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I didn't see this rule being made. It looked to me like jryan was pointing out the similarities, and swansont was pointing out the differences. It seems reasonable to me to have at least one counterpoint before the differences are dismissed as meaningless. I'm anxious to see how Palin handles the issue of the map. This could be her "Tylenol" moment. I think it will be relatively easy to defuse the controversy if she acknowledges that perhaps this type of rhetoric could be toned down, and that she will lead by example. (Whether she believes it or not.) Then again, if she does the two-step and acts irritated that anyone could even sugggest such a thing, she may go the way of BP CEO Tony Hayward. And based on what I'm seeing so far, I think she liked Tony's approach. http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_theticket/20110110/ts_yblog_theticket/giffords-tragedy-could-be-a-defining-moment-for-palin

The map is still on Facebook though... http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=373854973434&id=24718773587

Well she certainly isn't doing herself any favors. Apparently Sarah Palin just took down the map from her website that had Gifford's district in the crosshairs of a rifle. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2011/01/09/2011-01-09_palin_put_a_target_on_her_she_should_have_known_the_dangers.html?r=news

"According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), pedophilia is a paraphilia in which a person has intense and recurrent sexual urges towards and fantasies about prepubescent children and on which feelings they have either acted or which cause distress or interpersonal difficulty." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedophilia "Pedophilia is a commonly found, but rarely admitted, psychological disorder" "Physical, emotional, sexual and neglect are the major types of child abuse." "Some other common psychological effects of child abuse are behavioral problems, attention problems, anxiety, alcohol abuse or drug abuse, bed-wetting, academic difficulties, concentration problems and chronic sexual behaviors. The abused child suffers from depression, insomnia, eating disorders, dissociative states, fear or shyness, failure to thrive, learning problems, inability to concentrate, panic attacks, malnutrition and repeated self-injury. An emotionally abused child suffers from low self-esteem, paranoia, loneliness, poor relationship with the opposite sex, interpersonal sensitivity, lack of interest in daily activities and sense of dissociation." http://www.buzzle.com/articles/the-psychological-effects-of-child-abuse.html How does this fit with your belief that pedophiles don't hurt anyone? A citation is a quoting of an authoritative source for substantiation. You are making many claims and I would like to be able to verify that your claims are valid. Just because you say it doesn't make it so. You are making the claims. I am just asking you to back them up.

Ok. Thanks. I think you are starting to lose some credibility here.

Then by your definition, wouldn't necrophilia be considered a sexual orientation? Certainly the form of the body to a necrophiliac is critically important. And I would think that the form of the dead body is at least as different from a live adult as a child's body is from a live adult.

Citations please.

But you said... If everyone in the world has one of the four sexual orientations you mention, then that would mean no one is asexual. And also: "Though people may use other labels or none at all, sexual orientation is usually discussed in terms of three categories: heterosexuality, homosexuality, and bisexuality (asexuality is increasingly recognized as a fourth)." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_orientation Once again, you said: If they only had one of these four sexual orientations, then that would mean no one is bisexual.

I thought you left. You said this place was a joke and that we were buffoons, nit wits, and hopeless fools. So then why are you here? You obviously have some agenda other than discussing science. Why don't you just get on with it and tell us what that agenda is? Is it that you think it is fun disrupting other people's discussions? Do you enjoy insulting people anonymously? Are you trying to increase the revenue at Thunderbolts? What? Just freakin tell us already and quit playing with yourself. You're embarrassing yourself and it's uncomfortable having to witness it.

What about asexuality? Or bisexuality? Edit: Belonephilia - sexual obsession with sharp objects Gerontophilia - sexual attraction towards the elderly Scopophilia - sexual pleasure from seeing things

Of course you have. You've pointed the finger at the mods. Just because you do it collectively instead of individually doesn't mean you didn't do it. And you do it again in this post by saying they are petty, they over manage, and get a feeling of power over others regardless of their opinions. At least be honest about what you are doing.

It's quite simple to prosper here. Follow the rules. If you don't like the rules here, find a place that has rules you do like. And you are sending mixed messges when you say 'Nothing personal is meant by these remarks', followed by:

Weight training helps in losing weight. In addition to burning calories during the workout it helps increase your metabolism. This is due to the fact that the extra muscle you build requires the burning of additional calories during rest. While any type of exercise helps you lose weight, it is arguably more important to consume fewer calories. You can wipe out the caloric loss benefit of running three miles per day with minimal snacking. And remember that all calories count. You can gain weight by eating too many fruits and vegetables.

For someone who doesn't believe in God you sound a lot like a bible thumping preacher.

Why not? Can't I be a theist and believe that God created the universe and the laws of physics and allowed them to run their course?

I took the following hit: "Earlier you claimed that it is not justifiable to base one's beliefs about the external world on a firm, inner-conviction, paying no regard to the external evidence, or lack of it, for the truth or falsity of this conviction. But now you say that the rapist Peter Sutcliffe was justified in basing his beliefs about God's will solely on precisely such a conviction. That's a bull's-eye for the intellectual sniper!" I was surprised I took a hit. I was thinking that I could not justify basing my beliefs with no regard to external evidence, but I don't have a problem with others doing it. I mean, if Peter Sutcliffe really thinks God is telling him to do something, then he is going to feel justified doing it. If you believe in God, I would think you believe He trumps all external evidence. Nice exercise!

"This illustration shows the visible Milky Way galaxy surrounded by a “squashed beachball”-shaped dark matter halo." Source: UCLA http://www.universetoday.com/49619/milky-way-has-a-squashed-beachball-shaped-dark-matter-halo/

I don't see him using an argument at all. He is just coming to a conclusion without building the foundation. It seems to me that unless we have common ground we cannot debate. If an atheist can use the bible (or whatever theistic material there is) along with science to argue why the theist's view of God is incorrect, then we are ok. And if the theist can use science along with the bible to point out how the atheist's view of the world is incorrect, we are also ok. But atheists cannot (for example) throw out theistic arguments just because they cannot be proven, and theists cannot (for example) throw out scientific arguments just because 'God could be playing a practical joke on us and that might just be an illusion'. If we don't agree to common ground on which to debate then we are just wasting our time. And I think where needsimprovement made his mistake was when he invoked the 'practical joke' strategy. At that point there is no more common ground.

At one time I believed that God probably existed, and right now I believe He probably doesn't. But I wouldn't be too surprised one way or the other. My personal view of God has never had any more detail than that. I was raised Catholic but don't ever remember feeling confident that what I was told about God was true. And when I learned to think critically I was never able to feel confident about any aspect of God, even His existence. When somone feels they know anything about Him at all it makes me wonder what clicks in their minds that never does in mine.

Thanks to everyone for your contributions!

To me this is the most unfair debate tactic I've run into when debating with theists. The ace in the hole. "Nothing is impossible for God, in fact, it is easy for him." And when this card is played the debate is over. Where can I possibly go from here? We can't talk about evidence. We can't talk about the bible. We can't talk about philosophy. Because any point I make can be countered with "But God could easily be showing/hiding [fill in the blank] from you to lead you to this erroneous conclusion of yours." Makes me wonder why we are talking in the first place. I don't know why God would to do this to me. I don't know why he would make it a point of hiding evidence of his existence by doing things like making a 15,000 year old earth appear to be 4.5 billion years old. But it feels like he is jerking me around. Or that the person debating like this is.

Is He trying to jerk us around???

So we theorize that the energy is expanding space and not pushing/pulling objects because otherwise it is a major problem for relativity. Does the theory of expansion allow us to predict how expansion happens? Does it give us some ideas on what to test for to see if it is true? In other words, getting back to my original question, does the expansion somehow modify the properties of space in some predicted way? I wasn't trying to suggest that the Theory of Relativity be tossed out, although maybe that is what I was saying without realizing it. I was more wondering if maybe it could be fine tuned for special situations, such as "how massive objects behave at very great distances in the presence of dark energy". I know that it would be easier to find another reason for the recession of galaxies we see, but I'm wondering if we did? Is the idea of expansion testable? Can we look at a portion of space over time and determine if it has been experiencing expansion? Is space going through some predictable and ultimately testable change?

So why is it thought that dark energy expands space, as opposed to dark energy pushing or pulling objects through space? Is there evidence that this is the case, or is it just that without expansion of space, other theories would have problems? For example, it is determined that galaxy clusters move away from each other at FTL speeds. This means (I guess) that space must be expanding, or that we are wrong about c being the universal speed limit. How do we know expansion is correct and not that we have a problem with c being the speed limit?

So is the expectation that over time, as space expands, there will be less dark energy per cubic volume of space?