Phi for All

Can you please explain the differences between "Strong, Unflinching FAITH", "Blind Faith", and "Sheer Faith"? What is the difference between faith and blind faith? I thought the very definition of faith was believing in something in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, accepting it without question. How is that different than blindly believing? Are you saying faith is mainly useful to invoke miracles? The fact that you bring up skin color as some kind of meaningful difference among the human species shows that your religious stance isn't as sophisticated as the scientific one. Equality, trust, and friendship are completely attainable without religion. In fact, many Christian groups like the John Birch Society opposed the civil rights movement in the US.

Understood. Much like Strange's vocabulary when he mentions sheep.

Be careful here. "I'm just extremely stubborn" sounds like you're proud of ignoring the preponderance of evidence against the thing you want to be true. And there will never be "an extremely great theory that disproves it", because it doesn't need one. The null hypothesis is enough. What should convince you is... evidence. Or a profound lack of it. Evidence is the difference between a trustworthy explanation and wishful thinking.

While we know that a positive attitude can aid in health and recovery from an illness, there is no evidence that shows a religious positive attitude is any more effective than a non-religious one. In fact, some religions actually prefer their faith to medical practices altogether, and regularly let people die from maladies that doctors could have treated easily. And why don't more people think it's odd that their omnipotent god can cure all kinds of cancer and other diseases, but never, NEVER, fixes someone who lost a limb? If there was a reason, wouldn't it be mentioned somewhere in the religious literature? Can it be that every single person who ever had an amputation lacked the right amount of faith? There have been a lot of strong, unflinching soldiers who lost limbs to land mines, LOTS of them. Statistically, you would think that if it were possible for a god to heal them, it would have happened by now. I'm going to use your exact words (without the capitalization), "a strong, unflinching faith", and ask you, do you think there is a benefit to this kind of faith over rational thought? I ask because it sounds like a form of belief that ignores any detractors, remains steadfast even when reality refutes it, and encourages its participants to believe, with every fiber of their being, in something they can't possibly know for sure.

Nature is not somewhat alive. Not as a separate, thinking entity. Evolution is part of the natural world, so it's constantly helping organisms to adapt to their circumstances and environment. The planet, well, that's different. The planet doesn't care if there are creatures or plants on it at all. Earth was still a planet when there was no water, no life. So nature doesn't help the planet, but it sure helps all living things survive on the planet.

Why are you now trying to alter behavior you developed for a number of reasons? I ask because I'd like to know what's motivating you to make such a change. There's nothing wrong with behavior modification. But rather than trying to change your personality, perhaps you'd be better off figuring out what made you change in the first place. Maybe all you need to do is get rid of the behavior you thought was cool, and just trust that your own personality is adequate. Does that make sense? Rather than making changes, maybe drop the changes you made before. It would be more honest and consistent, and that's what people are looking for when they meet someone. As StringJunky pointed out, you can be quirky, as long as you're friendly, consistent, and honest. Acting superior creeps people out. To put it another way, you sound inordinately proud of "I tend to have the type of behavior that absolutely nobody can read", and I'd hate to see you try to put on a different personality and have that fail too. Your real personality is probably pretty great, but you don't let it show enough.

OK, but that doesn't answer my question. Given all the evidence for scientific explanations, a preponderance of evidence in most cases, evidence which should reflect reality and give a person more confidence and trust in those explanations, why do religious people seem to put more emphasis on faith, where all you have are emotionally charged beliefs with nothing rational to support them? Why do people insist their god cured their loved one of cancer, but ignore the fact that no god EVER cured a loved one of an amputation? The level of denial is very high in many religions. Most of the books they follow are contradictory and vague, open to multiple interpretations, which are seemingly used to interpret every situation in whatever manner is needed at the time. The biggest benefit of religion over science seems to be less thinking.

I feel they should share their good supply of hard evidence with non-cryptozoologists.

I forgot about the most important benefit of a religious attitude over reason and rational thinking. If people believe what I say without question, I can get them to do almost anything. If I can get them to call it faith, then God will punish them if they don't. If you want people to be too ignorant to challenge your authority, a religious attitude is a powerful tool.

Are you arguing that, because we can't observe everything, we can't explain anything with science? That doesn't support the existence of god(s). I don't understand why "perhaps" is enough to relegate humans to insignificance in your perspective, when reality shows that we're the only species capable of leaving their own home planet. Reality shows that Earth is the only planet that has intelligent life. I think we're absolutely the most amazing species from the most amazing planet, and I can support that with evidence.

I think our curiosity about what kind of life was creating the oxygen would've been insatiable.

The only benefit I can see to a religious attitude over a scientific one is along the lines of "what you don't know can't hurt you", or "ignorance is bliss". Some people prefer to be cushioned from reality as opposed to observing it for what it is.

Science isn't a good tool to use with "belief". Science uses a methodology designed to minimize the dependence on belief without support. Why do you get to mandate anything for anybody? Are you saying people can't be religious without believing in your SPCG? You have misunderstood the God Particle reference. It's an inappropriate nickname that got attached to the Higgs boson, similar to how the Big Bang Theory got it's inappropriate nickname. It has absolutely nothing to do with god(s).

The search to understand why something is the way it is IS philosophy. Science is about observing and measuring a phenomenon in order to predict what might happen in different situations. We search for how it works, the way it applies to the natural world, not why. We can measure how in a very objective, substantive, trustworthy manner. Why is open to too much interpretation and subjective opinion. I love the irony of describing people as amateurs by misspelling amateurs.

I'd stay away from psychology for this. You don't want to go from cold to clinical. Perhaps something to do with sales? There are lots of books out there on how to be a more personable person. It would help if you didn't think it was cool to be cold, or felt the need to purposely develop this behavior. That's going to be an obstacle.

Can you define "religious attitude"? I have a hard time getting past all the strong belief with no support for it.

And I agreed, although both words Beg the Question that it exists, it's hard to see and there aren't many of them. That's not a given. False dilemma. There is another explanation: it doesn't exist. "Don't find them often" isn't the same as "never found a single one in over 200 years of searching". Read the Snopes link. The whole thing was a hoax.

... yeti's still just a myth.

If you have access to socialized medicine, this should be very easy. You've lived with this for a long time. I'm sure it would be a great relief for you to know what it is and how it can be treated or cured. We would all love to know what the doctor says, if you care to tell us.

Elusive and rare are descriptions you can use. Shy? How could you possibly know that? But we do see mountain lions and bears. They require a certain population size in order to maintain the species, so this means sightings. Why does it explain no bones? We find bones of top predators, like mountain lions and bears. In fact? No. Think about what you just said. The government took the body away, did tests, and discovered a transitional ancestor to man. Why wouldn't this be mainstream knowledge? And before you mention government coverup, why would they release data on testing after allegedly whisking the body away?

Honestly, you jump straight to hypnotism? Is that because this was placed in Psychiatry and Psychology? There was no mention in the OP of any physiological testing during childhood. Don't you think that should be ruled out before trying something as unproven as hypnosis? Afta, have you seen a doctor about this? That's the only advice we should be giving you here. If you haven't spoken to a professional about the possible causes of this vertigo, that should be your very next step. Before assuming this is psychological, you need to make sure this isn't caused by an inner ear problem, or some other physical disease. There are lots of things that could be causing this, but you need someone to make a face-to-face diagnosis. Websites can only tell you what it might be.

Of course it will. Evolution isn't an opinion, it's a fact, we see it every day. If you think about the mechanism of evolution, it makes complete sense that every living creature is affected by it.

Awesome. Your age is irrelevant, since that's personal and has no bearing on good science (our current Administrator joined when he was 11, and now he runs the whole place -- I think he's 14 also now*). I predict you'll do very well. * I can joke like this because he's way too busy with world domination grad school to ever read this.

The OP mentions that the smear is "oily". I found this: http://www.impactglassindia.com/safety-glasses.html So I'm leaning towards your explanation. Let's give JACK5623 some credit for knowing how to clean a window, and what's left is that there's nothing left to clean on either the inside or outside. It's most likely that the lamination is showing that oily film through a fault between the glass layers.

! Moderator Note Comments about members and what happened in other threads are rarely relevant to the OP. Let's stay focused.