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We voted for Obama, but we also voted for Mitch Daniels.

There's also the bit where Obama's staffers told him at the intelligence briefings that it was spontaneous. Giving the case to the best of your knowledge and being wrong can hardly be called a lie. I'm just requoting this for rigney. Got an answer yet?

Any update?

With how they talk about rape, is blaming the victim in this case any surprise?

The correlation is not an opinion; it's a fact. As for which way the correlation goes, I'll give you a hint: >95% of the National Academy of Sciences are atheists. Know another correlation? Religiosity and just about every measure of societal health are strongly inversely correlated. Also, atheists are by far underrepresented in prisons.

Congratulations, you're on a game show with a chance to win $10 billion after taxes! The answer to this puzzle is related to just what that chance is. Here's the game: You have three doors from which to choose. Behind one is the money, and there is nothing behind the others. After you select a door, the host will open one of the other two doors and then give you a chance to switch your choice before revealing what is behind every door. If the first door is opened and there is nothing behind it, should you switch your choice or keep with the door you chose originally? Why?

Nothing. Numbers, as abstracta, are immune to the effects of gravity.

It's always nice when a known hoax is used to show free energy.

Yes.

There's more to philosophy than metaphysics and more to epistemology than science.

Metaphysics has two branches: Epistemology and Ontology Epistemology deals with human knowledge and what we can know. Ontology deals with what things "are". Epistemology shows us that our knowledge of the universe is at best incomplete. Natural language is inconsistent (things like "This statement is false" leading to a contradiction by merely assessing the truth value of the statement shows this). Good thing we have logic and math, right? Well, yes and no. Math and logic are extremely powerful tools. However, all branches of mathematics are incomplete. That means that they cannot prove all things which are true within themselves. As if that wasn't bad enough, it turns out that to show whether or not a branch of mathematics is consistent (all things provable are true), we need to use a logic that itself cannot be both consistent and complete. The second big constraint on Epistemology lead to what we call Empiricism (Empirical Science, anyone?). This constraint is that we are necessarily limited in information to how the information gets to us. That is, we can only know things by how they interact; if there is some intrinsic substance, we can never know it. This is what made modern Ontology. Since we can't know anything more than how things interact, that's all we can say about what things are. Object x is what interacts in x, y, and z ways with object Y. Remember how I said mathematics was extremely powerful? That's because it was designed to be. The language extremely precise way to describe the universe, and the systems we create with it are unimaginably more accurate and precise than just English. Our best Ontology is physics. People typically have a low opinion of Philosophy for a few common reasons. They may have only had exposure to Philosophy via a 101 class (or worse, from someone else whose only exposure was a 101 class). They may have only had contact with people who claim to do Philosophy when what they're actually doing is making stuff up while under the influence of drugs and they just don't know the difference. Or, they may have (like A Tripolation) had substantial interaction with the minority of Philosophy who disregard all accumulated knowledge in favor or thousand year old views so that they can justify their belief in magic to themselves. Good philosophers use far more math and science than most people realize. In fact, on my walk to this computer lab from a German exam, I saw an Einstein Field Equation written on the chalkboard of a philosophy class. It can't. Those of us who are honest have known this for hundreds of years. The only ones left who deny this are the few who are trying to justify their belief in magic rather than do actual philosophy. Again, physics is our best Ontology. It effectively does not exist. This is why we can just ignore Solipsism. It makes for good sci-fi, but at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. The OP is a very good question, btw.

Are you serious?

The placebo effect is actually so strong that it quite often works even if the patient is told the pill is a placebo.

Not even slightly. Oh? Examples?

Aww, you try so hard. That was a valiant effort; would you like a cookie? One day, you'll learn how to troll properly.

Yeah, you should probably get back to work.

It should be noted that taking advice from A Tripolation is a bad idea. He gets peppersprayed more than anyone else I know.

You know what else makes someone less likely to be depressed? Downs Syndrome. Should we work on a way to give it to everyone?

Let's say religion does decrease rates of depression. So what? It doesn't make any religion more likely to be true.

Yeah, our old system was completely different. It got to the point where swansont was so powerful, he was nearly a god when it comes to giving reputation. One click from him could make or break your rep.

I don't know about depression specifically, but religiosity is strongly inversely correlated with just about every measure of societal health, and atheists are way underrepresented in prisons.

I'm going to call BS on you here, Mr "You didn't build that". If Obama knew a guy who knew a guy who knew a guy whose third cousin's friends boss was thinking about buying the machines, more than likely you'd be on here screaming fowl play. Think about it this way. It's illegal to purchase lottery tickets from a place where a person you know or to whom you are related is employed. And the lottery numbers are completely out of control of the employees. Right before the election, the son of one of the candidates starts buying up companies providing the machines for swing states, and you want us to give him the benefit of the doubt? Especially after Romney/Ryan keep setting the records for most lies in the shortest amount of time? Why on God's green Earth should we just give them the benefit of the doubt?

Arrogant much?

If Obama's family bought the voting machines in swing states, there wouldn't be enough court times in the next 10 years for all of the lawsuits and it would be all that is on FOX all the time. Tagg Romney is buying up polling machine companies that service swing states. Because THAT's the integrity of the Romney campaign.

Yes, it does. Aristotelian cosmology is indeed in the trash heap. Good thing no one is arguing that then.