Phi for All

Oh, no you didn't!

! Moderator Note Moved from Physics to Suggestions, Comments and Support.

Deceit, intellectual dishonesty and misplaced fear. Without them, creationist claims have no way to maintain their hold on the rational mind. Very sad. How can someone lie to themselves while claiming a religion-based moral high ground?

I was quite clear in what I said. Where the hell do you get off telling ME why I quit drinking and smoking? Were you there? Do you know me at all? I drank too much and smoked too much for years knowing it damaged my body, and that never stopped me. It was only when I finally realized the toll it was taking on my family and friendships that I made the decision to quit. Ultimately though, I quit because I value what I stand for, life/family/friends, and made a vow to myself, which I've honored for 20 years now. Not because a god will punish me if I don't, but because I value what my vows stand for. Why should I explain that? It's quite clearly NOT what I said. I dislike the idea of being ethical just because I fear the reprisals of a deity if I'm not. I much prefer the rational reasoning that being ethical benefits those around me who will hopefully realize the same thing, extending their ethical behavior to me as well. People lose their faith all the time, and then where is the strength of their morality? Reasoned ethics seem stronger to me, much stronger than those enforced by a threatening deity.

Opinion is expressed along the lines of "It's been my experience that neo-Darwinian theory has no actual scientific evidence", or "I haven't been able to find any actual scientific evidence". "Neo-darwinian theory is void of all actual scientific evidence" is an assertion, a statement of fact, and you have to back that up with supportive evidence. Same thing with "genesis 1.1. is literal history of the world". Nice try, but kind of weaselly.

Well, we know people have used the government to do illegal things. We also know people have used the government to manipulate events (or the results of those events) to their benefit in a legal but ethically questionable manner. With regard to the USPTO, provisions have been put in place to stifle innovations that the military/industrial complex President Eisenhower referred to might consider threats to "national security". Especially since the Patriot Act, the vagueness of the term "national security" allows much more leeway for unscrupulous people to misuse the government with almost no transparency. After all, inexpensive energy would destroy our present economy and needs to be stopped, right? All this can lead one to conclude that such provisions are actively being used as we speak. It's only natural to protect one's interests, and the kinds of wealth and power involved place technology suppression well within the realm of possibility. The only thing that excuses any true conspiracy in the public's perception is time; if the conspirators can wait long enough, even rational thought is displaced by apathy. Will people 50 years from now care that Big Oil used the government to suppress the "new" technologies that are being revealed to replace fossil fuel now that there's none left?

Some of the counter-intuitive stuff is really fascinating to me. I remember scratching my head over "If a bullet is fired from a gun at the same time a bullet is dropped from a table at the same height, they both hit the ground at the same time".

I, for one, dislike the idea of basing morality on threats of punishment. Isn't it more ethically sound to reason out that we're better off treating each other well because it's a self-sustaining system? If I reach the conclusion that helping my fellow man helps me more than rejecting my fellow man and only looking out for myself, isn't that better than if I reach the same conclusion because a deity will punish me if I don't? When I quit drinking and smoking, I didn't do it because it was eventually going to kill me. I quit because it benefited not only me but everyone around me, everyone I loved or worked with or lived near. Reason is more sustainable than threat of punishment, because reason will always lead me eventually towards happiness and contentment, whereas threats make me defensive and ultimately lead me to rebellion and dissent.

Eww.

I don't see the government as anything but a tool to be used by whoever takes it in hand. If we let big business concerns borrow it for too long, we shouldn't be surprised when it's used to build shelters that only big business gets to use.

No thanks, not here, not AGAIN.

So sorry to hear that our virus has infected you. It's a virulent, combination virus that attacks the majority of the body while benefiting only small, special regions. It attacks your social systems, hoping to siphon off resources that the small, special regions can use to their advantage. Those regions don't use the social systems, so they don't want their taxes paying for them. Simultaneously, the virus attacks your economic systems, forcing the free market principals to be channeled into areas where they can be exploited by the special regions. The result is a weakened body overall, with little immunity to further attacks. It's easy to understand why wealthy people who own their own pools and send their children to private schools don't want their taxes to pay for community pools and public education. It's less easy to understand why they want to stifle scientific efforts to benefit humanity and our environment as a whole, simply because it costs their businesses more to comply with fair regulation aimed at long-range prosperity. To me, it's like putting a rope around your neck that slowly tightens while you gorge yourself on as much of the pie as you can steal from your fellow humans.

This isn't a religious site, it's a science forum with a religion section. This isn't a democracy, it's a science forum, so your speech has to conform to the rules. As far as qualifications, we enforce the rules. The rules in the Religion sections are actually simple. Since there are many religions, your beliefs are considered to be interpretations, and are therefore opinions and must be stated as such. You will have no problems if you express your opinion about anything, as long as you obey the other rules as well. When you make assertions, state things as fact, then you are subject to the way science works. You must back up any statements made as fact, just as in the other sections. This is only fair, considering how many different beliefs and faiths there are, and our desire to keep discussions civil and productive. I'm sorry you view this as too much control. It serves us well, and I'm afraid you find yourself in the minority here. The vast majority of people here wouldn't have it any other way. There are plenty of religious sites you can go to and proclaim your faith to be the one true faith, but you came here and are therefore bound to the rules this private site has.

He opened a second account called Peaches at the same IP address in order to respond to his first account. That makes his arguments duplicitous at the very least. That's the evidence that supported my response. I opened a thread on this subject last September. Believe me, it's near and dear to my heart. Considering what's been happening with Wall Street and all the lobbying for tax advantages from the federal government that mega-corporations have been doing, it's not so far-fetched to believe big business could stifle innovations that threaten existing markets by manipulating the USPTO. But you can't blow the whistle on deceit if you use the same tactics. And no one who was truly afraid of being "erased" gives out names and locations of friends and family on public forums. So I resent your assertion that my argument is meant as mere ridicule. If you think I've stopped caring about evidence, perhaps you could offer up more than empty accusations.

To get news coverage, you must be newsworthy. Even if your batteries will power those items indefinitely, the items themselves are pretty ho-hum. Clocks and blinky lights don't capture anyone's attention, we take them for granted anyway, so it's hard to dredge up any enthusiasm for them even when they're powered cheaply. It's partly the same reason why no one in the US gets upset at the sugar subsidies. We pay twice as much for sugar as the rest of the world, but even then sugar is pretty cheap, so no one is that bothered by the subsidies. Now if we started having to pay what the rest of the world pays for gasoline, THAT would make the news! So my advice is to come up with something cooler for your battery to power. Tie it together with something else that's current or newsworthy in your city. If you can get either a business or a politician interested in your battery, even if it's just for the publicity you might bring them, that will help too (you really need a pretty great "hook", an angle that really appeals, before professionals will risk any exposure with you). As an example, if you could power some kind of sign for nothing, something that would light up and display a message, that could be extremely useful. If the sign could display a message for a local charity, to be used in conjunction with a special fundraising effort, then I think you could send out a press release to all your local news affiliates that would probably get some attention.

So you're saying we should have given him enough rope to hang himself with? Nice idea, but impossible with hypervigilant_iodine around. Her eyes are woolproof.

His script is total Hollywood too. [Cut to the montage of silent black helicopters hovering over all the places and people he just ratted out.]

Of course the UFO sightings were real. They happened, they were documented. That doesn't mean they were alien spacecraft. That ominous looking ring over Moscow really wasn't flying though, so I don't know if that counts. It looked more like smoke or vapor formed in a ring. All of the footage showed only effects: spirals, lights, movement, vapor. These only indicate that something caused them, not what caused them. It's impossible to say with any certainty that these are alien crafts without actually filming anything mechanical. And even if we could see a mechanical craft, we can't say for certain that it's alien to Earth. We could speculate that these UFOs have no mechanics that we're familiar with, but without actually seeing some form of craft we could identify, we can't really say they are alien spacecraft. These could all be created here on Earth by people, or perhaps be some kind of physical phenomenon happening within our atmosphere, or some combination of causes. If these are alien spacecraft that are letting us see them, why only at night, or in ways that won't let us see the actual ships? Thousands of sightings, no actual ships.

Time To Tell All, this REALLY pisses me off. You and people like you are the reason why "conspiracy theory" has such a bad reputation. You had a chance to peel back a layer of deception and you just added more to it with this sockpuppet bullshit. You don't even mention the power of the Invention Secrecy Act of 1951 and how that's been used to suppress technology, and that's something I've investigated myself. When people read this and see what a sham YOU are, do you think they're going to think twice about dismissing what might have been a real threat to technology enterprise and free market ideals in this country? If you're serious about what you wrote in the OP, why on Earth did you shit all over it with your "Peaches" ploy? You're no better than those you condemn for their duplicitous schemes.

Iirc, the ID proponents claim that RLN is a great design, because it develops like a river, going with the flow as the body develops from birth. Since God made the rivers, and they're so well designed, the RLN MUST be a great design as well!

So, about one quadrillionth of one percent is added to the Earth's weight each day. No wonder GPS still works.

Why does there need to be a god for there to be something after we die? I can easily dismiss the concept of any gods but the idea that consciousness lives on after we shuffle off this mortal coil is very attractive. And I don't have to change the way I live in this life to entertain the idea that there might be something more after it. In fact, without the whole God/sin/worship/heaven/hell franchise, I don't even need to speculate what comes after. Maybe all I need is a sense of wonder and awe at what a marvelous place this universe is. Perhaps heaven is the excitement of learning what's beyond and hell is being afraid of some vengeful deity.

The link in the OP was added after doG's post. At the time of that post, there was nothing in the OP that justified the title of the thread.

In your case, I don't think imaginative elasticity is applicable.

Abortion has to be an option in a modern society that respects the rights of a person to make their own decisions about their own bodies. Life can't legally start at conception. I would never counsel abortion for any of the women in my family but I think it should be every woman's right to choose. Abortion MUST be allowed until a certain stage in every pregnancy and I think it should be an option in a national healthcare system. I see this as an attempt by religious conservatives to distance themselves from the crazy gushing out of the GOP lately. The religious right didn't always side with Republicans. Quite frankly, I'm appalled that this issue is even being raised again in this time of economic crisis. It can only be a distraction that will divert much needed resources and political capital from the fight to reduce corporate power in this country and bring much needed regulation back to the financial and business sectors. Then again, maybe that"s the real goal here, distraction.