mooeypoo

I didn't "take Dawkins word" I quoted sources and added an additional one, incidentally from Dawkins site. Did you even read it, or did you just automatically assume it's irrelevant? As iNow said, even if Hitler wasn't a Christian, he was DEFINITELY not an Atheist. It's not an either-or situation, there are other religions and other beliefs *inside* christianity and outside of it. All you did was show that he disliked some aspects of Christianity. That doesn't mean he was an atheist. However, even if he was, I am not sure what that means in the context of this conversation. Unlike religion - which is a SYSTEM with rules - atheism is just a lack of belief in god. Atheists aren't bound to one another by a system of rules and definitions, they just lack a belief in god. Even *IF* Hitler was an atheist (which, if you'd have read his actual book, you'd see he did believe in god, and in the divinity of Jesus, even if he thought some of the aspects of the system of christianity required change) it has no bearing on atheism ITSELF. It's not a unified system like Christianity, where even the different factions inside christianity all go by a book of laws (the bible, their pastors, some sort of hierarchy). Atheism is not a "SYSTEM". It's the lack of belief in a deity. Even *IF* Hitler was an atheist (which he was not, even if he wasn't a christian), it has no meaning about atheism in general. Absolutely not. His 'cult' was saying that God created the Aryan nation PURE and closest to the god. He did not say the Aryans were gods. If you want to make a case that Atheism is what made Hitler the way he is, or that without faith it's unsurprising hitler was the way he was, then look at his belief in GOD. Atheism isn't "no belief in christianity", it's "no belief in god". Let's look at what Hitler says about *GOD*: I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator. - Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 Chapter 2 Even today I am not ashamed to say that, overpowered by stormy enthusiasm, I fell down on my knees and thanked Heaven from an overflowing heart for granting me the good fortune of being permitted to live at this time. - Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 Chapter 5 I had so often sung 'Deutschland über Alles' and shouted 'Heil' at the top of my lungs, that it seemed to me almost a belated act of grace to be allowed to stand as a witness in the divine court of the eternal judge and proclaim the sincerity of this conviction. - Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 Chapter 5 Once again the songs of the fatherland roared to the heavens along the endless marching columns, and for the last time the Lord's grace smiled on His ungrateful children. - Adolf Hitler reflecting on World War I, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 7 What we have to fight for is the necessary security for the existence and increase of our race and people, the subsistence of its children and the maintenance of our racial stock unmixed, the freedom and independence of the Fatherland; so that our people may be enabled to fulfill the mission assigned to it by the Creator. - Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 Chapter 8 And look here at what he says will happen to belief in god if his battle fails: But if out of smugness, or even cowardice, this battle is not fought to its end, then take a look at the peoples five hundred years from now. I think you will find but few images of God, unless you want to profane the Almighty. - Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 Chapter 10 If the battle fails, there will be less recognition of God. Does that sound like an atheist to you? In short, the results of miscegenation are always the following: (a) The level of the superior race becomes lowered; (b) physical and mental degeneration sets in, thus leading slowly but steadily towards a progressive drying up of the vital sap. The act which brings about such a development is a sin against the will of the Eternal Creator. And as a sin this act will be avenged. - Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 Chapter 11 And this, does this sound like he's an atheist?: Anyone who dares to lay hands on the highest image of the Lord commits sacrilege against the benevolent creator of this miracle and contributes to the expulsion from paradise. - Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 1 Clearly, Hitler was a believer in God. What kind of God, what kind of religion, we can argue that, but one thing is quite obvious: He was *not* an atheist. ~moo

Interesting. "We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out." - Adolf Hitler, in a speech in Berlin on 24 Oct. 1933 "My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow my self to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice… And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows . For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people." – Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922 (Norman H. Baynes, ed. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939, Vol. 1 of 2, pp. 19-20, Oxford University Press, 1942) "Christianity could not content itself with building up its own altar; it was absolutely forced to undertake the destruction of the heathen altars. Only from this fanatical intolerance could its apodictic faith take form; this intolerance is, in fact, its absolute presupposition." - Adolf Hitler Mein Kampf “Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.” – Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf) This also has some information about this 'hitler was an atheist' myth: http://richarddawkins.net/articles/1417 And more places. If you insist, I'll look 'em up. ~moo

You are making assumptions that are baseless, though. How do you know other animals don't? Do you read their minds? We can't know this for sure. Why? What does celibacy give you that helps you help the world? It seems to me that if we care about nature, we should do as nature "intended" and have sex more. No it won't, you have millions of people in the world who have sex, are not addicted to it, and practice safely. Your statement is generalized. Two things here. First off, your answer is a bit misrepresenting the question. No one said that you shouldn't control yourself; that is, I don't think there's any question that addiction to sex (like *any* addiction) is not good for you. But there's a huge range between addiction and usage. There are millions of people in the world that practice safe sex. You have given no valid reason why not to. When you say that we need to avoid the instinct of, say, killing someone, then there can be made a logical case of *WHY* we should avoid it. What does it give us, practically, to avoid it, vs what it "costs" to not do something we want. Saying that we should avoid it but giving no reason is moot.. why should we avoid it? why is it so bad? if it was created by god (or nature) and god (or nature) made it enjoyable, then why not do it? Why not enjoy what god (or nature) gave us? ~moo

Swaha, you're making no sense and you're moving the goal post. This thread is about sex and religious beliefs. You made a remarkably random comment about how ants are so insignificant compared to humans, a comment which Mr Skeptic tore apart by using proper evidence-based science. You seem to attempt an emotional response that has no relevancy here. You made a claim, and you had an answer. The fact that ants are creatures with communities, that affect this world have no bearing on whether or not we should be ants, or whether or not we should have sex. Can you get back on topic, please? Or explain what you meant in this rather random trail of thought here, which you seem to change directions in when you encounter resistance.

and and

We can't force people to vote, we're hoping that people who care about the choices will affect the forum for the future But that's why we're going for a general direction with this vote. There will still be changes made to whatever logo we choose, we just really didn't want to have the staff arbitrarily makes a choice without involving the community - sooooooo vote, guys!

Your questions make no sense at all. Yes. Do ants actively destroy entire forests by chopping down its trees? What!? Uh.. do humans build intricate hierarchical societies that maintain a delicate microcosm? You can find what humans do that animals don't do, and you can find what animals do and humans can't do. What's your point? Morality? Effect on the planet...? be specific, swaha, because you're making no sense and you're making arbitrary judgments that have no support. Absolutely. YOu should read a bit about balance in nature and the way different animals maintain the microcosm they -- and other animals -- live in. You make ZERO sense here. You should explain what you mean. And be more specific. But assuming you meant that humans affect the planet more, you're making a judgment arbitrarily. Are you SERIOUSLY claiming that humans are the most important animals? Are you claiming other animals aren't important in the preservation of the planet? By your logic, that would mean that since Humans are the only animal to actively DESTROY the planet with carbon emissions, plastics in the ocean and toxic waste, we're probably the LEAST helpful animal, and therefore all animals surpass us. We do much more damage than we do good, in terms of "preserving nature", so if that's your bar, we're probably the lowest form of life on this planet.

We should have a shirt with a naked girl wearing only a lab jacket. We'll get tons of people buying it.. Seriously, though, we will, quite soon, have an online store where we'll offer some SFN merchandise. We can give out more than just out logo -- that is, if you have cool ideas, we will discuss them on another thread, so don't think that the logo is our only representative on shirts Thing is -- there's a difference between a logo and a fun t-shirt. Think first about what you think the logo should be, think that it should be something relatively simple and not too elaborate - it's something to have next to email signatures, it's something to have on business cards, it's something to have as our "branding" (small print on our 'fun' shirts). It doesn't matter if we will end up HAVING business cards or email signatures -- the point is that there's a difference between a logo and a tshirt. We'll talk about tshirts soon, and there won't be any prevention to put ANY of the logos we had on that thread on our tshirts even if they're not our logo. AT the moment, though, we have to choose some sort of direction to go for our LOGO. Just the logo. Just for now. We have to stay forcused, otherwise we'll be so far spread out we will never get this done. ~moo

Okay, again, we can do that but that would mean we need to focus on the integral. And that suggestion is doable, I can try and make it when I get back home, see how it looks like. But the problem is that we started scattering -- we tried 5 different paths at the same time, then went back, and forth, and back. This vote is just to try and get us to focus on a general direction. Vote for what you think is the *DIRECTION* we need to take, guys, then we can be focused on the changes that we can take.

It matters what it is because you suspect it may exist, or that it may help you understand/make sense of something else that exists. Otherwise, why do you care what it is?

?? There are many many organisms out there, and animals, that work for the benefit of the group and their herds or colonies. Humans are far from being unique in being "designed" to work for others.

Semi accident. The point is that we're not voting for the final logo, we're voting for the direction we should take next. We've been all over the place in terms of suggestiosn -- going from style A to style B instead of being a bit more focused. After this vote we can take a single logo and tweak it again -- add nebulas, effects, remove effects, rotate, cram, whatever. So, peeps, choose for your desired style even if you think there are problems with it -- we can still fix problems after.

I am another person with Mathematica on my computer. Offering this site as an alternative to Mathematica is like offering a calculator and asking to program an operating system. For the sake of anyone who might stumble upon this thread and might actually WANT to learn, I want to repeat the recommendation Cap'n has made for the Mathematica free player: http://www.wolfram.com/products/player/download.cgi While it doesn't allow for the full power of mathematica, it does a good job simulating most of the basics that one might need to solve questions like these. Also, calculation by hand is tedious, but it does work, if one is vigilant, has patience, and can track problems. And finally, of course, You're welcome, honeypot. Good lucksies. ~moo

ambors, this thread has 7 pages of people telling you that you're wrong, and trying to explain it to you. Your attempts to claim that no one says it, or that no one managed to explain it, are futile. It's time you stopped chasing ghosts here, took a break, go over the entire thread again, and start asking valid questions. This is going nowhere, and not because of us. ~moo

But I am not immortal, I am not all powerful, I am not even "most" powerful than others. If god is us, then we have a suitable definition for "us" - humans, society, people, person -- we dont' need "god" as a definition. Does that mean that by that definition, God does not exist?

A - No, you don't know how to compute it. There's a difference. B - Yeah, it's been refuted throughout the thread. If you think I'm going to pretend I need to do it from scratch, you're mistaken.

Take into account that the vote now is more about the direction to go. Whatever logo we pick, we will need to tweak a bit, so if you like a style but dislike a specific issue in the logo, you can still vote for it and raise the issue later. We just need to pick a direction now so we're more focused in designing a new logo. ~moo

He did not walk the Earth, Mr Skeptic, he walked the Garden of Eden (heaven).* Snap oh! * The fact that skeptics and modern theologians sometimes claim that "heaven" in Genesis is an Earthly location (possibly somewhere in Mesopotamia, in the 'fertile triangle') doesn't matter for the context of the bible, where God does not "walk" the Earth. The entire point of the Jewish belief is that God is incorporeal, and is everywhere at once.

Actually I'm not surprised. You said you're watching Stargate SG1 -- that's exactly what they're doing with this "god" definition. In that show, the gods (and more than one "type" of "god") is a race, creature, person or society (etc) that just is soooooooooo far ahead technologically that for all intents and purposes is a god to the people. They actually deal with this a lot, asking questions like "even if the god is not immortal or not all powerful, isn't it enough that it's *that much more powerful* than I?". At some point, I guess, a powerful enough being would be indistinguishable from a deity. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Actually, no. Yahweh, the god of the jews, can't "walk" anything. He's immaterial. It's not even a 'he', it's a sometimes-'he'/sometimes-'them'/sometimes-'it'. And it never "walked the earth" in the metaphorical sense either, until the Christians decided Jesus was the son of god, who walked the earth. That, however, isn't really Yahweh. It was Jesus. ~moo

That's the integral Mr Skeptic explained to you (along with others) is NOT the proper way of dealing with multi dimentional calculus. So, you didn't really try Capn's suggestion. Are you afraid it will actually make sense, or do you not understand it? It's only fair seeing as we appear to be wasting ours.

dave is a math god. Does that count? That fits Clarke Three Laws: 1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. 2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible. 3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. I think #3 is pretty decent in suggesting another option for the definition of a god. ~moo

When Mathematica computes, it produces the code along with the result. Copy/paste it in here, so we see exactly the stages in which you got your answer and we can see either where you were wrong or where we were wrong. It seems you keep getting answers no one else is getting in their calculation. Usually, that's a sign something's wrong with your calculation, but the only way to verify who's right and who's wrong is to go over it step by step. Go ahead and post it.

I doubt that very much, but that' sbesides the point. You weren't asked to solve *my* question, you were asked to solve your own. So first you started by throwing blame onto others to hide your own lack of knowledge and understanding, and now you try and shift the subject. Do it or don't, just stop beating around the bush. Really, we all have better things to do than to argue with someone who's not interested in learning. Your attempts to convince us that bad math is true are really quite futile. I think you should go over multi dimentional calculus again, my friend. Of course, it seems that you also don't read what people write to you. I didn't say it was wrong answer. In fact, i said it was the right answer to the wrong question. But you seem more interested in how to compare sizes rather than actually do math and physics. As a woman, my size competition is different than yours. You have nothing to threaten your position. Can we let go of the size chart now and do some real science? yes? good. We're still eagerly waiting for you to do Capn's exercise. ~moo

I'm sorry to be petty here but doesn't "Immortal" mean just that you can't die? It has nothing to do with aging. Theoretically, then, an immortal god *can* age. Just not die.

Think of it like water coming out of a faucet. Calculating the mass of a single drop traveling with the stream doesn't solve for the entire stream of water. So this isn't "wrong answer", it's just the wrong question. You're talking about the ENTIRE stream -- the current, not just one single 'packet' of charge moving and making its own little current -- or not just a single drop of water in the stream. ~moo