Callipygous

thats my point actually, they are the same in my book. no one with faith will ever admit that its just because they are happier believing it. they always explain it with some story of how they feel the holy spirit, or had some experience that they irrationally associated with the divine. note that i dont mean "irrationally" as some sort of insult, its just that most of the time with such anecdotes they create that association based on an emotional response, not a rational one.

you have an example? if an explanation is complete, that is, it doesnt leave some part of the story unjustified, then the simplest version is the correct one. I walked to the door. I thought about walking to the door and then aliens teleported me up into their space ship, altered my memories so i would think i was walking to the door, and then teleported me back down to the door. what incredible "faith" i have that im actually walking places and not being teleported. when presenting crackpot theories about a magic man in the sky who created everything out of his sheer will, the burden of proof is left on the one doing the presenting. show me something in this universe that requires the existence of a deity to be the way it is. you know thats not what that statement means. the "simplest explanation" doesn't mean we just come up with the quickest easiest way of saying something and leave it at that. it means whatever explanation we come up with that FULLY explains the situation doesnt need to be embellished with fairies and ghosts and magic men creating things out of thin air. its fine the way it is, it doesnt need to be, and shouldnt be, dressed up with a bunch of fanciful gibberish that makes it more encouraging. and when was the last time you had a conversation with someone who described your choice of candidates as "faith" instead of "opinion" or "preference"? im not sure why i spent so long trying to explain it Occam's Razor

yes, the problem is people try to take that completely literally, and when you do that theres no reason for the word "faith" to exist. you might as well redefine faith as "human perception". the word "faith", as its used in any modern, non-nitpicking, conversation really means believing something because it makes you feel better, as opposed to because its what makes the most sense.

i get really tired of people playing that game. if we go by your rules the word "faith" is meaningless anyway. i have faith that my eyes are telling me the truth, i have faith that its really a plastic keyboard im touching right now. i have faith that my socks really do smell bad. do i actually know any of these things? no, of course not, i cant. i can only have faith that im not in the Matrix right now. so fine, yes. atheism is faith, but so is existence. now lets go re-describe the entire situation since youre "not letting us get away with it." Theists have irrational faith in god. that is, it isnt based on any sort of logic, since logic would dictate that the simplest answer is always the correct one, and god is nothing but an extra step. Atheists have rational faith that there is no god, since the universe is perfectly capable of existing as is without such an addition. do you feel better, now that were not getting away with anything?

sort of... from reading the posts im getting a bit of a mixed message on whether or not SFN is ready to have the P and R section reintroduced. : P

when the vast majority of the people on the planet believe in some form of ghosts or fairies im sure well have terms exactly like that. until then its a bad analogy.

im not concerned with the specifics in that regard. as doG described above, its a description, not a label. if i understand it correctly, weak atheist means you dont see a need for a diety and so you dont assume the existance of one. strong atheist means you specifically believe that there isnt a god for some reason. obviously both fall under the category of atheism, hence the "atheist" in both phrases. If you want to call it faith thats fine, but it doesn't really describe my thoughts accurately.

i think its possible that there is a god but i believe specifically that there isn't. that makes me a strong atheist, right?

and a couple moderators as well... youre drawing quite a crowd.

please dont.

Because they're illiterate?

yeah, unless your planning on reading "usg" like a word, instead of saying the letters, its "a".

yeah... number 9s answer is a bit off in my book.

Im sort of confused by that. As far as I know, the only consistancy in the group your describing is that they are all people who say they hate Paris Hilton, and you can't even really classify them by motive, since you don't know what their particular reason for hating her may be. How is expressing a hatred for her hypocrisy?

wouldnt that have to be a number that is larger than 1 by an infinitely small amount?

Yes, it sounds like she is VERY generous with daddy's money. the lengths she would go to to please the children? because from any given spot in the country you might have to drive an hour to get to a campground, and instead she took them to a hotel? im confused.

meh... it sounds better, but i think the first one looks cooler.

http://www.break.com/index/tesla-electric-current-plays-music.html is this really some part of the tesla coil doing it, or is it more likely just set in time to some music?

dont these normally go in pseudoscience?

aside from blocking them, im curious if anyone knows of a way to not display your profile and away message to a specific user.

you could test the breaking strength of old coaxial cable. do you have a roommate? you could do more of a social experiment and see how long they will tolerate coaxial cable showing up in random places. freezer? shower? hanging from chandaliers?

the person doesnt need to be defined as fully "below" you, just so long as there is something for you to dislike about them. its not like people go around fishing for groups and trying to define them as lower, you just have certain opinions about what things are good and bad and people tend to be judgemental and "kick" the bad.

while i can see some similarities, i still find the comparison to racism a bit misguided. the difference is that being around a black person wont actually get you sick, they arent actually less intelligent or more dirty just by being a different color. smokers DO actually smell, the smoke CAN actually get you sick, and while i think it would be an incorrect assumption, i can see why someone would think that someone who chooses to do that would generally be less intelligent. the main reason smokers are shunned is because the rest of us have to suffer for their addiction. if you could smoke, and i would never have to smell it, or breathe it, there would be no problem. go ahead and suck down all the cancer you want, but theres no reason i should be forced to either breath tainted air, or move because of it. its no more shunned than someone would be if they chose to go around farting on people. if fart air is what does it for you, great, have at it. but theres no reason we should put up with it. as for your main focus here, yeah, i think the natural tendancy is to kick the people below you. it makes you feel better about yourself.

i hate to bring seriousness to an obvious joke, but often times the confusion comes in not understanding how the register works. when they first put you in front of the register they tell you what buttons do what, and thats it. after that you just do your best to keep up with the customers orders without making some stupid mistake that is going to get them coming back complaining to your manager about the tomato on their burger. there are certain parts of the transaction where, to undo it, you need to call over a manager and have them use a code to let you redo the transaction. so if she already typed in the amount you gave her and you hand her more money, and shes new to using the register, she may just be confused as to exactly what needs to be done as far as the register is concerned, not what your change should be. if she had time to think about it, shed realize the register doesnt need to know what exactly went in and out, as long as the right amount of money ends up in there, but when your first thrown into the job you dont bother to think about that, you just try to remember all the stupid unlabeled buttons. please, be nice to the ordertakers. i believe i owe you a joke now. there was an altercation between 2 turtles and a snail. the police were talking to the snail about what happened. the snail said "well officer... it all happened so fast."

im just now realizing that the important characteristic of microwaves is that they are the at the resonate frequency of water, and therefore heat water. so clearly the water isnt for cooling. i dont know why its there, i just know it was recommended at whatever site i found that at 10 years go. : P maybe someone on the lovely science site could tell whats actually going on.