john5746

I don't struggle with beliefs at all, but I do balance the "truth" with being polite. Just as I may not tell a relative that they are fat or that smoking will kill them, I refrain from blasting them about politics or religion. In regards to your beliefs, I think you are struggling more with the Bible than a God.

I think it is more plausible that excessive gas expelled by the dinosaurs made the atmosphere much easier to ignite when the meteor hit.

I don't think he means physical evolution, but cultural evolution - which would be a call for people to change, IMO. Kind of like MLK's "I have a dream" of course he knew it would not happen quickly, but he hoped.

Yes, he had "vision". All he needed was some smart people under him and.... we would be living on Mars now.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/10/oreilly_dawkins_or_what_happen.php I have some respect for Bill-O and I do at least consider him honest. It's just hard to believe he actually believes his arguments in this piece. It is also irritating how the 30 second exchanges will not allow someone like Dawkins to properly trash Bill.

You also have to consider who didn't win - one is Hu Jia. Maybe some don't want to irritate China?

It sounds a bit overdone to me, I mean can't lobbyist be of some use? Don't lawyers in government need some input from people in the business world? Couldn't they try to limit the number or was that already in place?

LOL, the true right wingers would say they were supporting Bin Laden, because he didn't want America to get the olympics either.

I thought he did pretty good, I'm sure I could appreciate it better if I new all the mud slinging up there. Compared to Bush trying to , the PM is Mozart I will add that it is a shame that people cheer against their own country just because of Obama. Would anyone have done that if Bush tried to get the Olympics in Dallas or Houston?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/02/business/media/02views.html I guess Obama has to pull for his home city, but I hope Rio wins. It's about time South America hosted an Olympics. What do you all think?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125440678661956317.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLETopStories Here's one. Looks pretty interesting.

I like this from Obama's speech in Berlin:

Time dilation occurs, so the for the man, it is an arduous 4 hours, but for the woman it seems to pass in 4 minutes. There is also length contraction, but no need to go into detail here....

I would say the same reasons we have marriages recognized by the state - to support the family unit, which is the foundation of a society. Supporting incest on the other hand would probably undermine stable families.

They had a response to the speech and any senator can catch a reporter or go on a show and call Obama a liar. That will make the news pretty easily, I would think. If people can be respectful to the President when they disagree with wars that actually involve people losing their lives, then I think they can do the same over economic policies.

Keep in mind that I am talking out of my rear, but I was thinking sexuality is more nuanced than I like MALE or FEMALE. So maybe for some small population, they can kind of swing either way, which could be influenced by culture. I would expect this to be small. I wasn't trying to suggest by any means that there would be a huge wave of people becoming gay or anything like that. But, I have no studies to back it up, just brain farting.

Actually, if same sex marriage was adopted and society became more accepting of homosexuals, I would be surprised if the % of homosexuals did not increase. I would think there would be some population, however small who can choose either way, some who would stop pretending and some who would naturally fall that way without the intense social pressure against. So I would expect homosexuals to increase overall, but I would also expect the number of children raised by homosexuals to increase as well. I would also expect this to increase tolerance and acceptance in society. It will change society, but for the better, IMO.

Well, I think we need to establish the benefit of marriage or the effects of marriage on a society. To me, marriage provides a stable foundation for the next generation - both the creation and rearing of children. IF sexuality was just a simple choice and IF this might lead to much greater homosexual coupling, then this could result in a large decline of children, which would be a bad result in our society, but a good one in an overpopulated area such as China. Should individual liberties be sacrificed for possible aggregate problems of society? We do it all the time. But this is just hypothetical, just for discussion. Same sex marriage may also lead to same sex hetero marriages as well. If two single moms marry to share resources, will that be good or bad? Seems like it would be good in the immediate sense, but will men start thinking women should get together and take care of the babies(and work of course) or would men see gay fathers as yet another reason to be responsible for their children?

I somewhat agree with you in that farm animals can have better lives than animals found in the wild. It would be possible for someone to obtain or grow their own meat and avoid the industrial mess. I do think the basic argument that getting our energy from the lowest level of the chain(i.e the sun) possible would be the best for all life and the earth. But, if it is impractical to achieve this in some areas, then eating meat can be the morally right thing to do - such as eating rats.

Crazy Carter Good move for Obama to throw Carter under the bus, well maybe put him on the bus. The last thing you need to do when you don't want to be compared to Stalin and have distractions like that is start screaming racism. There is that segment of society, just as there is that segment of society that thinks government is the answer to everything. Doesn't mean they are the chief representatives in the argument. By the way, does anyone think a government option will not cover the children of non-citizens? If so, for how long?

If you are 10 and can't understand or don't want to invest the time to understand, then just wait a few years. If you are an adult and don't want to invest any reading time, then just stick with whatever fiction you believe now. It will save both of us much time and frustration.

liar!

let'm have guns, that'll solve the knife problem. hmmm.... maybe Americans can get the country singers together and have a gun aid tour, give guns to England.

Well, there can be endless debate on topics like this, I mean Jenovah's witnesses won't want to pay for blood transfusions, etc. So, I agree with Bascule that the broader idea of how to get coverage to most people should be addressed first, then battles as to what is covered will always be argued and modified. But, he will probably have to deal with the bigger hot button topics and its better to take a serious approach to them.

Life expectancy was greater under Hitler and access was much easier