john5746

Religion is a big topic, for some it encompasses everything - politics, medicine, poetry, art, and yes even science. You cannot expect knowledge to hide and be afraid to remark on superstition or opinion. You may think religion is small and has little impact in the realm of ideas, but that isn't true for everyone and has been quite the opposite historically. Religious views have changed because of the discussions of informed people, not because of revelation. To keep knowledge and criticial thinking skills away from religion is to guarantee that it will diverge more and more from reality and reason. Beliefs matter and everyone from every discipline should speak up, if they feel so inclined.

"Nobody can kill an institution of higher education" They can commit suicide

I actually like the idea of paying for it from the stimulus money. I understand you don't want to hold up emergency aid for funding, but when it is "small" and we already have a pool of money sitting there, why keep digging a hole?

Germans seek asylum in the US I found this interesting. We do take some freedoms for granted.

I have some sympathy for Floridians during a particularly bad hurricane season, but a Tsunami? I don't think they are going to be asked to evacuate once a month or anything.

Maybe they had a buy two get three free sale. Big, rich companies tend to get deals like that.

You called it. There is CO2 emissions, although they claim less than the grid on average. If you get your power from a nuclear site, maybe not. It looks like a viable alternative or addition for increasing power needs. More details as to climate, maintenance, etc. should help determine practicality.

Promising clean energy, boom or bust? Major announcements tomorrow... How it works bloom energy website

Elvis in the Airport I guess he lost his TCB plane.

1. my death 2. the death of the sun 3. your irritation to my answers

The future exists, we are just uncertain as to how we will get there.

Sounds like your reputation is getting a Roast. Could pay off though

For some reason - well to be politically correct(but why specifically), I got in the habit of saying "Son of a biscuit eater" All hail the biscuit eater. Edit: when I stump my toe or something.

African Diversity I found this article interesting. I think most of us know that Africa has greater human diversity, but I never thought people so close in proximity to one another would prove to be relatively diverse. I guess this would be another reason to help Africa - it seems to be the rain forest of the human genome?

Not having a choice just means they will continue to be a danger and must be removed from society. This could be used as an argument for death, IMO - they are broken, so dispose of them. If you assume people have no choice, then how is imprisonment more of a deterrent than death? You cannot mean it might deter others - since they have no choice, only the person who commited the crime. Death would seem to prevent them from doing it again better than imprisonment. I agree that we should try not to allow emotions to determine justice, but it is a little ironic that we want our justice system to act without empathy - like a psychopath. To me the arguments against a death penalty are: (1) It cannot be reversed - must be sure they are guilty (2) Economics On the aggregate, it appears the death penalty is more expensive, so in general I do not support the death penalty, but I am glad that we are not paying for Timothy McVeigh's healthcare and food for the next 50 years. I agree, not because of the comparison to abortion, but because we have war. We kill perfectly good people over national disagreements, so I don't understand why we give a pass to citizens who are basically killing machines. Maybe some medical procedure to change their brain? Until then, we either lock them up or dispose of them. I don't think either method will promote scientific discovery.

I think quite the opposite. King was not patient and he wasn't preaching evil stupidity. He was using peaceful protest to force society to change, to have all races living as equals. The nation of islam just wanted to reverse the situation or worse. I agree with your overall point that sometimes we must compromise to avoid chaos, but it appears that the military as an institution is ready. Sure, there will always be individual bigots who will cause problems, but the younger generations have proven to be more tolerant to diversity. 1993 was a compromise, the next step doesn't need to be.

I like the idea of working in an international effort. The US is heading for default, so it makes no sense to think about extensive manned missions. Get a colony on Mars or the Moon and then go bankrupt, that would suck for them.

Yep, its really depressing. I think Obama will have a real fight to keep from becoming a one term President. Either way, I don't see any President making real cuts in Medicare or Defense, which is needed to realistically have a chance for a balance, IMO.

Pretty good. What we really need is a device that is very flexible - can be folded to ipod size or expanded to widescreen size. It could be called....the iRag

Yes, but only for wealthy people. They will take that money and put it to good use - like getting poor people to pour their drinks or get another face lift. Poor people will only spend it on food, which doesn't really fuel growth.

You might be looking for something like this? =HOUR(B1-A1) + MINUTE(B1-A1)/60 Where A1 is the beginning time, B1 is the end time. A1, B1 would be formatted as simple time, the result cell would be formatted as general

I agree, but.... We can reach for the stars without putting men in space. Difficult cuts will need to be made. This seems to be an easy one.

I don't even understand what "supernatural force" means. I have a toothache, therefore the universe must give a damn. - Me Nooooooo! it can't be! The purpose of the universe is to fix my toothache.

For God to be necessary as a first cause, it must be the ONLY thing that doesn't require a cause, otherwise we can just accept that the universe did not have a cause. Are you saying that maybe one can argue that God and the universe did not have a cause and that God is causing events, such as the big bang? I guess that's an idea, but a heck of a stretch to fill a gap Remember that we are at the quantum level, which I won't pretend to understand. But, doesn't that mean that while there was a cause, it isn't necessarily in the sense we experience them in the macro? I guess the argument for god would then be uncertainty?

I would add that just because the universe(or anything) has internal events and evolves, says nothing about the need to have a beginning. You must assume a beginning point, then ask what caused that beginning. Per wikepedia, one instance of special pleading is: "claims to data that are inherently unverifiable, perhaps because too remote or impossible to define clearly" I think the term "God" fits that.