Phi for All

It's difficult since ascorbic acid is easily oxidized and damaged by heat. There are some products you can get in health food stores that claim to be 100% pure Vitamin C, not borne in salts or other carriers. I'd try that before anything else. Here's a PubMed abstract entitled Nitrogen-protected microwave-assisted extraction of ascorbic acid from fruits and vegetables.

Awesome! Did you draw all the animals or use clipart? (btw, if you click on the Attached Thumbnail, it zooms in pretty well)

! Moderator Note We're having trouble locating a Moderator that isn't already involved in this discussion to post a modnote about avoiding personal invective and keeping things civil. So I'm going to do it without pointing any fingers and I hope we can all calm down just enough that I won't have to exclude myself from this discussion. Confront the ideas, not the person!

Conveniently, I expect them to also mis-remember their vehement obstruction of stem cell research. Especially when we can start regenerating teeth and livers.

There are thousands of people who will help you make these if your plan is good. Alas, we see nothing but promises. It breaks the heart.

Any "documents and evidence that would support that [your] beliefs are true" would be from the Bible, which has been shown by many historians (including many religious historians) to be flawed, often misinterpreted, often contradictory and to a great extent untrustworthy. Circular arguments like that are irrational and based on fallacious logic. The Good News Bible also omits Acts 8:37 entirely, which is NOT, as you say, "consistent with the original text". The Codex Laudianus, the earliest known document containing the full Acts of the Apostles (a name given to the book much later when it was split from Luke) in both Greek and Latin, contains verse 37 which reads (KJV)"And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God". So, my friend, YOU HAVE A PROBLEM NOW, unless you didn't really mean what you said above. Your Bible removes the part of this verse where you need absolute faith in order to receive baptism, something the original text included. I can understand a few misinterpreted words here and there, but your translators thought that original text, which was considered DIVINELY INSPIRED by the Council of Nicea and by many sects of Christianity afterwards, was wrong and so they chopped that part out. One can hardly blame a child for believing in something their parents encouraged them to believe. But at a certain point it's a mark of adulthood to critically examine your belief system. The fact that you argue that your belief in your name, the existence of Isaac Newton and the existence of God are virtually the same tells me you haven't done this yet, or that you continue to hold some things to be sacred and never question them. It may seem like a little thing, but it should raise some concern that your supposedly divinely inspired scripture translators don't see a difference between meat and grain. Most people would fire a translator who made mistakes like that (how many copies of the Good News Bible went into print?), and I think most people would consider that a huge mistake, especially if they're buying grain at meat prices, or they're following a recipe, or preparing a sacrificial offering to the god who decides what happens with their immortal soul. Fifty?! I doubt highly that statement would be true if you used only ten. Your misspelling, indeed your very use, of the word "tongue" to mean "language" would confuse half the translators and most of the readers. Which one of the 9000 accepted sects of Christianity's "truth" are you talking about? What an amazingly flexible book this bible of yours is! It lets you magically decide who is interpreting the revelation correctly, it acts as a guide for morality (again, if you interpret it correctly) and if you ignore it's flaws and inconsistencies in just the right way, you get into heaven, unlike the unbiblical, law-breaking believers (who are obviously speeding). Yeah. That works out very well for Him and His clergy. You didn't answer my question. People talk about miracle cures for cancer and other afflictions, but something truly miraculous like regrowing a limb seems beyond him. Did you know that we're very close to figuring out how salamanders can initiate embryonic limb growth when they lose a leg? All other vertebrates form scar tissue to reduce blood loss while they escape the situation, but salamanders can burrow and hide while regrowing the limb. We have everything we need to do it (human embryos can still initiate regeneration but lose the ability before birth), we just need to figure out which enzyme triggers this ability instead of scarring. We've outgrown our need to run when injured for the most part, and soon we're going to be able to help the amputees that God has forsaken. I intended no sarcasm. No analogy is perfect, so why use them? It's mostly because you think your reader doesn't understand your point in plain language, so you try a story about something similar that always falls short. If you feel your point isn't being understood, come at it from a different angle. It doesn't help to make analogies, no matter how clever, apt or close to the original you may think it is. I never said it wasn't easy. We can see the clergy has you firmly on their side. But when, or if, you allow yourself to be educated in critical thinking and explore beyond the Good News Bible your mother gave you at the age of six, you will see that what you've been using isn't trust, it's blind faith. And let me make it clear that I'm not attacking you, but rather your ideas. I really appreciate your joining to discuss these matters here. It shows a willingness to hear other points of view as you share your own.

You said yourself that you have a different (but similar) belief in the existence of God as you do in your own birthday or the existence of Isaac Newton. Of those three things, only the latter two have corroborative evidence (multiple sources that could actually be verified to a fair degree of certainty) to back them up. Yet you choose to place your strongest belief, your unbending, unquestioning, unwavering faith in the first. With nothing but a book compiled by mortal men, who had been ordered by their emperor to create a religion he could approve of, as evidence. Can I ask, which Bible do you use, which version do you think is the right one? But you claim they do things that are unbiblical, and if the Bible is your only guide, they must be wrong. Yet they are the largest Christian sect in the world, they were the ones who compiled the New Testament at the Council of Nicea under the orders of Constantine. You say you have no right to judge yet you do, claiming they are following false teachings. It seems (my opinion based on what you've written) that, in your true heart, Catholics are not true Christians, but your sect is. Again, I'd be interested to know which Bible version you follow. It's become so easy, with sources like Bible Gateway, to check the differences in translations and see where they've been changed. One that comes to mind from a recent thread is Leviticus 6:21. The New International Version says, "Prepare it with oil on a griddle; bring it well-mixed and present the grain offering broken in pieces as an aroma pleasing to the LORD". But the King James Version (which I was taught from) says, "In a pan it shall be made with oil; and when it is baken, thou shalt bring it in: and the baken pieces of the meat offering shalt thou offer for a sweet savour unto the Lord". Considering that Cain got rejected by God when he offered fruit and grain while his brother Abel's offer of meat was accepted, I'm guessing the difference between meat and grain in an offering is important to God. And even if it's not, why change meat to grain in the new version (the original Hebrew says "meat")? There are hundreds of differences in the various translations, yet the devout claim the Bible is unchanged. This is one of the big problems I have with unquestioning faith. When it's obvious there are differences in translation that make one version right and the others wrong, aren't you just fooling yourself that you managed to find the right one when you're just doing what you've been taught? Well, except for Christians that read the NIV Bible. In the KJV Bible, Acts 8:37 reads, "And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God", but in the NIV Bible, Acts 8:37 reads... ooops! The NIV Bible JUST OMITS THIS VERSE ENTIRELY! I guess you're right, "What's wise to one, is nonsense to the other". Clearly, it all boils down to which human beings you trust more, the guys who wrote your bible or the guys who wrote the other bibles. You can't claim all the versions were divinely inspired when they differ so much. Isn't it much more likely, since it was never revealed in your Bible that God hates amputees, that God doesn't actually heal anybody of cancer or any other illness? I'm not trying to limit God to my own capability of understanding, I'm wondering why he could cure cancer but not grow a limb back. Please, no more analogies. I used to be addicted to them too, but I learned they really don't help. They assume your audience isn't smart enough to get what you really mean, they often add to the confusion you wanted to avoid and they never carry through to the heightened degree of understanding you're really hoping for. And you just claimed that we're all just God's pets.

I don't really like your birthday analogy. It's not on any kind of level of faith for me as I've described it (which you've consistently ignored). Again, I break belief down into faith (unwavering, unquestioning), hope (wish it might be true, not going to change my life though) and trust (based on the best available explanation). The birthday argument seems like you placed an inordinate amount of concern over how old you really are. Since no one alive today has ever seen a god, why do you choose that to have faith in? If you're going to pretend to know something you don't know, why pick something that has no evidence that doesn't rely on its own teachings? What's pointless is relying on the Bible as evidence that the Bible is true. Nice try, but there were plenty of people besides the Romans who chronicled those times. There aren't any documents of that time that refer to any of the miracles attributed to Jesus, and in the historical world that's very odd. Things like turning water into wine usually got the attention of historians from the whole region. Yet every other document outside the Bible that people claimed confirmed the accounts of the Bible have been proven to be forgeries penned centuries after. There's a big difference between posing hypotheticals and claiming, "I know that Jesus performed even greater miracles thousands of years ago". Is it OK that the Catholics believe the way they do? Are they true Christians in your opinion? Do they worship correctly? If not, don't you think it's "miraculous" that your sect happens to know the truth? It's completely irrational to use the Bible as supportive evidence for things that you claim happened in the Bible. Let's stay in the present reality for a while. Many religious people claim that God still heals people. They pray and their cancer is gone, and they forget what their doctor has been doing for them. All kinds of conditions are cured and God gets the credit because people prayed to God. And yet, not one single instance of an amputee getting his leg restored miraculously. Not one. I have to conclude that either God hates amputees or God heals no one. No, I said that we could make observations, form an hypothesis, test the phenomena and make predictions based on the conclusions we could finally make because God has chosen to be part of the natural world.

! Moderator Note Moved to Speculations.

QFT. At many points in our history, the close-mindedness of religion has been brought to focus as phenomena previously attributed to gods has been shown to have natural origins instead. Earthquakes, rainbows, disease, crop failures/successes, these all used to be gods actively reacting to worship. As the gaps in our knowledge get filled in with reasoned, tested explanations, the gods get squeezed out of those gaps and we look at those who used to believe their prayers controlled the tides with more than a bit of amusement. We're horrified when even today a Christian Scientist family lets their child die from an easily remedied illness because they were so close-minded about modern medicine. At some point, you should ask yourself, "Am I just filling a gaps in my own knowledge with God? When has this ever worked out well for anybody?"

That was awesome, but it would never happen that way in reality. A Louisiana state senator would leave the building as soon as you mention that humans are sexual.

Reading the Bible cover to cover may help you make sense of it all. When I did that, I realized I'd been listening to people cherry-pick passages from it all my life, trying to justify whatever they wanted me to believe. It's one of the most insidious tricks in the religious arsenal.

! Moderator Note Moved to Religion. Omnipotence would mean that God could ignore His own physical laws. If that's possible, then there really is no meaning to anything. Falsifiable means it's capable of being shown to be false, not that something IS false or true. If I say "All swans are white", all you have to do is find a non-white swan to falsify my statement, making it falsifiable. "Gods exist" (and also "Gods don't exist") is unfalsifiable because God can't be directly observed, has never done anything that can't be explained by other means. There is no way to show either way that gods exist and the basis of science is that a theory has to be capable of being wrong so we are forced to keep testing it to see if it's right in all circumstances and conditions. "An invisible purple leprechaun keeps the oceans filled" is unfalsifiable. Does that mean it's true?

! Moderator Note Dov, you need to start addressing the questions put to you. This is a discussion forum, not a blog or a place where you can proselytize. You also are required to back up assertions with evidence. And lastly, stop putting the end link to your blog in your posts. I don't mind you posting specific links from your site as long as they offer evidence for the assertions you're making, but stop advertising the blog in general. That's against the rules you agreed to when you joined. If you have a problem with this modnote, don't discuss it in this thread. Either PM another member of the staff or use the Report Post function.

I trust that my age based on my birth certificate is correct, but I can't in the least say that I have unwavering, unquestioning faith that it's correct. There are many things I don't know about how such records were processed back then. I don't believe Newton existed based on faith. I believe it based on trust in multiple historical records that verify that he existed. That's another area where the New Testament fails. There are almost no other historical records that corroborate the existence of Jesus. There are many that corroborate the existence of Newton. I guess you missed it earlier when I said science doesn't look for answers or “proof”. Science looks for evidence to support the best explanation. I can trust that. I can hope there is consciousness after death. But unquestioning faith is just pretending to know what you don't know. Again, you're pretending to know something you don't really know. You even have to rely on magical “ifs” to take us back in time. You'll find a ton of references in multiple histories to support Newton's existence, but very few outside the Bible that will verify what you claim Jesus did. In fact, your own religion is splintered into thousands of sects that disagree on exactly what he did, who he was. I'd almost be willing to bet you disagree with the largest sect of Christianity over many details. But no amputees, ever. Why is that? Why does God hate amputees? Would you listen to someone who pretends to know “truth” if it didn't agree with what you believe? I would never ask you to do that. Instead, I invite you to study evidence collected under sound methodology and come to your own reasoned conclusions. But that's the basis for every so-called miracle: a bizarre, one-time coincidence that can't be tested or repeated or predicted. That's why gods and ghosts are supernatural when it comes to science. Let God start striking down everyone who asks to be struck down and soon science would have a testable, repeatable, predictive theory about a natural phenomena.

This is very, very wrong and I'll tell you why. The reason science offers the best, most trusted explanation for various phenomena, and NOT ANSWERS, is because a theory is always being examined and tested to see if it still works in each new test. If it doesn't, the theory gets changed, reworked, made better, more reliable and trustworthy. Answers, on the other hand, are usually considered complete by themselves. Typically, when you find an answer, you stop looking. Most religions think in terms of answers, and most think they have the right ones, and they rarely question them. Science is used to observe and test natural phenomena. Gods and ghosts don't allow themselves to be tested this way. This makes them supernatural, and thus unfalsifiable (incapable of being shown to be false}, a requirement of any scientific statement, hypothesis or theory. I have no problem with a belief in gods and ghosts, as long as it's more of a hopeful belief. Hope that what your religion teaches you is true, but please take your kids to the doctor and don't rely on God to keep them healthy. Faithful belief, where you never question what you're told about your god, seems like poor judgement to me. It's like you're claiming to know something is absolutely, unerringly true even though there's no way you can possibly know that. The faithful are wishing it to be true and denying all the best supported explanations that science has. Many religious people believe their God can heal the faithful, but ignore the fact that their God has NEVER regrown a leg or an arm for an amputee. Could it really be true that losing an arm ALWAYS makes one lose faith? Or is that beyond the power of this god that they claim can cure everything else?

It's like little kids who discover how they can directly affect their environment by tossing rocks in the water. Toss a rock, get a splash. Toss, splash. They're all a bunch of tossers.

You mean besides the physical laws we know? We can find meaning to life in a universe like ours, on a planet like ours, without some overarching purpose behind it, I think. We (Earth creatures) are the only life we know. We can be pretty sure we're not alone, but even if the universe teems with life, our life here matters. It's an evolutionary strength that we can imagine things that we can't see. It allowed early hunters to be wary of the shadows for fear there might be a lion lurking there. Since there often was, the hunters with imagination survived more often to pass along their genes. It's easy to see how imagining some magical sky-governor who can do anything might be a comforting answer to hard questions. And ceding authority to the sky-governor makes it easier to cede authority to those who speak for Him, and so priests have always held great power. From there it's easy to see how religions were able to grow.

One thing I've done is to define what I really mean when I say I "believe" something. Not all belief is equal. For me, I break it down to faith, hope and trust. Faith is complete and utter belief that something is true. I don't really have any of that kind of belief, especially when it comes to things that are supernatural. No one can prove ghosts and gods exist, so how can I have unbending, unquestioning faith that they do? I can hope that my consciousness lives on after death, but hope doesn't require me to change my whole life the way faith does. I prefer trust, trust in the best available explanation, and only science provides the methodology that ensures explanations like that. As long as that god/those gods has to live within the framework of those physical rules, I have no problem with this. I'm not a fan of omnipotence. Yeah, the universe isn't a computer. It's best not to rely on analogies, they tend to oversimplify and underclarify. The last 300 years of scientific knowledge have been extremely... enlightening.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_salad Especially at concept level, if you're being overly wordy and confusing it's not going to help you present your ideas in a meaningful way. Also, the more words you use in your explanation, the more chances you have of making mistakes.

Wrong on so many levels. More limited thinking from the anti-abortion crowd. With so many in the GOP who support poorly-thought-out kneejerk legislation, it's no wonder we have such a hard time keeping spending down and working on worthwhile long-range investments in our country.

The other thing trolls like to do is drive a discussion off-topic, so you should make sure any put-down you use doesn't make you guilty of doing the same thing. And most will. I guess a good generic put down that doesn't lower you to the troll's level is, "That's completely off-topic, and I look forward to ignoring your new thread on the subject."

First, if you spend this much time worrying about a troll, he's already won. Second, there are trolls and there are people who don't argue well. One of the most common mistakes is confusing a troll with someone who persistently strawmans your stance. It's frustrating, but it might not have the purposeful intent that true trolling has. The typical strawman is like this exchange: Person 1 - "Bush should never have started the war in Iraq." Person 2 - "How can you say that? It's unpatriotic not to support our troops!" Some people simply don't understand that Person 2 is rebutting something completely different from Person 1's stance. I sincerely think a typical Person 2 can learn how not to argue this way if you show them why they aren't arguing logically. The true troll, on the other hand, takes delight in purposely misunderstanding your stance, or tossing in inflammatory statements like hand grenades. Trolls like this love stirring the pot needlessly. Getting people angry enough to lose their cool is their goal. So of course, if you want a good troll put down, ignoring them is the coolest. Show them you don't care. Above all, if you HAVE to say something, make sure it doesn't sink you to their level. Make sure your put down is and not . Btw, did that trolling happen here? If so, I hope you reported it.

Either way, Barney = guy in a suit. "Hello, Leg Warehouse? My friend Iggy is looking for something to stand on... What's that, nothing?! Byethanxsomuch!"

! Moderator Note This is cut and paste plagiarism and is not allowed at SFN. If you're trying to promote these videos you keep linking to, that kind of advertising is also against the rules you agreed to when you joined. If you're just a marketing bot, don't respond and we'll just flag you as a spammer. If you are here to join the discussions, please at least give citations when you copy the work of others.