ParanoiA

Yes you're correct that science doesn't have a say in the existence of god, as it would require evidence and testing, neither of which are possible. That's all Dawkins is saying. Provide some evidence and then it will be reasonable and logical to believe in a deity. Right now, absence of evidence equals an unreasonable conclusion of existence. It is not evidence of absence, and is not a conclusion of science, it's a conclusion of a scientist. He seems to use science for its insistence on evidence. Not a perverse notion of science as stating god doesn't exist. Science doesn't say that and Dawkins has never said that science does say that or anything like it. Could you provide an example of this? The only time I notice him saying something is unreasonable or illogical is when something is unreasonable or illogical. If you believe in god, astrology and other types of spirituallity with zero evidence, then how can that be a reasonable and logical conclusion? Just seems to me that to believe in something with no reasonable evidence or proof is, unreasonable and illogical. I would agree that I believe in some things that require faith - no proof in their existence. And I would also agree it's illogical for me to believe in them too, because there's no evidence or proof of any part of it. In fact, I'm not sure why you have a problem with it. If god works so mysteriously, then of course it's not logical is it? Logic is not a requirement for god's existence. Incidentally, on the subject of labels, I watched a Q&A with him where he criticized religious labels being slapped on children before they're of an age to understand philisophy, or even language for that matter. That telling a child "you are christian" or "you are catholic" or "you are atheist" is irresponsible.

Ok, but if you believe it's delusional and you have intellectual logic and reason to support that belief, then how do you discuss it without "attacking" your beliefs or "bashing" and dismissing them? I see no way for him to win here, because you are taking his "position" to be offensive, basically. You don't go off claiming your friend is delusional because you don't believe that. Otherwise, if you did believe it, but didn't say it, then you're a liar and a crappy friend. I doubt you're either one of those, so you must just not be of the same opinion as Dawkins.

AT&T just got bought out by SBC - an absolutely huge company. SBC chose to use the at&t name, so basically at&t grew about 20 fold overnight. They didn't try creating a monopoly in the 90's. I have no idea what you're referencing there, AT&T was divested in 1984. That created 5 Bell regions for local phone service, while AT&T was solely long distance, or more accurately, inter-LATA connectivity. Slowly, the regions are being absorbed right back where they started from. Already, PacBell, Southwestern Bell, Ameritech and Bell South are back under the at&t title. I don't believe anything will stop them at this point. Agenda? To maximize profits for shareholders by ruling the planet...

I don't know. I watched some other google videos of his, interviews, taking questions after a reading and so forth and I don't get the antagonistic offense from him. He just believes in what he's saying and is as excited to talk about it, argue it, debate it as an intellectual might be. I think you all bring your emotional baggage into these discussions because he seems to be quite careful about how he phrases things so that he's not just "dissing" your religion, he's intellectually "challenging" your religion. There's a difference and I've noticed the god faithful don't seem to recognize that difference. Incidentally, this is also why I doubt a religious forum could ever really work on here. The moment you challenge religion, in any capacity, it's seen as an attack, it's taken personal and subsequently ruins any discussion.

That's awesome...

This is really beginning to become a problem around here. You're arguing to a point I didn't make. Re-read my post, including the context: Geoguy said... So I said... My point was about GWB believing in his crap, not that the crap merits believing. You're going off about how stupid the war is, and I don't contest that, I'm more of a non-interventionist type.

The federal reserve is a banking system, not a bank. It's privately owned but run by both the government and privately.

Nice post. I wish my countrymen would adopt the philosophy of independence as well, which would compliment a withdrawal from the middle east. How can we truly be free when we depend on other countries for our energy? Or any other modern resource...

I just love this post. So true.

And here's where we fundamentally disagree. I believe they are a critical problem. I believe the existence of our nation is at stake when millions upon millions of brain washed, socially conditioned and controlled people hate our guts - and fractions of them create racist murder clubs to exercise that hatred. Again, this does not mean I believe we need to panic and lose our minds in a rage of offensive military conflict throughout the world. And I shouldn't have to say that.... Individuals fail in systems. Systems, practically by definition, are repetitious flow charts of decisions and predetermined action. This is why they will always be penetrable. Study it long enough and you'll find the right loop holes to exploit for your cause. Individuals fail in systems because of the repetition, in my opinion. This is a broad brush I'm using, but the point is still valid. Relax, I'm just adding supporting arguments for my point that systems don't cover everything - actually they cover hardly anything at all. The effect is millions and millions of dead people. Yes america will be fine....with millions and millions of dead bodies to deal with. I just don't agree that it shouldn't be treated as a top priority for this country's problems. It's as important as any war on our soil. Close. My saying that Al Qaeda can destroy America and your saying they won't/can't. No they are not. You can't gaurantee that. Like Bush said, we have to be right everytime, they only have to be successful once. I agree with the theme of that statement, in that I'm not willing to gamble with the existence of my country based on "tracking systems". To use that as an excuse to eleviate "critical concern" with nuclear terrorism is folly, to me. Nuclear proliferation is on the fast track in the middle east and the more people we piss off the easier it's going to be for Al Qaeda to obtain nuclear weapons. WMD packaging is also getting smaller and smaller, and will continue to do so - biological and so forth. The list of nations that would like to see the US a smoldering field of dirt is growing and growing. Once a nation goes nuclear, we don't have many options and that list is also growing and growing. I really think you need to re-think your position on this. In twenty years, how much easier will WMD's be attained by terror groups? 30 years? 50? I mean really... Sorry, you said "the war" so I naturally thought "Iraq". Invalid thought reference on my part. My point was that I don't think it matters how successful we are in military confrontation when the method of terrorism is sneaky, under the radar type warfare. You're right they can't win that way. Those attacks are designed to scare societies, not to overthrow governments and take control. It's fairly cost effective to scare societies into submission rather than full scale invasion, which they don't have the numbers to do in any way. But when they're done trying to scare americans into changing themselves to be liked, they'll ramp it up. I'm envisioning a crippling coordinated attack that allows another aggressive, opportunist country to exploit, for one. This is what I take seriously. Nuclear weapons and other WMD's make that possible. I've already made that clear. Terrorism can destroy us if we pretend they are not a serious threat - a critical threat. I believe that will allow just enough complacency to thwart our "systems", just like on 9/11, and set off a light show with millions of corpses in the wake. When the bully on the block falls down, the world will cheer. Some may even rush to kick the bully into submission, or total destruction. When you piss off nations like we do, for decads on end, you're setting yourself up for this. No. If we lose part of ourselves going on a murderous rampage throughout the globe, we will be worse than them and we'll be worse for them. This doesn't win them anything, rather helps them to lose actually since we'd obviously care less and less about collateral damage and more and more about just killing terrorists - to hell with the consequences! You see how this moral poetry is misleading? It's cute for grade school philosophy, but we're grown ups now. Becoming the enemy isn't a win for the enemy. It's a loss for us, though, no doubt. But it's not a loss they gain anything from, other than maybe just the psychology of knowing they altered us somehow. That's still not a win since it doesn't advance their goal at all - unless of course making us murderous pigs is their goal - and it's not in this case. Their goal is to make the world Islamic followers, not murderers of Islamic followers. I must have misuderstood where you were going with this earlier, because I agree with what you're saying here, to a point. I thought you were saying that if my government treats OTHERS, as in non-americans, in offensive "totalitarian-like" ways, then that's an indication of how my government wants to treat me. So, I was pointing out that war involves shooting people without any due process, the enemy, which is distinguishable by clothing - traditionally anyway, and yet my government still hasn't circumvented due process here at home. But in the context of this terror war, I think you're right. Nabbing citizens here at home and stripping their civil rights without due process is not acceptable to me. Illegal immigrant, different story - but US citizen, not acceptable. I am weary of this, and being a libertarian, it's quite concerning. It probably is justifiable in the US if they're not a citizen. How is that any different than a slow...trickling...invasion? Just becuase they're not pouring onto a beach front somewhere, or any other traditional invasion technique, doesn't mean they're not invading. And we would certainly shoot them in the head if they were, wouldn't we? This is where we should be using guns and ammo - protecting our country - not attacking another country because we think they might attack us. But, if they're a citizen, albeit possibly an invading terrorist operating incongnito, then that changes everything. We have a constitution that is to be respected, and our civil rights are not a light matter. Due process should be required. I do not agree with the patriot act. Well first of all, I'm suspicious of all "terrorist" claims, naturally. I have a bad feeling in my gut when I hear the media report on casualties in Iraq, where everyone killed is a "terrorist" or "insurgent". It's a gaping hole of bullshit where we can throw in any innocent person to justify murder. I'm very concerned about that. That said, I've already answered this question above. If they're a non-citizen, then I have no more reason to distrust my government's word on this person than I do when they're killing them thousands of miles away on a battlefield. If they're a citizen, then anything less than due process is unacceptable. Of course. Well, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. I'm assuming truly malicious behavior, on our part, wouldn't allow an opportunity to be defeated. With the kinds of war toys we have, we can level civilizations without setting foot on the ground. Germany couldn't do that. And the soviets weren't malicious enough to do it. "Becoming them" in this context is in despite of them. We're not going to "become them" in terms of Islam. We could "become them" in that we could become racist murderers. This is indistinguishable in many ways, but Islam is what we'd have to force onto our countrymen in order for your moral poem to work. Are you really trying to make the case that becoming them would include a total submission to Islam? I don't agree. Obviously no, since it would not include Islam. And since being them, includes being irrational and extreme, they will have any even more difficult time wrestling the country from them. Well this proves that you agree that "becoming them" doesn't include embracing Islam, or else we wouldn't make all Islam our enemy. And again, I don't believe our malicious and despicable behavior would help them when we level civilizations from above the clouds. Maybe I'm overstating the degree of despicable behavior here, but I would think the superpower of the world gone mad in the middle east would not be of benefit to anyone. No, what you're seeing is a balance. A balance between severity and reality. It is a severe problem and if treated as a mere nuisance, depending on "systems" to save us, we're going to get it. At the same time, reality dictates, to me anyway, that they will be inevitably successful at something some point. So we can't just sit and rely on these systems. We need to actively take terrorism quite seriously, always looking outside of the box, outside of the system. Al Queda wasn't lucky, they were knowledgable of our complaceny towards security and our systems. If you pretend it's no big deal, that feeds this complacency and gaurantees a reoccurance. We need to understand that all systems are penetrable, and start behaving more unpredictably. I disagree. Strategically placed warheads could cripple the country enough to be destroyed by other, cooperating powers. WMD's and nuclear weapons are too easily attainable and manageable to marginalize the threat of thousands of cooperative racist murderers any longer. Again, I disagree. They notoriously wait between attacks as they're patient and calculative. This compliments my complacency arguments because I believe that is large part of why there's indefinite gaps between attacks. Although you may be right that NOW we are active and diligent enough to prevent most attacks, pre 9/11 we were not.

From Wiki: I'm having a problem understanding that second bit in bold though. Are they saying that New Hampshire demands any politician campaigning in their state to refrain from participating in any primary that isn't 7 days after theirs? I know I can't be reading that right.

I think you missed my sarcasm. I know that wasn't the point he wanted to make. And believe me, the anti-war obsession with recreating vietnam, conflict after conflict, has not escaped my notice. I was just doing some reading on the Tet offensive when I stumbled across this blurb about the media misrepresenting the battle, irresponsibly, in the same way we're experiencing media coverage on Iraq. I especially took notice to the polls that concluded that 60% of americans were under the belief the Tet Offensive was a loss for us. So, I concluded, in sarcasm, that he was right - the media is doing the same sensationalizing and failure propogation they did in vietnam, only they've taken it up a notch with all the new technology.

Exactly. Good news is not interesting. Good news and successes in Iraq are not interesting. Bombs and blood and dramatic references to screaming and napalm are what's interesting. They expose the war with pretention, as if war was promised to be really nice and civil-like. They report dead civilians as if war isn't supposed to do that. They report bombings throughout the country of Iraq, as if war isn't supposed to have fighting and explosions. They report ramped up enemy attacks as if the enemy isn't supposed to want to fight our military in war. All of these things effect us, non-military folk, profoundly. And it should, as we shouldn't be comfortable with violence. So, we overcompensate by toying with our young men and women's lives over there for purposes of our guilt. We feel guilty about the catastrophe of war, so we pass our unrealistic, childish burden of our ideas of civility onto these brave men and women - demanding an expectation that we should be ashamed of. The insult? That we do this from air conditioned modern societies, thousands of miles away from where any of this is going on. We ignore those that are standing RIGHT THERE IN IT - and instead we arrogantly rely on corporate sensationalist businesses to provide this information. We even ignore generals and pretend like we know better. We're idiots. My countrymen have lost their freaking minds. War is ugly, unfair, despicable and resolute. When we wage war, we ought to be damn sure this is what we want. And then do it. Get it done and do it. If we're not prepared for the sensationalism delivered by media, or the truth about collateral damage, to bear the burden of what we've agreed to and unleashed onto other living human beings - then don't wage war. I would go so far as to request people to ask themselves, "is this worth killing children over?". If not, then don't wage war. Incidentally, this is why I have such a problem with interventionism and conflict. It's rarely worth it. But to go in half assed, trying to kill people all civil-like, kinda half war and half civil-ish, we're not going to win anything. We're just killing people in vain. That's what we're doing in Iraq. Since we won't just perform warfare and get it done, we're actually far more cruel and are far more destined to lose, leaving nothing but dead people for no gain at all - nothing. This is why war should be declared, not abdicating responsibility by passing a "resolution" for the president to "kind of" wage war. This is where you keep missing the point. What makes you think there is any defeat? You're assuming you know what the goal is. If the goal is to flame up terrorism over there, to stir up the hornets nest and fight it out - however long that takes - then the goal is working brilliantly. If the goal is to create stability in the region, then I'd say it's failing miserably. We know the stated goal, so by all means, enjoy following the magician's right hand, following the yellow cake and freedom fries you're so obsessed about. My eye is on his left...

Yeah, this is the solution I'm settling on until an insect detector or that tricorder are developed. I hadn't thought of attracting the wasp. Kind of against my whole nature really...attracting satan's warriors and all. But, I will do that next time. Then I can control where I kill him and keep from spraying wasp killer all over the furniture...

You know, the more I think about it the more I agree that it is like Vietnam over there. The Tet offensive was a surprise coordinated attack by the VC and NVA which was beaten back after the initial surprise. It was solid military victory for the south vietnameze and the americans, yet the media here at home repeatedly ran footage of retreating american soldiers, death and etc and left the impression the americans lost. According to Wiki, a pole ran at the time revealed 60% of americans believed we lost the Tet Offensive. That's like D-day going down as a loss because of the initial slaughtering of our soldiers as they stormed the beach head. Good thing we didn't have the kind of media we do today, or Normandy might have been portrayed as a huge loss with the country requesting our troops to come home as politicians play with our young men's lives vying for power. So, yeah, I think geoguy's right on the money here. Regardless of success or failure, the media will sensationalize failure - for whatever reason - just like Vietnam.

Ok, I already have screens on my windows. But you can't keep bugs out 100%. I just thought it would be cool to have like a little bug locator so I could detect all the bugs in my house - scary and as well as just pests. Then, if I have to do battle with a yellow jacket I can detect where he is instead of having to wonder if he got out or not, or if he's patiently waiting for me to forget about him.

Yeah, I guess a presidential approval rating of 31% somehow translates to 100% to some people...

It's not a fact, it's a hope, a prediction that you want to come true. This blatant error counts against your credibility to say what the concept of science is. He didn't provide any evidence on anything in which to apply logic and reason to. Again, your credibility is taking a nose dive here while your emotional aversions are liberated without critical thinking - a quite fundamental ingredient to the "concept of science". This is what happens when you judge us from thousands of miles away. This is also why I can't jump on the "Iraq failure bandwagon" because the people who keep telling me what a failure it is, are just as far removed from Iraq as I am. And the people that are there, are either military or media - neither of which has any reason to tell me the truth. Although, I'd trust the military grunts before anybody else in that region. These, "reports" and crap, that you read about in your little newspapers, is generated by the same slickster club that got us into these messes. Seriously geoguy, you keep making the assumption that we believe this crap we're being fed. Some do, no doubt, but they would swallow any crap they're fed. The rest of us, we roll our eyes too. But these people have terms to serve, and unfortunately they still have power until next election.

Why does it follow that we swallow the lies just because he says them? Careful cramming that yellow cake in your mouth... Well when you're so blatantly jaded and pretentious then intellect can take a vacation, which is why your answer to everything is "he's a liar". Kind of like how creationism is said to spare mental exercise by concluding "god did it". However, when you work past your emotional issues and apply logic and reason, it's pretty clear that he and GWB actually believe the crap they say. And so does a large portion of their base. I believe, well hope is a better word, that the base is losing faith in that idea. You don't have to look any further than this forum to find people that still believe that military action, including Iraq, is the way to combat terrorism - they too, would do it again. Also, consider that most on the right, of which Cheney is obviously included, believe the media is to blame for the supposed failures in Iraq. In their opinion, the media simply refuses to report the good news along with the bad. If there's only one bad incident, it gets reported. If there's several good incidents - none get reported. I, too, blame the media for much of that, but I think it's because they are a business and good news doesn't sell. Sensationalism and tragedy sells. Blood and tears.

Ok, I'm straight up scared of wasps. I will knock women and children out of the way to get away from them. I really feel they come from hell. To make a long story shorter, I completely flipped out at the site of a wasp in my room...my music/computer room. I ran, obviously, and armored up with a long sleeved hoodie and wasp killer. So, here I am crouching in my ninja-wasp-killer stance, searching the room with my Hot Shot brand 27 foot jet spray wasp killer...and I can't find him. I'm in the throes of fight-or-flight creeping around the room, where every little noise or flicker of light, initially anyway, is a yellow jacket going straight for my jugular - and I can't find him. I eventually had to forget about him, in theory anyway, and deal with the psychology of staying in the room, with my wasp killer within arms reach, and several hours later he met his demise, followed by a toilet stool funeral. But that was a tough stretch waiting on him to show himself. So, that got me wondering something stupid: Is there something about the physiology of insects and bugs that could be detected electronically, sonar, something so you could locate the little bastards?

Good point John. By the way, the failure of the surge and american troops is overblown anyway. The military's been saying it, and we've been ignoring it because we want to lose very badly over there. Now, we're starting to see western media pick up on the fact that it isn't going away. That you can only ignore the success in Iraq for so long and eventually you're going to have to tell everyone. From Spiegel: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,499154,00.html Again, just trying to counter the spin we keep getting from Lefties and Righties. One side wants to re-live Vietnam and the other side wants to pretend it's WWIII. Prediction: The surge will bring success and the media will start reporting it, as well as the other successes, bailing the democrats out of their defeatist agenda. If these successes lead to troop withdrawal before next November, it will be interesting to see the democrats somehow transform their defeatist message while getting in on the credit for the success.

I've never seen someone more thrilled and excited about death and misery. Hatred comes in so many forms...

Only if yours to john is a strawman. Look, you addressed one reason - Dick Cheney's reasons for 1994. Then John made a perfectly sensible observation and mentioned that differing opinions due to the situations made sense. You replied back with repeating how his opinions of the negative consequences were apt in 1994...in other words you just repeated yourself. So, I tried to elaborate on John's point. I agree, it's a great video and it's awesome to see him make arguments that seem to counter everything he says today - arguments that many people, like you, are making today. At the same time, logic and reason has to kick in at some point and realize that just because you outline horrible consequences of action X, doesn't therefore mean that action X should never be performed.

But the situation is different in 2002. Yes, the negative consequences were true then and true now, but that alone doesn't dictate whether or not to invade. And honestly, I'd prefer a deeper appreciation to understand the difference. Anyone who analyzes those consequences and determines invasion to "never be an option of any kind for any reason whatsoever no matter what", lacks the depth to appreciate those consequences. Instead, what I take from it is proof that they understood the dynamics, the potential of insurgency, ahead of time - yet still failed to meet it adequately.

Anecdotal, but I took a lot of LSD in a year or two phase of my life. I mean - alot. I even started dealing it for a brief time before realizing the severity of the legal punishment for possession and sale. But in that time I met alot of LSD freaks. I'm not talking about the "ever now and then" crowd, or "exploring artists", but people who regularly used LSD on an almost daily basis. While I would love to say that LSD was great - because it was, I never laughed so much in my life and learned so many depressing things about myself at the same time - it really is very dangerous. If you met the regular users that I met, you'd never touch it. That said, I've never had a single flash back in my life. Although, I have often wondered if my mental issue could have been exacerbated by it. If you want to scare your kids away from the stuff, don't use the same scare tactics about sanity and so forth, just lie and make it good: LSD and Meth will make your weinee and/or breasts grow small and never get normal size.