually abused, have abusive parents, family members on drugs, live in a violent community, and so on. Even beyond the really bad stuff most kids are fed garbage food with little nutrition, speed hours watching TV or playing video games because their parents want time to themselves, and don't get me started on Miley Cyrus. Couple the environmental impacts along with the various intensities and spans of puberty and it is easy to understand why our public education system struggles. I think schools need to stop treating bad students like bad children and good students like good children. Bad students are that way for a reason. Detention just feels like piling on to a kid that is already being abused at home. Think about; staring in elementary school kids are given detention for being late to school. Who fault is it though? Is it really a 5-11yr old kid's fault if they are late? So why do they bare the punishment? I think a lot of schools spend too much time and energy rewarding success rather than trying to help children who could use it. I understand why. It is a lot easier to teach well adjusted kids with terrific support systems at home than struggle to get the attention of some distracted kid who on average takes longer to understand what you're saying.

Evolution does not have good mutation and bad mutation. What makes a mutation helpful or not often has to do with chance. A gene that may be helpful to an animal in one environment may be a detriment to them if a comet, Volcano, solar flare, wild fires, disease, etc changes the environment quickly. Also intelligence doesn't always win out. Chance plays a role. Lots of high adaptive species have gone extinct included various types of humans. I think it is clear that certian concepts or blueprints are in genes. Otherwise how would a spider know how to build a web without ever being shown? Is it instinct for humans to walk or does it take concious thought? What about potty training; is not urinating all over oneself instinct or is it something we must be taught? So where is the seperation between instinct and thought? I think a lot is instinct. Humans over estimate themselves. Much as we consider ourselves individual and create scales to say this human is smarter or strong than another the seperation is actually very small. A "smart" dog breed may be capable of learning a hundred commands (made up number for the purpose of example). The difference between 90 and 100 commands wouldn't be considered relavent. We would consider the difference is in the dog's environment: diet, climate, training, and other chance factors. Ultimately both the 90 and 100 command dog would be be able to sit, play dead, fetch, get the paper, etc. Low IQ vs high IQ in humans is very similiar. Unless disable we can all speak, walk upright, dress ourselves, count, learn to play a musical instrument, etc. Some humans learn to do things at a greater or lesser levels but we all are capable of the same things. Go back in time 10,000yrs and introduce the humans there to any modern tool and they would be able to learn how to use it just as humans do today. We are all human after all and it is our genes that make us so.

@ Barfbag, you described expirements that had outcomes that were inconclusive but consistently so which you believe means something anomalous is occurring. I have two questions and apologize in advance if they're difficult to understand: - All humans, less disabled, are able to run at some point in their life. Only an extordinary few can run a sub 4 minute mile, sub 2:30hr marathon, and so on. As such many tests could be conducted to find a sub 4 minute mile human runner utilizing only top athletes and fail to produce any. Are you implying something akin to this in regards to extra sensor perception (ESP) experiments? That it is something humans are capable of but there are great differences amongst individuals which isn't properly factored into expirements? - Can you think of an experiment that might disprove rather than prove? While I do not believe in ESP my two questions are not challanges to your belief. I am just trying to ensure I fully understand what you saying you believe.

True, companies have invested billions in mines, oceans platforms, ships, and etc. Until the desired return on investment is achieved to the satifaction of their investors they don't care about anything but the here and now. Excellent point. If gas in the states were $10 a gallon a lot would change. Problem is many industries don't want to see that. Higher energy costs would change the way people live and put certian industries at risk. Living in the suburbs and commuting 50 miles each way to and from work stops making sense if that 100 mile a day round trip drive is costing $400 dollars a weeks. That effects home prices, property taxes collected from those home prices, building contracts in those suburbs, etc, etc, etc.

We have the ability to produce the energy we need. The crisis is in how we produce it. Fossil fuels are destroying our environment. We have alternatives but no one seems to be willing to walk away from a trillions of dollar fossil fuel industry.

Problem with the expirement you outlined is many people would accept a variety of outcomes as proof. If the expirement took 20 attempts and eventually produced statements with different words but about the say subject people would point to it and as evidence. People would agrue the results were inconclusive and thus lend suppurt to the possibility. This is why faith can never be disproven. The faithful do not have a standard measurement for success to messure against. Doubt is treated as evidence, randomness as odd defying events, chance as meaningful, and luck as proof.

I was in Antigua Guatemala a few months back. I had a great time. One night in particular I had found a bar showing the Seattle vs San Francisco playoff game (football). I drank, I watched, I danced, etc, etc. The next morning I woke up with a bit of a hangover. As I walked the streets looking for a pharmacy I saw lots of locals out hustling about. Young children working. A wave of guilt shot over me. I have had similar moments in Costa Rica, Panama, and Mexico. While I was there to party and do I wish made possible by the chance luck of being born in a healthier country so many people around the world aren't so lucky. I was taking advantage of it to buy cheap drinks. For ever one person on this earth that has the freedom to travel and enjoy hundreds will never know anything but a life of labor and indebtedness. I can relate to your question. In a world full of so much inequity it is hard to feel comfortable doing as you wish knowing that on some level your exploiting those inequities. I try to stay engaged politically. I vote in ever election from local school boards up to the white house. It is a snails race. Change is long and slow but knowing that I am not just shopping at Walmart while ignoring a political landscape that allowed for things that the Iraq war without consequence helps my feeling of guilt. It also helps me appriciate my time in other countries that much more. So my advice would be to figure out what you believe and support it in your life both politically and in how you live (where you shop, bank, transportation, etc).

If telepathy is real and if god is real than it makes sense that telepathy is how god would communicate. I don't understand how you turn that into evidence that god exists? If telepathy did not exist but god did doesn't it make sense that god would communicate with us by way of spoken language? Is that proof of anything? I am missing the connection.

It God is defined broadly enough just about anything would lend itself as proof. In your scenario we are asked to accept extra sensor perception and the God you're describing is a form of unified conciousness. You have structured the question so that the answer you desire is the most likely one. It would be like a Christian challanging us to accept, for argument sake, that Jesus rose from the dead on the 3rd day and then asking us if that would be proof he was the son of god. If telepathy were real it would be a form of communication between people like language is. Communication is not proof of god.

Nothing wrong with this question. I am not sure in what manner you mean "live/go"? Various types of drugs mixed with interactive gaming may provide a life like experience but I doubt a physical world full of fictional characters will ever be created.

@ Barfbag, I enjoy your enthusiasm. You once referenced being a novelist. I am sure your enthusiasm serves you very well. Your beliefs have helped you succeed in life. I don't discount that. I also do not doubt that you have found others who share your experiences. I just don't make the connections between low probability outcomes and evidence of phenomenon. Unlikely things happen all the time. It is unlikely that lightning will hit any one spot and yet it has to hit somewhere. The odds are against anyone winning the lottery but someone does in fact eventually win. As for what came before the big bang, I don't know. Uncertainty of one thing is not evidence for something else. God is an entirely seperate theory/concept than the big bang. The god concept requires its own evidence. Big bang doubt provides zero insight to god. It is just an excuse.

I think anyone who actually wants to be a parent has an advantage over those who don't. LGBT parents are considerably less likely to accidentally become pregnant and have a child they are not ready for. So most LGBT parents enter into parenting better prepared. ......and yes, the GOP will be outraged.

I could verify accurate time on a broken clock twice a day. if I did this twice a day everyday at the same times how would I ever know the clock was broken? I would be successfully repeating an expirement daily yet proving nothing. Point is we have to be careful about what we accept as evidence. Personal experience is not evidence and expirements are worthless when all the variables aren't accounted for and no messurement for success is defined.

I agree with that but by externally decode thought I meant process the thoughts of others. I can listen to what other people say but I don't ever truly know what they are thinking. Language is edited. Not only that but people often don't fully understand their own thoughts and motivations. Not only that but their is a difference between thought and compulsion or an idea vs programing. How does a spider know how to build a web? How do birds know how to make nests? Somethings are programmed and drive what otherwise seems to us like concious thought. If we could decode thought we could identify the difference. Perhaps even create our own programs?