zapatos

I hadn't thought of it that way. Ok, I want to change my answer... I would have said that between the two of us we definitely have the right answer!

Well then, you have proven my point that I often just "don't get it". For example, when you said... ...I toook that to mean that you felt iNow was not able to make that judgement about A Trip. I mean, if iNow knew or could make a good guess A Trip was lying to himself, then certainly it wouldn't be unfair of iNow to say so. But I obviously got that wrong since you now say... Since I now question myself regarding my observation about iNow... iNow, If you do indeed 'know' or 'have a good guess' about that aspect of A Trip then I retract my statement about you with apologies. I'll try harder in the future to stick to observations about myself. -zapatos

I'd have to agree. Unless they are closer than it appears from postings on this site, it is not possible for iNow to understand even 1% of what makes A Trip what he is and how he thinks. To think that he can understand what A Trip is thinking "deep down" seems to me to be hubris. I've never had a strong belief in God so I have no understanding of what it is like to have that belief. I therefore don't feel I am in any position to judge those who do have a strong belief. I remember many occassions my dad telling me that I "don't get it" about one subject or another, and that I wouldn't "get it" until I was older, married, had kids, whatever. Big surprise, he was quite right. What I learned from that was to be careful about judging others when I posessed less than perfect knowledge. Even though parts of QM seem ridiculous to me I am careful when I question it, because I know that I don't get it like others do. Similarly, I feel quite comfortable questioning someone about belief to some extent because of my background, but I know I don't get what it means to believe like they get it. It may turn out that believers are completely wrong, but without really understanding how they view belief, and how they reached that conclusion, I feel it would be reckless of me to suggest that they are broken, lying, or really, much of anything else.

In that case, yes.

I think you are going to have to try to define what you mean by 'better off' in order for people to address what you are looking for.

Unless the artificial meat is made or grown from living cells. Then of course we have death again. Also, if we only get to eat artificial meat I guarantee I'll be complaining!

You are assuming of course that evolutionary theory is correct anywhere other than earth, which may not be the case. You are also assuming that reptiles would evolve which is probably not likely.

Edit: Added some detail to guess. I'll keep working on it to see if I can come up with something else!

Yes, but I made an argument about why some people who believe in God should not be considered broken and you said a logical fallacy was used. I would like to know if you think I made a logical fallacy when I argued that they should not be considered broken, or if you think the theists are using logical fallacies in supporting their beliefs. If you think I used a logical fallacy I would like to know specifically what it was so I can properly address it. If you think the theists are using fallacies, I agree that many of them do.

I'm sorry, are you saying that I am making logical fallacies, or the believers in God are making logical fallacies?

It was not my intent to imply that this also holds for adults. I was only trying to say the immature should not be considered broken. Again, it was not my intent to imply that they are correct because so many believe it. My point was that given that there are 6 billion people you have a high burden of proof to show there are no exceptions. I mention it because your premise has to apply to all. I think you can fairly easily discredit those whose belief in God is based on a literal interpretation of the bible. It is much more difficult to prove broken a version of belief like "Since it seems reasonable to believe that the universe was always here or that it was created at some point, it also seems reasonable that something I'll call 'God' was responsible". I disagree. None of those are logical fallacies. How is it a logical fallacy to say that an immature brain cannot make reasoned decisions yet? How is it a logical fallacy to say someone who lacks education about a topic shouldn't be expected to be able to make educated decisions regarding that topic? I believe there have been many strong arguments suggesting that educated, mature, experienced people who believe in God are broken. But that was not the OP. The OP implied that everyone who believes in God is broken. The less educated, the less mature, and the less experienced a person becomes, the more difficult it is to prove the OP. The way it looks to me you have on one end of the scale the educated, mature, experienced person who believes in a literal translation of the bible as a basis for belief in God. He is broken. On the other end of the scale you have the 8 year old who believes in God. He is not broken. And somewhere in between those two ends of the scale there are people who may be broken or not, although it is hard to say definitively. It is still my opinion that the OP is too broad to validate without some refinements.

Ok, although I'm confused about why this is required. I would have thought anything I said in this thread would not have to be repeated in order for it to still be considered part of the record. In post #157 I responded to the idea that faith based beliefs were flawed by stating that "Although just to be fair I guess we have to exclude those who are immature or insufficiently educated." This point went unchallenged. As further support of my position I now submit the following: http://www.edinformatics.com/news/teenage_brains.htm My argument is that since the brain has not completed its development with respect to reasoning, and since that reasoning is required to accept or reject the concept of God, then the person with the immature brain cannot be considered broken. Further, it is my contention that until an individual has sufficient education, either formally or through experience, faulty reasoning is normal. I feel it is reasonable for a person to believe that air travel is dangerous if their only exposure to air travel is reading about air disasters. Until they learn about the number of safe flights taking place everyday, see planes taking offf and landing at airports, fly themselves, etc., their conclusion about the safety of air travel may be considered flawed but not broken. In post #224 and in other places I discussed the idea of "belief with doubt". In post #239 I argued how a person's background could reasonably lead them to a conclusion: In post #258 I made an argument based on how someone making a decision based on insufficient evidence would not be considered broken for making the best decision they can given their capabilities: In post #405 I made arguments based on doubt and trust: In post #412 I made the argument of how the world makes it easy to beleive and be accepted, thus not causing people to look too deeply: These are some of the arguments I've made in this thread. As I've posted around 50 times I could probably come up with more examples if asked. Most of my points were addressed, some were not. It is my belief that many of my examples show how people in various stages of life and development can believe in God without being considered broken. It is also my belief that counter points have not been sufficient to discard my points. Given this, I felt it was safe to say that Mission Accomplished was premature. I also think that given the overly broad statement in the OP that iNow will never be able to claim that the OP has been validated.

Ok, although just to be clear I did not say that some of my arguments were not addressed. Rather, that the counter arguments made were not sufficient to make me change my mind. Disclaimer: I make some general statements that are probably not necessarily agreed to. Feel free to modify. For example, I say that 6 billion people believe in God. If you want to claim it is only 5 billion, or whatever, I'll be happy to concede the point up front. In my opinion the biggest problem with the OP is that it makes a sweeping generalization of, by some estimates, 6 billion people. "Generalizations never work." Since technically we only need to find one person who believes in God who we do not consider broken to consider the OP false, I feel it is doomed from the beginning. Of course if we found that 'most' of those 6 billion were broken I'd be happy to condede the point. My next problem with the OP is that it does not define 'broken'. While not defining 'broken' makes for interesting conversation I feel it will be too big a hurdle to overcome to declare the OP valid. To me 'broken' implies something like 'it did work but now it doesn't'. And finally, there is no attempt to define God in the OP. In this case, since there are so many versions of God (possibly up to 6 billion of them) I feel we must accept all definitions. That means if you believe in the God of Abraham, Zeus, or an impersonal God, any of those beliefs must be considered as belonging to someone who is broken. So the point we are at in order to validate the OP, is to see if we can prove the accuracy of the proposal that 85% of the earth's population, who hold a very general supernatural belief in common, used to be capable of working in some sort of undefined way,and now are not. So now I'll explore some examples of people who believe in God who I do not believe are broken. Believers who have doubt: A 15 year old guy is raised to believe in God. Eveyone he know says it is true including his parents. He has never had any reason to believe otherwise. He believes in God, although not being entirely naive, he does have some doubt. He's never seen God, so he decides it is possible it is not true. To me this is the workings of a properly functioning mind. He may change his mind later, but this is a reasonable proposition at this point in time. Believers who are immature: When I'm young and immature I believe those who are in a position of authority. Being immature I don't reason well or thoroughly. My partents told me God exists, the priest told me, my grandparents, etc. I believe someone who believes in God who is not sufficiently mature cannot be considered broken. I would in fact say they are functioning as built. Believers who are improperly educated or uneducated: I imagine a great portion of the world's God-believing population is mostly uneducated. If I am raised in the middle of a heavily religious area, where everyone believes in God, no one ever discusses the possibility it is not true, and I cannot even read and write, I think that believing in God is the only rational thing to do. I don't think that a young man raised in a small Taliban village can be considered broken for believing in God. Those with a simple belief in an impersonal God: If I see no evidence of God, and no evidence that God does not exist, some say he does and some say he doesn't, how do I decide? I know the universe exists and I have no idea how it got here. I readily admit that I have no way of knowing one way or the other, but my options seem to be that it either was here all the time, or it came into being at some point in time. I'm going to choose one over the other and say that it was created by 'someone' whom I will choose to call 'God'. Don't really know what that means or if it is true, but it seems as likely as the other possibility, maybe even a little more so given what I know about cause and effect. I wouldn't be surprised at all if it turned out that I was wrong though. In my opinion this is not the thinking of someone who is broken. It is an inquisitive mind that is trying to figure out the universe, and at this point in time, this is the best he can do. These are examples of people I do not consider broken, and for whom I have not seen a convincing argument to make me believe otherwise. Had the OP made an attempt to add additional characteristics other than simply 'believing in God' I may have been convinced that some believers in God are broken. For example, those who believe despite contrary evidence, or those who are illogical. As it stands I believe there are too many exceptions to accept the OP. I don't believe that any of the arguments I've made in this thread are arguments based on faith.

You didn't see my posts, or you don't understand them? If you don't understand them can you be more specific?

Sorry for not giving you a yes/no answer but I don't want to add any confusion by using 'validate' differently than you might use it. I've stated several positions on various aspects of this topic. On some positions I believe I did not adequately support them well enough to feel confident that my position is still correct. On other positions I feel that I did adequately support them and do not feel that counter arguments were sufficient to prove them false or make me change my mind. I therefore still believe them to be true. If the positions I still have confidence in are indeed true, then the statement 'people who believe in God are broken' is false.

It is your evaluation of the outcome of this debate that is most troublesome. You made points and defended them against my counter points. I made points and defended them against your counter points. You still believe that your overall position is correct. I still feel that my overall position is correct. Given this situation the only way I feel it is reasonable for you to declare that your position is validated is if I surrender or if an outside judge declares you the winner. I don't think it is reasonable for one of the participants to also judge the debate.

I can't tell. Are you trying to antagonize me, or have you not been reading this thread?

How so?

Ouch! And I thought I was both open minded and had made valid counter points. I believe you've won some battles, but you may be a little premature with the Mission Accomplished claim.

Just for clarification, I think it is important to point out that when you say "we", you are talking about a subset of the people involved in this thread.

Well, I think we both agree that fear was what started the disproportionate measures. The disagreement seems to be on why it is still going on. You seem to think it is fear by the public and I believe it is other things. My most likely candidates for why it continues, in no particular order: 1. Inertia. A giant bureaucracy moving forward will remain moving forward... 2. Lack of public outcry. "Well, we are not being blown up now, and if I complained, who would listen?" 3. Politics. A politician who is foolish enough to advocate cutting out the fight against "those godless freedom hating terrorists" will be eviscerated by members of both parties. This is the one place I do see a lot of fear. A fear by politicians that they will lose their jobs. Whoever blinks first will be thought of as soft on terror. Just like public healthcare. People are against it because the other guy is for it. EDIT: Sorry, I missed an obvious #4. 4. People would be afraid if we did not do it. (This may even be where we differ and we may not even be at odds. You are saying fear is why we are doing it, and I've been taking that to mean you think we are afraid now. I am saying we are not afraid now but would be if we didn't keep fighting terror. I think maybe we are looking at different sides of the same coin.) Yes it would keep me from building it in the first place (same reason I don't buy lottery tickets), and I wouldn't keep building it. But it is too late now. Everyone was afraid when we built it. If the dog/terrorist is still out there I may as well leave the wall up and keep maintaining it. If someone in Congress could quietly cut upgrades but kept the wall in place I don't think there would be many complaints. Again, I agree completely. It is unlikely that anyone will try to hijack a plane full of passengers to use as a weapon and this is because of civilians. That is why I was talking about "dropping planes from the sky". You don't have to hijack a plane to drop it from the sky. Again, I have no argument that when a person is confronted by someone trying to kill them, they will fight back. As far as I know, zero. And if we are going to make those kinds of arguments: If a terrorist attack can be thwarted by fighter jets, how often will it be plane passengers who launch the fighter jets? Well, they talked on a phone first, then they fought back rather than passively accept death. I don't see that as a lot more. I'm afraid you are missing my point. There is no question that money is wasted or that some aspects of the security system don't work well. The point is that if we did not spend money fighting terrorism, many more people would be dead and people would be living in fear. Except for when we are at the emergency room. Don't forget that the wall did serve a purpose. You might want to read my posts again. I am living my life. I am not in fear. I am not suffering due to security measures. No one I know is suffering. No one from TSA has been anything but nice to me. I'm travelling to Mexico this year. My son just went to Norway. I don't give flying a second thought. I feel safe and I am happy.

Even if I heard people denying fear I'd be more inclined to believe fear is common. But from my perspective it is not even so much that people deny being afraid, it is that people don't talk about it at all. For the most part any discussions I hear about terrorism and terrorists comes from this site, and thus far I've not heard anyone here say they are afraid. I don't hear it from friends and family or even on the news much. The only time it seems to come up is when politicians talk about costs in terms of dollars or relations with other countries. I think many do see that we are wasting a great deal of money. I think many others are no more educated about the cost of fighting terrorism as they are about healthcare. I also think that one of the main reasons people don't fear terrorists is because we spend so much money on the war on terror. If we weren't spending the money and bombs were periodically going off around the country, then I think the fear would return. If there is a mean dog roaming the neighborhood and it chewed up some people I will be afraid of it because it could get to me and my kids. But once I put in my 12 foot brick wall around my property I will no longer fear that dog. I may have wasted a lot of money protecting myself from that dog, but it did get me to stop fearing it. I am not suggesting we are spending our money wisely or making the best decisions, I am just suggesting that the result of that spending is that Americans are not living in fear of terrorism. You are missing my point. As you said people in the 50s felt safe after building bomb shelters, even if it was a waste of money. People now feel safe after all the money the government has spent. It may have been born out of fear but the fear has gone away. If people did not feel safe from terrorism now I expect we'd see them spending their own money on today's version of bomb shelters. I am not aware of people doing this now. If you know differently it would go a long way to convincing me that you are correct and people are afraid of terrorism. I agree the response is not rational. I don't think that proves people are fearful. Is this something reasonably current? I have no doubt that fear abounded there during The Troubles. Is it current? I think the difference between The Troubles and what is currently going on in Europe and the US is that during The Troubles there were people who were quite successful killing those around you. There was a real danger that you or someone you cared about could die soon. That risk is not the same for current Europeans and Americans. I agree completely that Flight 93 was foiled by civilians. I completely disagree that terrorists will no longer try to drop planes because of civilians. Civilians are not proactive in trying to discover who is making plans, who is trying to buy explosives, locations of terrorists, what techniques are being developed to sneak explosives aboard, who is trying to obtain shoulder fired missiles, the risks associated with airspace around targets, who is signing up for training to fly an airplane, sharing intelligence with foreign governments, sending luggage through x-ray, and the thousands of other things that are done as part of the war on terror. Civilians don't plan on how to stop terrorism before it hits and are not able to launch fighter jets. What they are good at is personally fighting back rather passively accepting death.

I guess I have the same question for you as I had for padren. Are you afraid to speak out against injustice or opression? Are you afraid of rocking the boat? Do you know anyone who is afraid to do these things due to terrorism? I can understand how the fear might be expected, but I don't see it anywhere. It is talked about as if it is real, but I guess I'd like to see some support that it is actually out there. I agree that another attack would bring it quickly back. In my first post on this subject I said that one of the reasons people weren't afraid was because of the successes of the war on terror. Terrorists would love nothing more than to drop planes from the sky but they've been unable to follow up on the success of 9/11. While what you describe may reasonably be called fear, it is a far cry from how it was described in the beginning of this conversation, how terrorists have "...struck such fear, even terror, in our whole civilization...".

Then we agree. There is no great fear of terrorism. There is an immense difference between the fear that some fanatic will detonate a bomb in the plane you are on, and the fear that some plump, middle class American, will give you a dirty look and confiscate your $1.99 pair of nail clippers. Hmm. I wasn't aware that we were even discussing being concerned with our civil liberties, much less that I said I wasn't concerned about them. And now you are suggesting it might be too scary to address due process for enemy combatants. I'm wondering if you are simply projecting your fear of terrorism onto the American public.