Phi for All

One would hope humor (or the more silly and ribald humour) matures with the species, so that a species capable of traveling to meet us would have a sophisticated sense of funny. It might be best to leave the joy-buzzer on the ship before shaking hands with the President.

This is the kind of thing they should be teaching at Einstein Bros. To promote a brainy brand, you need something intellectually challenging.

The easiest solution is to put a caveat in either your title or opening post that says you only want to talk about a specific religion, or an aspect of a particular religion. Then the staff understands that general comments and replies regarding a different religion are considered off-topic. We have the section because people will bring up religion whether we have it or not, and it's easier to deal with in it's own section. And we also try to keep the conversations oriented in rational directions, even if we're talking about an essentially supernatural phenomenon science isn't meant to be used with.

Show you what? What could someone show you that would convince you they were God? Actually, God could probably keep it pretty simple. Whisk me to the moon and back. The real key is, would God be willing to show this to everybody who asks? Plenty of people claim miracles, nobody can ever get them to work consistently.

What are you using, device and OS? Yes. Clicking on the link should take you to where it's been moved. Like swansont, if I click on the thread link, it takes me to the first page. If I click on the "star" (which denotes I'm involved in that thread), it takes me to the last page I read in the thread.

Do we only get one question? (D'oh! ) What did this person do that makes you think it could only be God? I'm trying to think of something a god could do that would convince me it was a god. In the end though, I don't think anything is going to be proof he is a god, but lots of things could be shown to have natural explanations, so it's not necessarily a god and a more rational explanation exists.

! Moderator Note Civility, please. Let's ease up on the personal angles and talk about some science.

! Moderator Note Thread closed for lack of supportive evidence, a requirement especially in Speculations.

So a hypothesis can't be tested, and a theory is just a theory. * sigh * Many people want proof and assume that's what science is, then they find out it's not and their whole belief system gets a kick in the crotch. They realize the answers they seek lie at the top of a mountain of evidence they feel they don't have the time or the intelligence to climb. At that point, some start the climb, learn what they don't know, and fix their mistakes. Some people just sour to the whole system and start cherry-picking "facts" to rant about. And some people turn to easy "answers" that sound really great as long as you sorta don't listen to that middle bit. New Age medicine isn't progressive, it's just like astrology, it's charlatanism. It wants you to ignore the fact that there is no mechanism that will pull toxins from the soles of your feet if you put them in a bath with low-voltage electrodes. It wants you to assign some kind of spirituality to your health that can't be monitored or quantified. The minute you give the charlatans an emotional, irrational opening into the way your mind works, they have the wiggle-room necessary to make you think their explanations for various phenomena sound plausible. If this truly is a virus the UK caught from the US, there will be some kind of tie to mega-corporations. Astrology to help make irrational decisions feel smart, homeopathy to shake confidence in socialized medicine, and I'll bet US$1 you've got some conservatives preaching either law & order or national defense to drum up some arms business. Our conservatives use religion mostly for that, but I don't know how well that would play in the UK.

I remember that. That's when we realized we had to start writing better, because people were starting to focus on the text.

I have to admit, I assumed the thread was about the States until I saw imatfaal was the OP and the links were to the Beeb.

Critical thinking skills need to be taught much earlier. There will be parents who resist this because their kids will no longer listen to them when they don't use reason. The parents will need to be hogtied until their kids are too big to spank.

There was a time not too long ago when doctors told parents to clean uncircumcised penises by forcibly retracting the foreskin. This caused unnatural tearing, which resulted in a lot of infection. This may have formed the basis of the fears about disease and circumcision.

It's all belief, it just depends on how you arrive at that belief. Personally, I separate belief into Faith, Hope, and Trust. Faith is belief without reason, based on assuming things you can't possibly know, and it usually involves some pretty active lifestyle choices. Hope is similar, but is usually more passive. I might not follow a specific religion, but I can Hope that somehow consciousness remains after the body dies, without changing my life to hope this. Trust is belief backed up by a preponderance of evidence. When you can verify what you believe, you can Trust it as the best explanation. To me, the biggest difference between them is who you're believing. If you're relying on people's word and opinion, it's probably Faith you're using. If you're using observable reality, it's more likely Trust.

It may explain why we evolved the ability to form scar tissue in lieu of embryonic regeneration, but most of the species has moved away from the hunter/gatherer practices that provided the selective pressure. It may be better for our modern civilization to regrow limbs instead of form scar tissue, or perhaps be able to choose based on the type of damage. Figuring out how to switch our regenerative abilities on and off is the first step in figuring out how to make the process fast enough to be a viable option.

First, corn is a grain, not a vegetable. Just sayin'. Chances are, if you're seeing pieces of corn in your stool, they aren't really whole pieces (you're not a savage, you do a better job of chewing than THAT). The outside is cellulose fiber, and it's pretty elastic and also indigestible. Lots of times, your molars will crush the insides into a pulp and leave the outer shell intact, and that's what you're seeing in your stool. If you don't chew, you're not getting the nutrients you need from the corn. If you've got some awesome gut bacteria, you may get some carbs out of it, but little else. Second, dehydration causes too many other problems for it to ever be effective as a diet. The damage to your kidneys alone isn't worth it. I could be wrong about this part, but you may cause other damage way before your body would glean fluids from fat.

But in infants, keeping the foreskin intact is more hygienic. It's designed to keep feces and other contaminants away from the penis. It shouldn't be retracted to clean the penis until it separates from the head and retracts sometime between three years of age and the onset of puberty. It's a good design, but may have been more problematic in desert environments with lots of sand and not much water. For juvenile and adult males in Western countries, regular bathing and the use of condoms prevents most of the problems people tend to associate with not being circumcised.

This is cognitively dissonant. Why would you call it "truth" if it may not be correct? And if it's not universal, not objective, how can you trust what you believe to be "true"? I think you're confusing the issue here with bad definitions, or definitions that you're stretching to fit the argument, rendering them meaningless. Why do you call it "truth" when it could be different for each person?

Still, times and circumstances change. What was intelligent behavior for Iron Age Middle Eastern civilization might be different for too-open-minded's son in 21st century USA.

There is no "true" in science. Neither is there "truth", nor especially "Truth". Evidence supports a conclusion, but it's always open to change because of new evidence. A theory is as strong as it gets in science, which is very strong, but it's never "proof" or "truth". When we think we've found the "truth", we stop looking. We don't EVER want to stop looking.

People cause unintended harm all the time. "I'm sorry I ran over your child with my car, I did NOT intend to do that! It would be morally wrong to punish me for that, right?" We may be big bags of chemicals with lots of natural reactions and responses, but our superior intelligence gives us control over our actions to a degree other animals can't touch. You could get caught in a bear trap and figure out five better ways to deal with it than gnawing your foot off. Well, I'm sure there's more context in your mind to this scenario, but offhand I'd say you'd be wrong to use violence to deal with a wrongdoer in a society. Morally, shouldn't punishment be left to the law? The volunteer is working within an approved system. Truth is a subjective concept. "We" can't be led by something that's variable between us. I don't get this part. If you do something your society considers immoral, even if it was unintentional, why do you think you'd be blameless? Can you give an example of a situation like this? I've heard of a case where a guy was caught urinating in public, late at night at a gas station that was closed and the restrooms locked. There was some circumstance in the case (proximity to a school, or other establishment where the public, specifically women, might have been... exposed to the exposure) that prompted local authorities to charge the man with indecent exposure rather than public urination. Besides changing the nature of the crime from a misdemeanor to a felony, indecent exposure is considered a sex crime in many states, requiring registration as a sex offender. Is this the kind of distinction you're making? I also don't understand how you're using science to define your morals. While I agree completely that it's better to be a moral and law-abiding member of your society out of reason and thoughtful consideration, rather than because a god will punish you if you don't, I don't see where you're using science in this manner.

I equated the "fantastical" stories with a good story that requires varying degrees of suspension of disbelief. I thought that's what they were using as a baseline to determine whether the child had good reasoning skills, whether he could discern between what is possible and what is impossible. And perhaps what is merely improbable, though I'm not sure 5-6 year olds are that sophisticated. Ultimately, I suppose the concern is that a religious upbringing might lead one to accept implausible explanations on a regular basis. I can see that, but what about kids who were raised watching action thriller movies that defy natural physical principles? Are they more likely to believe they could survive jumping from one train to another, or that their kitchen table will stop bullets if they hide behind it?

There's a decent SciAm article on it, but they want you to pay for more than this preview. Basically, we still have access to embryonic cell regeneration, but we lose that access shortly before birth. If we can figure out how to keep it from switching off, we could regenerate lost limbs. Currently, we've evolved to develop scar tissue, which allows us to heal more quickly if not more fully. Since we're no longer as concerned with becoming damaged while hunting, and thus becoming the hunted, regeneration might be preferable. But it can take years with small animals like lizards, and it takes longer the bigger they are. Stem cells cover the wounded area and eventually a small version of the limb grows, becoming functional yet undersized. Salamanders have three other legs to help them move while conditioning the new one as it grows to full size. We have prostheses that could help our own transition. It must not work to regenerate just any old damaged cells, otherwise would a salamander's body ever wear out? Since we don't see 500 year old salamanders, it must be specific to things the salamander needs to grow back. Regenerating limbs would be fantastic, but regenerating teeth would be a benefit to more humans. Plenty of other animals regrow teeth, so the precedent is there. Here's an abstract on another study of a specific protein that has regrown digits in mice: http://www.cell.com/cell/abstract/S0092-8674(13)01278-6

Many great explorers got their start trying to find some time away from nagging wives. There may be a shared bond there to exploit. Alien: "Take me to your leader". Ophiolite: "She's having tea with her sisters, you'll have to wait". (Both nod sagely and then start laughing)

Explanations are supposed to provide clarity and reason, I'll grant you, but even in science explanations have a qualitative aspect. One explanation can be better than another and still be considered an explanation, just not the most accepted. I think religious explanations tend to be more of a justification for belief as opposed to a statement of clarification. Religious reasons typically have very little reason in them.