Edtharan

Check out this video by CDK007 on youtube: It has a good explaination of how life could have got started (and I think is one of the better ones I ahve heared).

One thing to note is that the Big Bang sinularity is a Space Time singularity. This means that only space and time didn't exist, this says nothing about anything else. So with the Big Bang, the Universe does not have to come from nothing, only space and time have to come from what was already there.

But you did not tell us how to determine what is true myth and fiction myth. Without the ability to tell them apart, how can one get the right message? Should I take the existance of God as fiction Myth and the creation in 6 days as true Myth? I don't know you, and all of the christian teachings do not provide this answer. Unless you have evidecne that shows your claims are real, then they are just assumptions, it is what the definition of the word means. So by the dictionary definition, you are making assumtions. Ohj, and here is the evidecne that my "assumtion" that you are making assumtions is true: Dictionary definition of assumtion: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/assumption So, yes: You have been making assumptions. FACT Much of these early philosopers have been disproved. that is relaity is not what they say it is. Also, Argument from Authority (wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority ) is a logical falacy, so it does not hold as a logical argument. You might also waht to check out these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignoratio_elenchi (Irrelevant Conclusion fallacy) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question (Begging the Question fallacy) As I was saying: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority The Catholic Church is falable. The Church originally declared that Galileo was wrong. But it now says that it was wrong about Galileo. In other words, the Catholic Church itself has admited falability. Your claim that it is falable has been disproved by the Church itslef. Sorry, but you can not accept this position that the Church is infaliable if it has admitted falability. I have said it before and I will say it again: Just because something is poetic and seems to fit your beliefs does not make it true. If you really believed that, then you could not believe in the Christian God. Specifically: Rev 19:6 Gen 18:14 Job 42:2 Therefore according to the bible, God has infinite power. But God Loves us Luke 12:6-7 Matthew 5:45 So if God did love us, then he would not want us to suffer. He is all powerful therefore He could end all suffering wihtout affecting any other purpose (see Job 42:2 specifically here). So the only reason that there is ANY suffering, caused by people or not is because God want us to suffer. But if He loves us He does not want us to suffer. So all those poetic phrasaes in the Bible, that also match with your beliefs can't be true. Something about them must be false. But in this case, what must be false is one of these 3 things: 1) God is all powerful: If God is not all powerful, then this is not the Chritian God, and there could be other, even more powerful being out there. 2) God loves us: If this is false, then God is a monster as He is the cause of all suffering. 3) God exists: If this is false then the whole of your religion is a lie. So either God is not who you think He is, or He does not exist. That is, if you believe something just because it superficially matches with your beliefs. You believe that God exists. You believe that God loves us. You believe that God is all powerful. These properties are mutually exclusive to reality. Either reality is not real (and that is a real problem) or the God you believe in can not be real (it might be another God though).

Actaully, doing something terible in Gods name is one of the biggest sins (it breaks one of the 10 commandments). Doing somehting bad in Gods name is using his name in vain. It also applies to using Gods name for your own ends. But I agree, it is scarry how people who believe that there is an absolute Morality handed down by a perfect being can justify atricities and then ask for forgivness and expect to get it.

I have and it has stood up to questioning. If you make something simpler than it needs to be, that means you have left out things that are needed by it. The conclujsion is that what you have no longer works. Think of it in terms of a watch: There are probably things you could take out of most watches (manufactures logos and such) and it will still work. But if you keep taking out things, eventually you will take out something that is needed to allow the wathc to work and the watch won't work anymore. This also applies to religions too: In any religion there are things that are necessary and things that are not necessary. SOme things that are not necessary are the dress codes of the cleregy. If you took them out, the religion would still exist. But if you took out the belief in God (or what other supernatural beliefs are part fo the religion) then the religion breaks down and no longer works. So this really does apply, even to religions. Conrtol is not important, whether the thing works or not is what is important. What I have found is that the simpler you make thing, the less room there is for anything mystical. For example: When you look at the way Neurons behave, there is no need to even have the concept of love at all, and the behaviour of these neurons can be directly linked to the feelings of love. So Love it seems is derived from neural functions, and if all rules are derived from Love, then what about the rules that govern the behaviours of neurons (as Love is dependent on them)? No, they are questiniong your assumptions. The purpose was to provide an equally valid explaination, that needs evidence to sort out what was really going on. As there are at least 2 valid explainations (based on different assumptions)< you have to provide evidence to support your assumptions and that disprove the other assuptions. If you are unable to provide evidecne against the other assumptions, if you are ratioanl, you have to accept that there is an equally valid explaination for the events. These other explainations might not fit your bias, but even just intelectually you have to accept that they are a valid explaination or provide evidence against them and that supports your own position. Just repeating "I believe" such and such does not provide evidence as the bible states that even the Devil will pretend Divinity. If you believe in what the devil says, it does not make him God. If you belive in God and the Devil, then you accept the risk of believing in the Devil will get you damned for eternity. So if you hold the beliefs you say you do, then it would explain why God gave us rational thought and logic: It provides us a way to check reality. And, as the Devil will lie (ie what he says is not reality) this would be a necessary skill that God would have given us. Exactly why you have to question all assumptions. These are not my assumptions. These are the processes that I use. And before you ask the obvious question: Yes, I do even question these (but have found them to work). The only real assuption I have is: Reality trups all else. That is: if it is not real, then it is not real. She is having trouble with what see feels is going on in her soul. She is uncertain how to express these feelings or what they mean. So yes, she is uncertain. I ahve not specifically read that work, but I have read others. It has been so long since I read them, and they didn't really speak to me (they seemed devoid of any real answers), I have forgotten most of what was in them. It might be that I never expereinced the "Teenage Angst", so I have never had the type of uncertainties that these exploit (and yes I do use that term specifically), that might be why they never did anyhting for me. To me, all these kinds of works sound angsty, and I just have never felt that way. The answer to this is very simple: No. What, because ther are rules that can not be traced back to Love. Whether God exists or not, ther are rules that can be directly traced back to Hate (even Gods hate), or Jelousy (and God is a jelous God - it says so in the bible). So no, you can not trace all rules back to Love, and that is just going off what is written in the bible. If you had read the bible you would ahve known that. this leads me to believe that you haven't actually read the bible, but are jsut echoing what people have told you about it, or thqat you have read it, but dismissed the bits that make you unconfortable with your faith.

The "Process" of evolution can be described mathematically (that is with Algorithms - a concept that has been around for over 1200 years). When looked at like this, Evolution is a mathematical fact. Wew also know the rate of genetic change over time that can occur, and there is more than enough time for evolution to get us to where we are now. We can also do experiements with how fast evolution can occur by using the algorithm of evolution. Such a simulation experiment I heared about (and if anyone here can remember more details it would be a help) where they worked out, using known rates of genetic change and using acceptable rates of change (based on what is biologically possible), that it is possible to evolve an eye from an initial starting "desig" of a few light sensitive cells (and this was the full structure of the eye with variable foccus lense and the whole works) in around than 10,000 or so generations. To give you an idea, of how short a time this is, the average human generation time is aroudn 25 years. So in 250,000 years, humans could have started with just light sensitive patches of cells and developed the complex eye we have. As life on Earth has been around for about 3,500,000,000 years, it seems like evolution was running a bit slow if anything. So yes, there has been much more than plenty of time for evolution to have got us to where we are now. Until microscopes cam along, there was no evidence that germs existed. It is only because people have gathered so much evidence that supports germ theory that when you have a cold you accept that it is caused by bacteria. Until microscopes came about and provided evidence against all the other theories, there were many theories that many people believed in. Som of the more popular one are: 1) Humors: The used to beliee that the body had 4 Humors that govered it. If these humors were out of ballance then this caused deseases. This has since been proven wrong as we have identified organisms that can cause deseases. 2) Spirits/Possesion: This was once favoured by the christian churches (and is still believed in some places). They believed that all deseases were possesions by devils or evil spirits. Again, these have been disproved as with these deseases biological causes are now known. 3) Curses: Again, this was favoured by the churches too. In this evil magic, or divine punishment was the cause of deseases and if someone came down with a desease, then this was seen as divine cause (miracles don't have to be good). Again, this has been disproven as the causal agents have been identified. People didn't just go from not believing in Germ theory to accepting it, it took years of research and a lot of evidence for (at least the medical profesion if not everyone else) to accept germ theory, and there are still people around today that do not believe it (dispite the masses of evidecne that supports it and disproves their beliefs). Again, you have not given a good argument or reason for belief in God. You are hinting that you have the answer, but when it comes time to actually provide one, you seem to back away and try to dodge the question. How does one see the immaterial? We can see living organisms and we can work out how their component parts work. Doing so we find no need for an immaterial force (aka: "Elan Vital"). The Elan Vital theory of life has long since been disprove, so why would you think it would make a good argument for the existance of God?

It is not about being demonstrable, but about actually answering questions. As for the questions of "Why", I found religions don't have a good answer. Just "because" is not an answer, it is a cop out. Eg: Why is the universe the way it i?: Answer: Because God made it that way: But why did God make it that way? Answer: Because that is how GHod made it... And so on. The question is not answered, but avoided. The buck keeps getting passed. So religion does not answer the "Why" either. At least science can give you the How. This is what I ment when I talked about how underlying assuptions can lead you to questions that are meaningless. The assumption is that there has to be a Why. As the endless series of Whys that come from assuming that there is a why, this renders any answer imposible and even if there was an answer it would be meaningless (because an infinite amount of anything to a finite entity is meaningless, just as a finite thing is meaningless to an infinte entity). Also, I siad that it was Science and Atheism, not just science alone. Sure, science can answer the How's quite easily, but with Atheism I am forced to examine what you would considder the "Why's'". Of course, as part of Atheism I do question the question and have to examine the underlying assumptions I use, but this is not (necesarily) science. I use logic and reason, sure, but not necesarily the scientific method to answer the questions that science can't (and is not intented to) answer. Science doesn't deal with ethics or morality, but logic and reason (and the information obtained from science's answer to the How's) can show that morality and ethics do not need a higher power to impose them on us, just the necesity of living within a social group imposes a set of rules that give an optimal set of behaviours (and this is what we lable as morality). If I was to say I have the answer to one of your questions, but then when it came time to provide an answer to that question, all I ever did was to pose more questions and then present that I didn't actually have an answer as the answer. You would start to question my ability to tell the truth. I bet you would. This has been my experience of religion. I asked the questions and they dodged around the fact that they had no answers (and then tried to pass that off as being somehow better than having the answers). This is why I question the truths behind religions, not because it is some how cleaner (or not), but because they lied about having the answers in the first place. If someone lies to you, you tend not to think of them as overly truthful. It is fine to simplfy the simple, but you can simplify too much and loose the actual substance. If you simplfy the questions too much, then you loose the substance of the question and then any answer becomes meaningless. There is a saying: Make things as simple as they can be, but no simpler. Statements can be simple, poetic and even sound like they havae truths in them. This, of course, still does not mean they are true (they could be, but that would have yet to be established). As an example of something that sounds true is the old one of: We use only 10% of our brains. This sounds true as most people think they could push themselves a bit more. It makes it sound like they ahve more potential than they have (they probably do, but it is not about how much of their brain they use). Actually we use pretty much 100% of our brain, just not all at the same time. But over the course of an hour or a day, we pretty much use it all. So the statemnt sounds like it might be true, and for a long time people believed it. When we were abel to measure the amount of brain we do use, we found this statement to be utterly un-true, but it still doesn't stop people from believing it is true. It means you can't just take statements at face value or accept something as true because it sounds like it might be true, or fits with your preconcieved beliefs (this is why you have to question the question and also your assumptions). As for the anecdote about St Therese, the assumption one has to question are: 1) The existance of the soul 2) That the soul is simple 3) That one becomes simpler the more perfect one becomes 4) That God exists 5) That a simpler one becomes the simpler one aproaches God. Here is my analysis of these assumption: 1) There is nothing that actually establishes the existance of the soul, it is assumed. All I have ever heard is that the soul is something you experience, but how can I, from that know what it is to experience a soul. If I never had a soul, how could I know what it is like to have one, and could I not mistake some other experiential phenomina as the soul. One can claim that they can feel their soul, so it must exist, but people with phantom limb pain can still feel their limbs, but their limb dosn't actually exist, so just feeling it exists is no reason to assum it does (incidentially, there is an illusion called the rubber hand illusion where you can actually feel the existance of something being a part of you that is not). 2) To me, the soul, being an infinite entity is far more complex (infinitely so) than any finite entity, so this assumption seems not to make any sense. If I had a soul, then it would, by necesity, be more complex than I (as a finite human entity) could ever be. 3) In some sense "perfect" could be taken as simple, but perfect by no means only means simple. Now this could just be an expression of an established fact, but again there is no evidence of this so we can no assume that this is true (remember the 10% brain useage was though of as true until we learned to look at how much of the barin is actually being used). 4) Again, this has not been established, and there is qute good reasoning to assum that God doesn't exist (at least as far as the christian God does). IF God (as in the christian God) exists as claimed, then He is infinitely powerful, which means ther eis nothing He can not do. He could eliminate all suffering in the world, and yet sill leave the world completely unchanged. He has not, so He the conclusion is that He wishes us to suffer only for the sake of suffering. This is not the act of love, this is not a being that is infinitly Good, and as these are necesary attribute of the christian God, the onyl conclusions are that ewither God is not as described by the christians, or God does not exist. Either way, in the context of this the reasoning comes down against the existance of God. 5) God, as described by the christains is infinitely powerful and infinitly knowledgeable, neither oif these are simple, so becoming simple would not bring you closer to Him, but further away form Him. Also, God is described as quite a complex entity with strange needs (why the various forms of worship?). So rationally, this assumption can not stand either. It seems that all the assumptions in that anecdote are either falseified, or are not established as being true (let along real). This this much uncertainty over the truth of this claim, it is either a hollow platitude to silence question that might lead to rejection of the religion, or it is not a useful anecdote. So lets use your: "Simplfiy the simple" and get rid of anything that is not simple. What we end up with is a woman with doubts that she can't verbalise because of her uncertainties.She is uncertain about her soul, but because she has already assumed the existance of a soul, the uncertainties make no sense to her. Question the assumptions. If she had questioned her assumptions (mainly that her soul existed), then she would have been able to reach a conclusion that her souls didn't exist, as there is no evidence for its exisaance (remember evidence is use to differentiate between claims and therefore must do so). If she used her reasoning (as she would believed that God gave her) correctly, then she would ahve to come to the conclusion that the existance of the soul is in doubt, so one must first establish that her soul exists to have trouble with it. So she was a woman with dubts, and those doubts were brushed asside by a Thought Terminating Cliche (wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A9#Thought-terminating_clich.C3.A9 ).

I think you are, again, misunderstanding what I mean by "Real" and "True" (the way I am using it "Reality" is a subset of "Truth" - for something to be real it must first be true, but not everything that is true is necesarily real). In Aspo's fable about the Grasshopper and the Ant, the Authors message is undeniably true (that it is better to work had and prepare for hard times than it is to sit idle and then suffer through the hard times), but the story is not real. Grasshopper and Ants do not talk (to each other or us) and as we can agree on that, the story of the Grasshoper and the Ant is clearly a work of fiction. But this does not degrade the message within it. So, as far as I am concerened, the bible could be a complete work of fiction, but that does not mean that there is no message (and that there might be truth to it or not - that is an entirely different discussion). You are prepared to agree with my that other Gods, like Zeus or Aphrodite are not real (or am I mistaken here and you really do believe that the Greek Gods are real - whic would be a problem if you also believed that the Christian God is real). All I have asked of you is to show why you think these other Gods are not real and yours is, when they have an equal amount of evidence that fits your requielrment for validity. The reason I was asking all this was to encourage you to question the assumptions you have made. You assumed that the Christian God is real and the Greek Gods are not. then you applied a reasoning based on that assumption to prove that your God is real. But, the exact same reasoning you applied proves the Greek Gods as real if you start with the assumption that the Greek Gods are real and the Christian God is not. This is an answer to your opening post and theme for this thread: On the Necesity of Proving Things. See, you do recognise the necesity to prove thing because otherwise you would have to accept that the Greek Gods are real. As you don't (because you say that you are a christian and the two beliefs are mutually exclusive), I can therefore conclude that you recognise the necesity to prove things. However the purpose of proving things is to determine what is real and not real (remember I have differentiated between the words real and truth), and the only way to do that is with evidence (where evidence is data that will differentiate between which claim is real or not). This conclusion that you ahve come to is based on the assuption that the Christian God is real. But you have not established this yet, or that it is specifically the Christian God rather than the thousands of other Gods that have thought to have existed. For example, the Australian Aboriginies believe that the Rainbow serpent created the world. You have not established that this is not real. How then can you say that your God is real when you don't have any evidence that the Rainbow Serpent did not create the world? You have a story, which you have already agreed does not ahve to be real to have a true message in it. I can write or produce any number of stories saying that they are true and that the world was created in such and such a way by such and such an entity. But, you will be willing to admit that each of them is just a work of fiction (and I would too). But you have not differentiated between why you think your "story" is the real way the world was made any any of these other ways. Until you do that you can not make the calim or hold the assuption that you way is the real way it happened. Can you see the necesity to prove things? You equated the Myths and Fables (both words used to describe fiction, that is stories that are not real) to the Bible, that is why I thought you agreed with me that what is in the bible does not ahve to be real to be true. You washed your hands of the necesity for the bible's stories to be based on reality. This means, that without proof to distinguish them from each other, how do you know what is real or fiction within the bible? I )(and other here) asked for proof that God is real, and you failed to produce it. Either you don't have proof that God is real (and must therefore accept that "God is not real" is of equal validity as "God is real") or you do and are witholding it. I can not see you doing the latter as you seem quite genuine in your beliefs. However, if you step back from your beliefs, you will have to agree that you have presented as much "evidence" for your God as has been presented for the existance of Aphrodite or the other Greek Gods. Without the necesit yto prove thing, any one can make any claim and assume it is true. Without this necesity to prove things, I can make the claim that you owe me $1,000,000. I would not then ahve to prove it is real and so you would ahve to owe me that money. If I believed that Zeus created the world with a Thunderbolt, what meaningful conversation could we then have if we didn't have to prove our "story" is true. Unless you are willing to accept that there is a necesity to prove an assuption is true, then you HAVE to accept that there is no proof that your God is real. IF thereis no proof that your God is real, and you are willing to accept that the stories in the bible don't have to be real (but the can be true), then you also have to accept that God might be a work of fiction.

What I have been doing is not so much asking question for you to answer, but asking questions for you to examine the questions you are asking and the assumptions you have made. The only way to advance understanding and knowledge is to question the assumptions you have made. If you neve question your own assumptions, then you will never know if those assumptions are wrong (and thus any conclusions you make from them are also likely to be incorrect). In your opening post for this discussion, you asked some questions with some underlying assumptions. All I have endevored to do was to herlp you understand the answers to your questions was in examining your underlying assumptions. If there is a failure of wisdom, it is only the failure to see the wisdom of examining what underlying assumptions you have made (and we all have them). I have found it far more fullfilling than religion (and remember I have been exposed to these beliefs so I have the ability to directly compare the advantages.disadvantages of both). For me, religion seemed to say that it had all the answers, but when I looked at them they were nothing more than somone saying that they had the answers, they never seemed to answer the questions I had. What Science and Atheism have done for me is to show that the underlying assumptios I had that generated these questions were actually false. This ment that the question I had changed, and these questions were able to be answered. IF the underlying assumption is that a partcular question is meaningful, but that underlying assumption is wrong, then you can knot yourself up trying to answer a question that is, in the end, meaningless. Where I live, we have a philosophy group that meets once a moth to discuss all variety of philosophy, including religions (of all sorts). We have talked about such people (I have even personally met the Dali Lama), so I have had my fair share of "study" (if you want to call it that) of this subject matter. It is from these experiences that I have found that the best answer you can get is to first question the underlying assumptions that the question is based on. If you get nothing more from me in the discussion we have had here: This is probably the most important thing you can get. Question the Question.

If something is quatifiable, then why not treat it as such? You are making a claim that Love is non-quatifiable, but offer no evidence for it. However, direct scans of the human brain and analysis of the chemistry that goeson in it have yeilded evidence that there are qualtifiable states of love (which is evidence to support that love is quantifiable). If you even spend a little bit of time looking at the behaviours of people you will see these states of love as distinct (and hence quatifiable). You would recognide lust when you saw it, you cna see the behaviour of people who love each other while raiseing a child is different from lust and is also different from the emotions and behaviours of people who are life long compainions. Have a look at this: http://people.howstuffworks.com/love6.htm As an asside: Things don't need to be finite to be quantifiable. Integer numbers are quantifyable, but the range of integers is infinite. So they are infinite and also quantifiable. This is your claim not mine, so I don't need to provide evidence to support your claims. That is your job. Actually, you have not provided any support for your claims, except by restating the claim again and again (remember the need for evidence is that it differentiates between claims, not just restates the claim - we are not deaf or stupid so you don't have to keep repeating yourslef all the time). Repeating a claim is not supporting the claim. It, in fact, ends up weakening your claim because it indicates that you can not support your claim at all. So every time you just repeat your claim you are indicating you think we can not understand you (we can clearly understand you, we just disagree because we have evidence that supports out claim and at the same time disproves yours) and that you have no real substance to your claims (which again supports our claim that there is no evidence to support your position). It is now time to stop sounding like a broken record and produce some evidence to support your claims.

Nope, there ahve been at least two more proposed already in this discussion that would qulaify: 1) Evolution 2) Group survival. There is a branch of Maths called Game theory. In this the mathemeticians try to work out the reasoning behind decisions and the optimal decisions to make. ONe that I think explains a lot of Morality is called: The Ultimatum Game (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimatum_game). With this game there are two participents and one of them is given a sum of money they can split between the two players as they like, however, if the second player disagrees with the split, they can reject the offer and neither player gets any money. Very simple. If you give it a moment's thought, you might come to the conclusion that any money is better than no money, and so say that player two should always accept an offer greater than 0. But interesting things happen if you play this game with either a group of people, or with repeated offerse between the same players. Now, when you look at the maths behind this, it actually becomes an advantage to jectect unfair offers (that is close to 50:50 splits) because the other players see that you will cause them to have less money in the long run. What emerges is that in group situations morality emerges from this situation due to the mathematics involved. This is direct proof that you do not need God to create morals, but that they can emerge as a result of decisions that have to be made as part of a group. Again, as with pretty much all my posts, I am not using this as proof against the existance of God, only that your claims that God exists because of these specific arguments do not actually prove the existance of God. Basically I am arguing for the Agnostic position that: The existance of God is undecided. You have to be aware that just because someone has a different set of morals to you, this does not make their choices arbitary. That is, just because someone is uncommitted to a religion does not mean that theya re free to choose "any set of moral values he or she wishes". In fact, the choice is much more constrained that with religion. We are less free to choose our morality than someone how subscribes to a religion is because we ahve to provide evidence for our moralistic choices rather than re-inteerpereting something that has been translated and interpereted an uncounted number of times (that is: the bible). For instance: The bible clearly states that to kill is one of the greatest sins against God (it is one of the 10 commandments), and yet, GOd will willingly help people kill others (incluiding innocent children). So where does this leave "morality" based on the bible? Is it ok to kill or not? I don't know it isn't clear. Because of this lack of clarity, the "morality" of the bible can be anything I want it to be. This would give me much more choice than if I had to justify my morals rationally and logically. There is a claim here, but no evidecne. Until you can actually provide evidence that God exists and that Jesus exists in reality then one can not claim that such a relationship is unique. If the entity in question does not ahve to exist in reality, then I cna just as easily have that same kind of special relationship you described with an imaginary friend. That Imaginary friend could claim that I have to ahve that deep a relationship with them, and I might even feel that deep a relationship with them, but this does not mean that the imaginary friend exists in relaity, or that those feelings have any meaning other than delusion. And this again is the question: Can you show that the feelings you have for God are more than a delusion? (remember the evidence has to distinguish between the claims that the feelings you have are based on a delusion and that the feelings you ahve are not based on a delusion because God is real - which means that you have to provide evidence that your God is real).

Ok, so it seems that you are not disagreeing with my premise that what is in the bible is not necesarily something that is real. That of course includes God. But is God is not real, then why should I believe in Him rather than in some other God that is not real (like Aphrodie is Zeus or Thor)? There are truths in the religious works of the Asgardian Gods, should I consider them just as valid a God as your God? So if all it takes is "truth" in religious writeings to convinve you to believe in a God, then why do you reject Thor (He is the God of lighting, and I notice that even christian churchs put lightning rods on their steeples, are they afraid that Thor will take offense that they don't worship Him?). We even have a day of the week named after Him, does this count as evidence that Thor is the God we should be worshiping? I bet you don't think all that. Why, because you don't think Thor is REAL. And that is the point. This is not about whetther there is truth, or utility in a religious text, it is about whether or not a particular God is real (or any Gods for that matter). You would be willing to admit that Thor is not real because there is no evidence (see my other posts concerning evidence) for His existance. But this is exactly the same case as with the christian God. The stories of the Norse Gods have litterary merit, they have truths to them and even good story telling (The Opera: Ring of the Nibelungen : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Ring_des_Nibelungen - lord of the rings was loosely based on this too). These are the criteria you have identified as being the reasonons that you believe in the christian God, but these apply equally well to the Norse Gods, the Greek God, the Roman Gods or any single religion ever followed. As I said about evidence: The purpose of evidence is to distinguish between claims. So at the very least it has to do that. And, as your criteria don't do that, either become a Thor worshiper, or admit that we need to have the "necesity of proving things" (as per the topic of this discusion). But, if we have a necesity to prove thing, then you need to provide proof of Gods existance (and that requiers evidence that distinguishes firstly that God or Gods exist as compared to their non existance, and then that your God is the one that exists rather than any other God).

As you said yourself: "Hence, Plato taught very profound truths using myths. "Myth" in this sense does not mean something that is not true, as we often use the word today when we might say "That is just a myth"." Even though Plato taught using myths, and those myths were not seen as being reality, they did hold lessons that could be learnt, and that the values and ideas behind those lessons were true. As another example: In Asops fables (and for example: specifically the Ant and the grasshopper), they often featured talking animals and such, but we know that ants, or grasshoppers can't talk. So these fables (and fable is a bit indication that they aren't real) were fiction, but the lessons learnt by them (eg: it is a good idea to work in times of plenty so you will have resources for when there is not) are true (would you deny the truth that it is a good idea to work and save for lean times?) You were talking about how you understood the word "litterally" to mean "written" (or at least pertaining to being written). I was trying to avoid using "litterally", and so I used a different term: "Reality". For example: In Exodus, the Egytians were supposed to have kept massive amounts of slaves, in fact a whole country (the Isralites). However Archeologists have not found any records in egypt that confirm this. Yes, the egyptians did keep slaves, but this was for hostage reasons (to keep tribute kingdoms in line) or as house hold servents. They never kept large number of general slaves (not enough to constitute an entire culture). In bible studdies I have had, the pyramids were explained as being built buy such slaves as evidence that these bible stories were real, but to build the pyramids requiered skilled labour and no slave constitutes as skilled labour, plus they have very good records that the pyramids were built by egyptian citizens. They have their work huts, payment records, medical records (no slave would have complex and costly surgery performed on them), they even know the names of some of these people and can tract them through other various records availabel from that time. So, no, at not time did enough slaves exist in Egypt to constitute an entire culture of people. This means that the story of Exodus is fiction and not real. It might have some lessons to be learnt that can be considdered "true", but it is most conclusivly not real. If the story is not real, then it is a fable, or analogy. But God exists in this fable, and that means that God might just be a fiction too.

SO according to the bible it is not love if it involves jelousy, insist on its own way is not resentful and bears and endures all things. The bible states that God is jelsous (and also resentful) of us loving other Gods (it one of the 10 comandments if you need a reference). God also insists on the forms of worship (half the 10 commandments are about how we are to worship God and much of the rules in the bible (besides the 10 commandments are also about this) If Gods love for us could endure and bear all things then it would be imposible to sin against God, but as sin is a major part of the christian religion (you are taught that you are born in sin and have to repent for it) and if we don't we can't get into Heaven, then we can conclude that God's love for us can't bear all things because He can't bear us sinning against Him. So by your own claim, God can not love us. Or if He dose, then your claims about the nature of love are wrong. Which one are you willing to admit you are wrong in? Science had actually determined that there are at least 3 emotions of love that we can feel. These can be paraphrased as: Short Term, Medium Term and Long term. Short Term love is more what one can considder lust and it generally laasts for a few days to about a month. It is an emotion that brings two strangers together for reproductive purposes. Medium Term love is an emotion that kicks in after about a month or so of knowing someone. This lasts for several years and helps keep a couple together for the purposes of child rearing. Long Term love is an emotion that helps bind a couple together over sucessive children and keeps the group together to support each other (as we are a social species). These have distinct behavioural and emotive (and even physiological - that is neural and chemical) responses. They are distinct emotions. And that is the point. You are assuming anotyher God exists, that of the Christian God. On what ground would you reject the existance of Aphrodite? Love exists, and She is supposed to be the Goddess of love, so is that not proof She exists? Well not. It is possible for love to exist without the need for a God, so the existance of love does not act as proof of the existance of the Goddess Aphrodite (remember what I keep saying how proof needs to differentiate claims). If the existance of Love can proove the existance of the Christian God, then it is also proof that Aphrodite exists. As this then does nto distinguish between the two Gods, then it is not proof for one or the other. And, since Love can be directly traced back to phisiological responses, it also means that Love does not need the existance of a God. Of course, a God could have created love, but the phyisiological cause of love means that one is not necesary and so the existance of love does not offer proof of a God (either the christian God, or Aphrodite) because it can not differentiate between the need for a God and the non-existance of that God. I understand you point of view (I was taught the christian view point), but I found I could not reconsile it with rationality. What turned me into an athiest is this question: If God were to give us a gift, would it be a sin not to use it? God gave us the gift of rationality and inteligence, so not using them would be considdered a sin. BUt, using ratioanlity and inteligence, I can not reconcile God with what is writen in the bible. So the only conclusion is that either the bible is wrong (and therefore the God as described in the bible does not exist), or no God exists. From this, I concluded that to assume the existance of any God is a false assumption and the only thing left is agnosticism or atheism. I started out as agnostic, but the more I looked for evidence of any God the more of an athiest I became.

I have been batised and have taken holy communion. Yes, I have been schooled in the ways of christianity. You do not know who I am so you can't make such claims about me. The whole point is that you sais that it was imposible to love more thqan one God. The bible clearly states that you love God like a parent, a teacher or a king. In these terms, my coiunter argument is perfectly valid. Based on the teachings of the bible the Love one feels for God is not differnet to the love one feels for a partent. If one is capable of loving more than one parent, or even loving God and a parent, then we have the capacity to love more than one God. The forms of worship as specified in the bible are the same forms of worship one would expect to do for a bronze age king, so even the form of adoration is consistant with this. The bible says that you are not to love other God, not that you don't have the capacity to do so. Simple question: Why? Why does this have to be the way, have you got evidence for it or is this something someone told you and you are repeating it?

This is a misrepresentation of moral relitivism. The key work in that is "reletivism", that is morality is relative to the context. It is not arbitary, so claimning that one person's conviction is as good as the next (in terms of morality) is not a function of moral relitivism. Moarl Relitivism says that there is no absolute moral code, but that morality is based on the context (the social structure and the forces that govern social structures). The basic thing about social species (like humans) is that we can not survive alone. If you were to put a single human into the wild without any support from other (including tools), then even with a high level of training, this person would not last long. So as a social species, we need other members of our species to survive. What this means is that if a group falls apart for some reason (eg: because of a lack of trust between members of the group), then the perople in that groups will have to survive alone or find another group to join (but if it was their behaviours that destroyed the first group, then this second group would fall apart too). This means that the first 2 rules of a society is: 1) The society must work to support the members of that society 2) The members of the society must contribut to the society It is the recipricol relationship between the society as a gestalt and the individual members of that society that give a society its robustness and it power. This is where morality comes from. Morality are huristics that help the members of a group form a stable society. If a behaviour is disruptive to that society, then it is an imoral behaviour. The other thing to note is that part of what makes a society stable is the ability to identify interlopers and to weed out freeloaders (those that could, but don't contribute to a society). What this means is that a group will need to form arbitary signalling behaviours that identify members of that society to one another. The reason they need to be arbitary is that if they were rational or logical, then it would be easy for an interloper to work out what these signals were (because they could reason them out using logic) and fake being in the society. As for the freeloaders, what becomes necesary is that some of these signaling behaviours needs to have some cost involved so that a freeloader can not keep freeloading without paying this cost, but as they are freeloading, then they can not par the cost and thus can be identified. Think about it: We use strange and weird behaviours to identify with a group such as wearing certain colours of cloathing, or wearing certain articles of clothing (remember flaired pants, or the bustle for women, etc) that to someone not familiar with the society would not imediately guess their imporwtance, and we have fashions that change quite rapidly that means a freeloader would not be able to keep up and thus reveal their status as freeloaders. If you give it just a moment of thought, these conditions (stability of the society) can explain virtually all the morality we have (there are a few that can't be explained by modern requiermnets, but these behaviours can be traced back to earlier times when the behaviours were relevent to the society - such as hygene behaviours and such). And this is what Moral relitivism is about. They are not arbitary oppinions as you stated, but are behaviours and huristics that help stabilise a society.

Remember what I have been saying about evidence and proof. The purpose of these is to distinguish between two or more claims. If what someone presents does not full fill this basic property it can not be considdered as evidence. This is ALL that is asked from people that claim that a religion (any religion for that matter) is true: To provide evidence that distinguishes that their position (that their religion is true) from the position that their religion is not true and in favour of their religion being true. It is an extremely simple thing to do, but it has never been done for any religious supernatural claim. Every piece of science that we have, from germ theory to the mechanical and electrical properties underlying the operation of your computer to black holes and quantum mechnics has had to do this as a first step (there are a lot more steps that come after, but this is the first that is needed). So, if religion has nothing that it can calim that distinguishes the existance of God from the non existance of God, then as a rational persons, how can they claim that God exists. To claim you have proof of the existance of God and then that is shown not to actually be proof is a very weak argument. What if I came out with 100 people (thatbelieve in the existance of God) that say they never saw God. Does this prove that God doesn't exist? They are eyewitnesses of the non existance of God, they are hostile witnesses, so even if you accept eyewitnesses as proof, then does this count as proof that God doesn't exist? No for this exact reason: It doesn't distinguish between the claims of the existance or non-existance of God. So even you would recognise the need for evidence to distinguish between the various claims. Now, for one to claim that they are willing to put this acceptance asside if doing so is advantagious for your position is an act of hypocracy. So lest look at the positon on that of Eyewitnesses. First you are saying that you accept that these eyewitnesses are evidence that distinguishes the claims of the existance or non-existance of God. Yet when it comes to the evidence that distinguishes between the claims whether eyewitnesses are or are not reliable, you are willing to put asside the necesity of the evidecne to accept a claim and just go with "eyewitnesses are reliable" because it is in your advantage to do so. Well, as I said, this is an act of hypocracy. Either you are willing to accept the evidecne that does distinguish between claims or you will not accept it at all. The overwhealing evidence is that people are faliable (even the bible states this! ). So if you are willing to accept that people are falable (evn just based on the evidence in the bible), then you can not calim that eyewitnesses are reliable (because these eyewitnesses are human and if you accept humans as faliable, then these eyewitenesses are also faliable). Of course, I am willing to accept that these testimonies are ture, but, because I accept that people are faliable, I can not rely on them as the be all and end all of the evidence. Thus, extra corroborating evidence is therefore needed (even in court they don't just rely on eyewitnesses testimony, because even these institutions know that eyewitnesses are not reliable). Also with this the number of individuals does not make much difference, there are definite psychological effects (memory changing is just one example) that even a large group can end up being fooled. I am an amature magician, and what I do relies on the falability of people, even in large groups. It is often easier to fool a large group than a small one because people tend to accept what those near them (either physically or in terms of social connections) say, or if something is repeated often enough. There are studies done where tey have a large number of people witness an event, and then have the group completly change the details of what they saw because a "report" (done as part of the study) said something different (it in fact changed several times). The key aspect of these reports that caused the change was getting people to "remember" what they saw as part of an interview. As these "witnesses" (in some cases these witnesses were just actors and were never there and other time they were planted people who were there) repeated the experience they added subtle changes to the story, slight exagerations or added/removed things from the event. In fact there ahve been several studies now that clearly show that people's memories of an event can easily be changed.(it can occur in as short a time as it take to try and remember an event and can occur moments after the event occurs) just by the act of remembeing it. So even when someone who was there witnessing the event asks you: "Did you see that?" they (and you) are changing your memory of the event.

How to prove speciation by experiment: First one has to establish that Evolution is a process, or more specifically an Algorithm. This can be done by simple demonstration: 1) A computer is a machine that has been created to excecute algorithms (and even more specifically it is a Universal Turing Machine). So any process that runs of a computer is by definition an algorithm. 2) Evolution (even if all you think it is is micro evolution - whiuch you seem willing to accept) has been demonstrated to run on a computer (I have done it my self and the program needed to impliment it is not all that complex). So by demonstration we can accept that Evolution is an algorithmic process. Thing about Turing Machines is that for any given algorithm there exists a standard Turing Machine that can excecute that algorithm, and that any standard Turing Machine can be emulated by a Universal Turing Machine. What this means is that a process that can be run on a Universal Turing Machine can be run on different hardware, so long as that hardware is set up to emulate (that is perform the same component functions) the processes needed for that algorithm. Thus, all one has to do to show that life follows evolution is to demonstrate that living systems can run the algorithm for evolution. Also, that any system designed to run that same algorithm can be used to demonstrate the properties and outcomes of that process. So if we were to excecute the algorithm of evolution in some other system that conforms to the requierments of the needed turning machine, then the outcomes of that process, whatever the hardware it is implimented on, is a valid outcome for that process. If this is a bit hard to follow, in brief: It is the process that matters, not the thing running that process. ...so long as this "thing" is capable of fully running that process of course. That said I am going to propose a "hardware" on which you can run your own evolution algorithm: Drinking Straws (you will need a few of these), Scissors and You. 1) The set up is that you are going to have around 10 drinking straws to start with and cut them in half (precision does not matter and they can havae variations in length if you want). These are going to represent the "common ancestors". 2) Sort the straws into length. 3) Select the shortest straw (if you have more than one straw that is the shortest just randomly select one of them). 4) Select the longest straw (if you have more than one straw that is the shortest just randomly select one of them). 5) Select 2 straws at random from the rest and discard them. 6) Pick 2 new straws from the bag of straws 7) Flip a coin. 8) If the coin comes up heads then cut the first of the new straws to be slightly shorter than the shortest straw, if it is tails, cut the new straw to be slightly longer than the shortest straw. 9) Flip another coin. 10) If the coin comes up heads then cut the second of the new straws to be slightly shorter than the longest straw, if it is tails, cut the new straw to be slightly longer than the longest straw. 11) repeat from step 2 Now, what you will see from this experiment is that you will get a population of short straws and a population of long straws from a population of half length straws. This is speciation. When a species is subject to two or more different and mutually exclusive pressures (in the case of the straws it is the pressures of a long or short straw) and the populations are distributes enough not to interact (I deliberately made the "straws" nont interact to replicate this aspect) then you will get the groups diverging in form (what many call micro evolution). However, over time this divergence cause greater and greater differences, and because in many occasions these forces produce mutually exclusive adaptations (eg getting bigger or smaller) it is not advantagious for the groups to cross bread. This creates a new pressure of not being able to interbreed and when this happens we get specieation. For a direct example: There are advantages to having scally skin, it offers protection from injury (and predators). However feathers also have advantages in that they can hold in warmth, offer a more streamlined form and are lighter (offering greater maneuverability). Feathers are just modified scales (as experiments on birds have attested to where they blocked the actions a few genes and were able to have birds that grew scales rather than feathers). But, these adaptations are mutually exclusive in that a scale can not be both a scale and a feather (but an organism can still have both on them as well as structures that are halfway between them). So, organisms that favoured maneuverability over protection (say small, lightweight reptiles living in a heavily forested environment) that had feather like mutation of their scales would do better than those of their kind that retained their scales. However, if the organisms didn't requier maneuverability (say the same species of reptile living in an open environment) but needed more protection, then those of that species would retain their scales and any that had the feather mutations would not have as good of protection and be at a disadvantage. What we have is a situation where one would develop more and more feather like adaptations, and the other would retain the scale like mutations (and probably get bigger too). Well, one would be considdered a Dinosaur, and the other would eventually be considdered a Bird. Now, there is a real speciation event that we do have evidecne for. There are now quite a lot of fossils (with more being discovered each year) that show such organisms. There are dinosaurs that lived in forests and these got more and more bird like mutations (including feathers and eventual flight - once you have feathers, flight is a lot easier than with scales). So is that a good enough speciation event for you, and remember, we demonstrated with that experiment that gradual changes can lead to two (or more) distinct variations where hybridising would be detrimental and thus quickly weeded out of the populations. ALl this means is that if you are willing to accept that "Micro" evolution exists (and the whole algorithm thing is proof that it does), then you also have to accept that the result of micro evolution over a long period of time where mutually exclusive adapatations take place will lead to speciation (Macro Evolution).

Well we know of certain chemicals that can repair Telomeres (called Telomerase), but delivery would be problematic to every cell in your body, plus you would need a constant supply. If cells make too much of it, they can become cancerous. A better solution would be to use some kind of stem cell (they have made rat stems cells from skin of rats that was able to grow into a complete rat - which the same was done to produce a second generation of cloned rats) where the telomeres have been repaired (it is easier to get the telomerease to a few stem cells than the whole of an organism) and then use those stem cells to grow the replacement part. This is more controlable and you can weed out any cells that turn cancerous or have other problems.

First of all, I'm not talking about truth here, but reality. Fiction is a work that is not dealing reality, where as non fiction is a work dealing with reality. When you were talking aobut the Ark ("Just to mention a couple of problems, the Ark was not a sea-worthy vessel. It was shaped like a barge or a giant box. It's dimensions, as recorderd are all symbolic numbers."), you indicated that you didn't think the Ark was a story based in reality. Therefore you indicated that you thought the story of the Ark (although holding some religious truths) was a work of Fiction. Therefore it is not a strawman to argue that you were saying that you thought the bible was not based in reality and was a work of fiction. What I whent on to say is that if any part of the bible can be considdered as a work of fiction, you have to question that all of it could be (this does not say that it is all a work of fiction, but that it might be). It means that if you pick a part of it to be considdered a work of non-fiction, you have to provide reasions as to why you think one part is fictional (ie not based on reality) and an other part is non-fictional. To do otherwise is called cherry picking and is a logical fallacy. Either something is real or it isn't. Reality is not something that has degrees of existance (remember I am discussing reality, not truth). Again, reality is an all or nothing proposition. So if a story is not real, then it is not real and is a work of fiction. There is a branch of litterature called "historical Fiction". ALthough these stories are based on historical events, these storyies and what occurs are not real and therefore a work of fiction (that is why they are called fiction). Fact and Truth are not the same thing. Something can be true even if it is not a Fact. For instance "Justice" you can examine the univiers in the most minute detail and you will not find a single particle of justice. So justice does not have a factual existance, but it is true that justice exists none the less. Yes these are called analogies. But this does not address the questions I asked: If there are passages in the bible that are not based on reality, then what in the bible is based on reality? And does this mean that God is not real (or is He an analogy - for a parent maybe)? I understand that a truth can be expressed as a parable or fictional story, but Lord of the Rings can also be seen in that light (a parable how friendship and loyalty can overcome great adversity), but that does not mean that Frodo really exists. And this is the core of the questions I am asking. I can accept God as an analogy and as a fictional construct, and that the lessons learned from the stories in the bible have some teaching value, but none of that means that GOd has to exist and that I have to worship Him or believe that He is real. There are many good things to learn from the bible, but there are also many bad things to learn form it too (for on: that Genocide is acceptable - Joshua chapter 10). So even as a "figurative" work, the morality it conveys can be somewhat questionable. Just because something is true, does not make it good or right. I have never denied that therea re truths in the bible, but what I question is the reality of it and therfore the reality of God. I understand this, but you have missed the "truth" of what I was asking. Ok, I'll restate it: What in the bible is a statement about Reality and what eveidence do you have to support that conclusion (and remember evidence is data or argument that diferentiates one position from the other - in this case it is differentiation the parts of the bible that are reality and the parts that are not).

I don't personally thnink that these behaviours are going to be explicit in the genes of people, but the capacity to have them will be (ie: complex brains that are capable of learning and modifying behaviours - either inherited or previously learned). SOme of what one would expect to see in such brains are such structures that allow us to understand others (as mirror neurons have been seen, this has been confirmed), reward pathways that reinforce "good" behaviours (and by good I mean ones that are good for the group) and group forming behaviours (humans are a herd animal). So the elements that I would expect to see that contribute to the foundations of a morality system being evolved in humans are there.

Have you proof of this? There are people who still believe that the Norse Gods exist, so you have to explain why their beliefs are false and yours are not. No it doesn't. Just because someone can put a bunch of words together in a sentance does not make it true. If I, as a finite being, can love two (or more) people equally (my parents - all all my family too), both and individually with all my heart, why can't I do so to other beings. Actually, if you really believed in this, then you could not love your parents because to lvoe them wou8ld be to remove some of your capacilty to love God. So either you "dispise" your partents and love God, or you really can love more than one being with all your heart (and Jesus is proved wrong). So are you saying that if I don't love God, I can not love anyone? Well I don't love God and I do love many people (eg: Family) and this is a real and true love. So how does this affect your argument? Well it disproves it is what it does.

Being an Athiest or not has no relevence to whether someone thinks people make a lousy eyewitness or not. As such, this is just an Ad-Hominin attack and only weakens your argument when you use such things. But on the subject of eyewitnesses, it has been scientifically proven that people make lousy eyewitnesses, and this is a problem facing the court systems now as eyewitness testimony is becoming weaker and weaker as evidence in court cases. The gorrila suit in the basketball game is just one piece of the mounting evidence that eyewitnesses can't be relied upon. It shows that people are not able to correctly witness everything that goes on, that they can miss important details. Also, there have been studdies done concerning something called "Change Blindness" where people don't notice things that change. In several examples I have seen people are asked directions by someone, and then when that person is momentarily distracted, or somehting blocks the line of sight, the person who asked the question is swapped for another person and they never noticed that they were differnt. This has been done even when the person who was swapped was swapped with someone of a different gender and complete apperance. Another is that our memories are changeable. In one experiment I hear about (they didn't tell the person the experiment was about changing their memories until after the experiment was finished), they managed to change the momories of people who had never been to Disney Land to then going to Disney Land and hugging Buggs Bunny there. Now, as they had never been to Disney Land, and Buggs Bunny is from a rival company, this situation was completely impossible, but they managed to do this anyway. Yes, a completly impossible situation was created in the memories of these people with very little difficulty. The reason is that every time we remember something we recreate the memory, and if a little change is introduced, then we remember that little change as if it was part of the orriginal memory. Our memories are not like computer memories in that respect. SO, just from these, we know that people forget things, can add in things that wern't there, can miss things that were there and can miss things that change. All that, adds up to very unreliable eyewitnesses. Science has known for a long time that people can't be relied upon for accurate memories of events and so has not used them as strong evidence (if at all). Science relies on independent sensing devices to record and measure events because they are more reliable than people (but eventhese devices are not infalable and science recognises that too).

I think this is a bad example, not for the choice of James, but the reaction of the parents. In it the mother gets angry. This anger seems to be a non-sequiter and an irrelevencey to the question of morality. The only resolution for the non-squiter is that there is some background of friction between the mother and father not expressed explicitly in the example. If there is such a friction, it completely changes the moral question of the example. It no longer comes down to the morality of following one or the other, but of antagonising an already exisint and complex issue of relationships. But, I gather that was not the question you were after as you are more talking about different choices rather than specifics of relationships. In that case, the question of morality comes down to a choice for James: 1) Do I think I deserve to go out. 2) Should I work to better my future. This is the real choice presented here. What the parents are offering is these choices (so their anger or lack of ander reall has no relevence on this). What James is presented with here is not a moral choice, but a value choice between short term gains and long term gains. When James asked permission of his mother he was delegating the responsability for this value choice to her, but this value choice for him is also equally his father's chocie (so when he delegated this choice to his mother he also delegated it to his father too). As we mature we have to learn to make such value judgements, and this would be one such time that James has to learn and demonstrate to his parents that he is capable of making good judgements. It is in effect a rite of passage for James. If he chooses correctly (ie: shows that he has learned the values his parents taught him) then he is seen as more mature and on his way to becoming an adult, if he chooses incorrectly, then he will not gain this right. If I was james (and when I was younger I too was in this same position - without the anger), I would let my parents know that I understood that I had to make the value judgment and then make it and explain why I made it (and this is what I did do). By doing so and demonstrating that you are capable of making such choices, you gain respect and acknowledgement from your parents that you are mature and can be trusted to make good choices in your life. So this is not a moral choice you have presented, but a value judgment between short vs long term values (btw: I chose to stay home and studdy - and for that I was rewarded with the right to make latter choices as to whether I was allowed to go out or stay home).

Actually, knowing what is going on internally for someone is getting closer than you think: http://singularityhub.com/2010/03/17/fmri-reads-the-images-in-your-brain-we-know-what-youre-looking-at-video/