John Cuthber

Discuss.

"An exact equation for pi as a function of e and pi" e = pi * e / pi Gosh!

Sorry guys, I have not been paying attention. Which God are we on about? There seem to be lots. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deities

True, but since his position is "anyone who disagrees with me is ignorant", the insults hardly spoil it. It hasn't a lot to lose.

Are you taking the piss? Calculating pi in terms of pi is quite easy. pi = pi

An oxo pentanoic acid would have a ketone (rather than an aldehyde) group as well as an acid group. Al is only used as a suffix, not a prefix

formyl pentanoic acid

So, what you are saying is that everyone apart from you is wrong about the definition of religion. No inheriting the earth for you then.

"John Cuthber said he bases his moral decisions on being able to live with them." Oh no he didn't. What I said was that my morals mean that I have to live with my decisions. That's not the same as it being my basis for them. And, since that wasn't (and isn't) the basis for my morality, the rest of your post makes little sense. Please try to avoid strawmanning in future as it's a breach of the forum rules. "But I'm asking by what "standard" does an atheist judge (ie, base) his moral decisions?" OK, since you ask, (a bit belatedly, after making a silly assumption). ​I generally base my view of right and wrong on "What would happen if everyone did that?" and "Would I like it if other people did that, if not then I probably oughtn't do it" As it happens, those tie in pretty well with the biblical version "do unto others ...". Religion may well have got that right. However, I gather there is evidence of "morality" of a sort in non-human animals which suggests to me that we had morals before we were human and that we took those morals and added them to our proto-religions very early in mankind's history rather than the (in my view, absurd) idea that we were immoral until someone suddenly invented religion. Incidentally, this" I'm not saying that theists have absolutely unchanging morals, but something is much less likely to change or to change greatly if it's based on an invariant source. " is demonstrably false, Read the Old Testament. The source hasn't changed but attitudes to slavery etc have completely reversed. It's not a case of "less likely to change"- they have changed.

"Saying that someone is wrong with valid evidence is not insulting, you said I have distorted opinions, let's see whose visions are distorted and whose aren't, saying that my visions are simply distorted won't do anything, you need to show how." OK, (I think this link will work,, it's what I got when I typed "define religion" into Google. https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=define+religion&aq=f&oq=define+religion&aqs=chrome.0.57j60l3j0l2.6057&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 Whereas what you said was "That's what being religious means to become identical with God. Being religious means not to establish the Gospel all over the earth and not converting as many people into Christianity, the latter are not religious people for they don't know what being religious means." ​So, compared to all the accepted definitions of the word, your vision of what "religious" means is distorted. BTW, from my point of view, religion is outdated- we no longer need creation myths for example, nor do we pray that an infection goes away: we take antibiotics. So this "Either accept that this forum like other forums is outdated or accept that you guys don't go by evidence and change this forum name or fix your double standards first before giving silly excuses for banning me." is laughable.

We have shoulder blades to connect 18 different muscles to. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scapula#Muscular_attachments I'm not sure how we would do without them, but my guess is "cripplingly badly" You really need to understand that, for all practical purposes, you can't fly. You weigh too much, your muscles are not up to it and your lungs couldn't supply the oxygen to those muscles even if you had them. Sometimes a "theory of everything" won't tell you how to do something: it tells you why it's impossible.

My guess, and it's no more than a guess, is that there will still be some NaOH in the middle. I don't know how Enthalpy thinks Na2CO3 doesn't dissolve: it does. (Edited- typo- my bad)

I think God should be ... retired to the history books. Seriously, aside from a rather minor branch of psychology, why do you think science needs to consider God at all?

I suspect that, from a watchmaker's point of view, 10µm may be a bit coarse. I'm also amused by the idea of reversing the process for making float glass.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Float_glass

"Well, theist believe they do, but you don't believe they do." "You're obviously someone who doesn't believe, so you don't know how believing can so strongly motivate a person. Let me say then that theists thoroughly"believe" they have an invariant source of moral code with inevitable and eternal consequences. " Then they need to look up the word invariant. It's not so long since the church approved of slavery. That doesn't depend on what I believe: it's a straightforward fact. ​They firmly believe something which is obviously false. "An atheist man who can't escape the knowledge that it's "wrong" can only do so if he lives by some moral law; however, where does he get this moral law — what does he use? As I said, there isn't any Atheist Manifesto. He could easily justify keeping it." No he couldn't. You seem to think atheists don't know right from wrong. He might keep the money anyway, but he would know it was wrong (For what it's worth, it's "Theft by finding" as far as the law is concerned) " they really wanted the money, they would have kept looking for it, right? Finding so much money rarely happens, so everyone expects people to behave like this, right? "Finders keepers, losers weepers", right? Anyone else who found the money would keep it, right? He just happened to be in the right place at the right time, right? The money and the bag are so old, that it must have been stolen/lost a long time ago and everyone has forgotten about it, right? " No. Wrong, wrong, wrong wrong, and wrong again. Why don't you think atheists are moral? Why this constant defamation? Do we really want to live in a society where everyone gets to decide what's morally right or wrong for themselves? Andrew Kehoe was morally right, he just got caught, that's all. Lee Harvey Oswald was morally right, he just got caught too. Jack Ruby also. And all those pedophile priests. And, of course,reductio ad Hitlerum, Adolf Hitler was morally right, he just got caught, that's all. "Do we really want to live in a society where everyone gets to decide what's morally right or wrong for themselves?" We do. That's why, in spite of the bible telling people that they should stone their children to death for swearing, people don't. They make their own moral judgement. The atheists are the ones who have noticed this. You on the other hand, have run up against Godwin's law (and Hitler was, by the way, a theist).

Tin melts at about 230C Oven-proof cookware should be able to tolerate higher temperatures than that, and you only need it to work once. You could probably use a little olive oil too as it has a smoke point higher than the melting point of the tin. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoke_point I presume that it's the underside of the tin which you expect to be flat.

It was, I believe, well known that Bush and others (notably Cheney) were spoiling for a fight. So, I think the answer to "What could have ordinary citizens who didn't want war done to prevent the US-led war?" was that they could have voted for the other guys. The only fear about the nukes was that Hans Blix and his team would complete their investigation and prove that Saddam didn't have nukes.So they rushed into a war on the basis of the discredited "dodgy dossier" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Dossier Ewmon, when I first started reading your post I honestly wasn't sure which madman you meant. The one we installed in Iraq or the one in the white house who thought that the sensible reaction to an attack by Saudis was to launch a war with the country next door. It's my belief that, had the Americans chosen to drop food on Afghanistan, rather than bombs they would have won more friends and it would have cost them less money. Of course it would also have saved the lives of more people among the coalition forces than were killed on 9/11 and God knows how many Afghans.

Just a thought, if mainstream science has come to the conclusion that the "star child" is uninteresting, then mainstream scientists won't be looking at it. So only the fringe scientists will be researching it. I't pretty much inevitable that they will be more likely to favour the idea that it's something interesting. So the more recent "research" is likely to support the idea that it's anomalous even if it isn't.

None of that remotely addresses the issue that there are people who don't trust in God so writing "In God we trust" isn't true. This phrase "Why actualy, for the purposes of this discussion and your objections to the phrase, I rather do require your answers and your logic. " doesn't make sense. and, to claim " I have worked it our for myself, and have concluded its OK that it is there" implies that you have some strange view that it's OK to write it , even though it's not true. Quoting songs doesn't prove anything: I think it makes you look silly. Above all to say " it simply restates in words what was presupposed in the establishment of America's institutions" is plainly nonsense since it was not on the bills when the institution was founded.

"As far as I can tell, atheists don't have an invariant source of moral code or inevitable and eternal consequences to avoid." ​You rather seem to have missed the point that the theists don't have one either. "So what I should have said was that, although a Christian and an atheist might commit a wrong, the Christian believes he cannot escape judgment and punishment unless he confesses and repents, but an atheist does not believe this. This gives atheists a lot more moral wiggle room than Christians. " That's the wrong way round. I might escape punishment by others (as long as I don't get found out) but I can't escape the knowledge that I did something wrong. However, if I belonged to the right faith, I could go to confession and then forget about it because I would consider it "absolved". I'm the one who has to consider how I will feel for the rest of my life so I'm the one with a requirement to get the moral decisions right.

You missed a bit there. ewmon, on 02 Feb 2013 - 17:36, said: On what evidence are you making that inaccurate and defamatory claim?

"The first question does God exist at all?" And the answer is that there's no reason to suppose He does. There's also strong evidence that the God described in the Bible does not actually exist. The Bible is clearly not the work of any competent God since it contradicts itself.

On what evidence are you making that inaccurate and defamatory claim? Anyway, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest part or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place." (Matthew 5:17 NAB) For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:18-19 RSV) "It is easier for Heaven and Earth to pass away than for the smallest part of the letter of the law to become invalid." (Luke 16:17 NAB) "All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for refutation, for correction, and for training in righteousness..." (2 Timothy 3:16 ...the scripture cannot be broken.” --Jesus Christ, John 10:35 And so on.

Do you realise that, when science reveals a few more truths it's likely that there will be so little left of the bible that " the entire truth about the bible" won't mean anything? " the entire truth about the bible" may well turn out to be that the Bible was made up by a self interested group about 100 years after the events it purports to record. "All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental."

Do you really need me to tell you the answer to that question? Can you not work out for yourself that, no matter who said (or sang) what, it is still not true to say that we trust in God when some of us don't.