MonDie

+1 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/14/635/abstract "80% of children had a female index parent while 18% had a male index parent." Maybe the true implication is that more moms is better than more dads! I don't know about Australian adoption, but U.S. couples have to meet rigorous standards before they can adopt. The sample was compared to "population normative data", not another sample of adoptive parents. (A) Which is why much (but not all) of the male portion of the sample probably consisted of adoptive parents. "A cross-sectional survey [...] was distributed in 2012 to a convenience sample of 390 parents from Australia who self-identified as same-sex attracted [...]" (B) On the other hand, some of them might be parents who came out (and probably divorced) after having their kids heterosexually. (C ) However, the sample's notable lesbian-bias could denote the fact that lesbian couples, being the child-bearing sex, can get children more easily, in which case neither A nor B is largely true of the sample. TLI

I realized sexual polyamory could result in lower STI frequency per partner per individual, but the decreases are only 0.0 to 0.1 even under extreme conditions and with everybody doing it. The idea is that exposing organism-A to organism-B also indirectly exposes A to all B's contacts, so it's safer for A to interact with the contacts of previous contacts, reducing the total number of contacts (direct or indirect). My equations can model other epidemiological scenarios, but I can't get a universal equation for situations involving indirect transmission within the interacting groups. yn = the probability of being healthy after the nth contact, hence... y0 = the probability of starting healthy, x = the probability that an infected contact won't transmit the infection. When all individuals exhibit identical behavior, and tn is the probability that infection transmission won't occur in the nth interaction, [math]y_{n} = y_{n-1} * t_{n}[/math] tnmust jointly consider the probability of contacts being infected and transmitting it. For expediency and readability, I'll denote yn-1 as just y from now on. When the infection must be transmitted directly within each group, the equation is simply [math]y_{n} = y * (y+(1-y)*x)^{w}[/math]. The 2-way (w=1) and 3-way (w=2) versions are elaborated and explained in the spoiler. To go directly from yn to yn+t, just substitute the equation back into itself t times. This wxMaxima code will do it for you. y:a; x:b; w:c; for k:1 thru t do y:y*((y+(1-y)*x)^(w)); y; Cell 1 says to assign to y, x, and w the values <a>, <b>, and <c>. Cell 2 says to reassign to y the value of y*((y+(1-y)*x)^(w)), and to repeat this <t> times. Cell 3 says to output the new value of y. the (w+1)-way indrect equation It gets confusing when you allow for indirect transmission. For example, when a 3-way interaction utilizes the indirect routes, A→B→T and B→A→T, in addition to the direct routes A→T and B→T. 3-way indirect [math]y_{n} = y * (y^{2} + 2(y*(1-y)*x*(1-(1-x)^{2})) + ((1-y)*x)^{2})[/math] (1-(1-x)^2) = failure to transmit indirectly | This is multiplied by x to calculate the failure of both direct and indirect transmission. Since you can only be infected once, indirect transmission isn't possible if all contacts were already infected. One way to check these equations is to check that yn = y when x=1. If the infection is never transmitted, then the chance of having it equals the chance of starting with it. With wxmaxima, you can check this by assigning x=1, generating a 3D graph, and checking that the plane is flat rather than curved (example code below). x:1; kill(y); kill(w); load(draw); draw3d(enhanced3d=true,explicit(y*((y+(1-y)*x)^w),w,0,1,y,0,1));

I've heard a Christian respond to an environmentalist that humanity will only end if God wants it to. The idea that a god is ultimately in control seems like a drawback of theism. This idea relinquishes us of our responsibilities. There are exceptions, however, when it comes to sin. Perhaps they reason that, if we can sin even though God doesn't want us to, then it must be our own free choice. Suddenly God doesn't look so bad when someone chooses to murder another. People weren't environmentally aware when The Bible was written, but some modern theists are. There seems to be this idea that the god made nature perfect and beautiful, so we're obliged to preserve it. Apparently the Vatican spoke out against pollution in 2008. http://articles.latimes.com/2008/mar/14/world/fg-pollute14

It wasn't.

I'm endorsing neither that approach nor the paranormal. I'm proposing that religion and paranormalism can arise together when a particular approach to knowledge is taken, but that paranormalism can also arise via a second route. I have better things to do than discuss this. Bye!

You are right. My own impression is that some are oriented toward independent, empirical investigation, whereas others are oriented toward community consensus, relying on trust in their fellow cult members. I'll further conjecture that the former, the empiricists, seem relatively less inclined toward religion, perhaps because they're at least trying to filter fact from fiction.

Religion is often defined poorly, but this link gives some good definitions. http://atheism.about.com/od/religiondefinition/a/definition.htm Regardless, this discussion won't benefit from a definition. We only need to know what the religions are and whether they have supernatural elements. Swansont, It may be the past, but astrology was incorporated into religions for a long, long time, and it still is today. Astrology was also a big part of medieval Islam, although modern muslims say it is unlawful. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrology_in_medieval_Islam Astrology can be a religion. It's a central focus for some New Age religion, where it becomes intertwined with karma & reincarnation (book: The Astrology of Reincarnation Volume 2 Part II: The Lunar Nodes, the Lunar Phases, the Prenatal New Moon. Edited to add Many of these same people relate astrology to psychic powers, or even claim to use psychic powers to aid their prognostications, much like tarot readers (book: Intuition: the Key to Divination: Awaken Your Intuitive Powers For Success Astrology, Dreams, Tarot, Numerology, I Ching, Runes). http://www.amazon.com/Astrology-Religion-Among-Greeks-Romans/dp/159605896X "[Franz Cumont] discusses... * the origins of astrology in ancient Babylonia * why ancient scientists believed the stars were divine * how astrology influenced Greek and Roman paganism * astrology as the official religion of the Roman Empire * and more... "

I meant "homogeneous". The "e" makes a difference. Something is homogeneous if it's the same throughout (synonym: isotropic). For example, if a lake's water is homogeneous, a sample of that water should look the same regardless of where I took my sample at. If our universe is homogeneous, it should look the same regardless of what planet you occupy. A thing is heterogeneous if it isn't the same through (synonym: anisotropic).

The Greek ones did.

He was too old and his lungs too tarred up for those young groupies. He should have known that. Okay, maybe this song is just a tad indecent.

Ghosts and heaven are both after-lives.

Vedic astrology (fortune-telling) is closely associated with hindu religions, which follow the Vedas, hence the adjective "Vedic". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_astrology Furthermore, astrologers claim the planets have associations that correspond to the Greek gods for which they're named.

Supporting the explanation requires showing that a god exists, but knowing whence the god came is only one way to know it exists.

Blood type denotes the types of anti-bodies (or antigens, according to Wikipedia. Did I mess up?) found on your blood cells. Anti-bodies are used to respond to pathogens. I don't think there has to be a purpose, but maybe it's adaptive to have your immune system target foreign blood cells. Blood, saliva, and urine can all carry pathogens between hosts, and I imagine that a viral pathogen may actually be carried inside of the foreign blood cells.

Yes, because those practices come from other religions and are dubbed "paganistic" or "heretical".

I don't know that it makes one moral even then. I find the death-coping hypothesis more plausible.

It's an ambiguous bumper sticker. It could express the idea that the god was revealing itself everywhere, not just in one region of the world. More like, "is it part of [my interpretation of] our 'Book'?" These other aims may have to remain covert to be achieved. Despite that, we see apologists argue that religion makes us moral or less nihilistic.

Are you asking whether the universe is should be homogenous or heterogenous? "Wikipedia - Copernican Principle" gives two definitions, the latter being rather ambiguous. I thought the related cosmological principle was clearer.

That's a lot to read! Perhaps certain religious beliefs can, for some individuals or in some situations, provide comfort or stave off nihilism. Unlike science, religion could be evaluating beliefs on something other than accuracy.

I haven't read any atheist books yet, and I probably won't. Whether theism is probable or testable is a boring, stale subject. Counter-apologetics, a slightly broader subject, may be relevant on occasion. Secular ethics, religion in politics and science, history of religion, the functions of religious beliefs, the psychology of religion, these are all fruitful topics.

Forgive my lack of physics. Some philosophers wonder how the space-occupying-stuff (particles, waves) appeared, as if there must be a separate explanation for (a) how space came to be and (b) how it became occupied. What seems to be two problems might just be one, © why are distances so orderly? I have to be gone now. I only came back to edit a post. Teehee

I mean baritone sax. I'll be absent until July 20th. I'll mess with LaTex some more when I get back. More sax! youtube.com/watch?v=n7H3ASIQM88

IMO inquiry into morality is itself moral. Keep it up. For me, life is about finding activities that are both enjoyable and beneficial to varying degrees. I'm not productive at things I don't enjoy. While I get some degree of enjoyment from productivity itself, it's not much.

The anthropic principle doesn't give a how. As far I know, the anthropic principle doesn't solve any problems; it merely elaborates why fine-tuning isn't actually a problem (or at least not a big problem). It's more like a logical principle than a physical phenomenon.

It's just a thought I had. Both space's dimensions and its contents are implied once you describe the world as distances (between objects) adjusting collaboratively. To give the position of particle A is merely to describe distances AB, AC, AD, etc., nothing more. The way distances adjust gives the appearance of a space with dimensions.