Moontanman

You are probably correct but as I said he does make a few points that make you wonder. He draws on the same X-rays and such but his assertions have not been questioned as much as the standard if i understand it correctly. As i said, the reconstruction of a gorilla skull to human parameters and the result would give a bit more visual clues as to his ideas being simply BS or interesting...

If the universe is a computer simulation, to me at lease, it makes me wonder if it might be possible to "hack" the simulation...

When they reconstruct, according to this guy, a neanderthals skull they use a human template. he thinks that an ape template is more accurate. He does make some points but I would like to see quite a bit more. Seeing what a gorilla skull looks like when you use human parameters would be interesting... I have found some debunking of this idea: http://sci.waikato.ac.nz/bioblog/2010/10/killer-neandertals-does-this-o.shtml To be sure this guy is speculating but it does bring up the question of how do the other people who make all sorts of rather specific claims about neanderthals do so with a little to no more factual basis...

Can you elaborate, I don't think I understand your point...

Is this what a neanderthal really looked like? What has to be the most unique representation of what neanderthals looked like! I ran across this last night. Basically what this guy is saying is that neanderthals are being misrepresented because we always reconstruct them using human paradigms and in reality they are better represented as more apelike. Neanderthal super predators: Evidently according to this guy the neanderthals shaped our evolution by preying on us! His video it like a horror movie but he does have some points. The idea that neanderthals looked like us is based un.. us! He reconstructs them using ape parameters instead of human. I would like to see a gorilla or a chimp reconstructed using human parameters to see if this is plausible in any way. This is his short video. He misses the mark in several places in my estimation, not the least of which is his idea that trauma induced by neanderthals could be the bases of legends of predatory human like monsters. Hard to believe that legends could persist over 40,000 years...

Religion is not as special as either side seems to think in my estimation. Religion is just yet another way to control people, give power to an elite, and use to make money. The concept of god is far to vague to be meaningful and the more specific it becomes the more abusive it's potential. Would the world be a better place with out religion? maybe maybe not, i am sure we humans would have replaced it with some other method of gaining power over our fellow man if religion didn't exist...

I would like to ask how the gender of humans figures into logic... or creativity...

No and as I am sure you are already aware of, I think religion is horse feathers, a parasite on the mind of believers. But to say I would take away something from some because I disagree is a lot like saying I wouldn't let two consenting adults make love in a particular way because I think it's wrong to do so... Wrong because the great invisible turtle comes to me every night and tells me I have to stop let people make live while standing on one foot on fridays. Such people must be convinced of the unnatural horror such behavior! And remember that Earth Quake that killed 250.000 last year on my birth day? Yes, that was me trying to communicate how much I hate for people to expose their boobies. So are we clear on this? No making love standing on one foot and no bare boobs shaking! Other than that I am a forgiving god and quite reasonable to get along with unless you do the things I detest! dimreeper, it's not because They do things I believe god doesn't want them to do, it's because they try to change the laws of my country to make sure everyone does what they think is right or make sure no one can do the things they think god doesn't want them to do!

I wish I could convince SFN to cut back on my yearly stipend, $150,000 dollars a year is too much to pay even me to hang around the place to give it style. $75,000 should be quite enough... Don't even think of cutting back on my cheese nips!!!

If you followed the morality of the Christian bible most modern people would be locked up. http://www.evilbible.com/ Just a small taste of morality from the Bible, from murder to slavery to rape of little girls God is one kinky, magical, anthropomorphic, Immortal...

I did think of someone manipulating the pictures digitally but the original pictures on the NASA site makes that unlikely. I am not suggesting a real crab or any of the other photos as really what they look like but it does seem that the better pictures are in no way helping the situation become any clearer. At 00:30 there is a picture that just has to be false, False news is negatively impacting our society in many different ways. I think it is far past time we demand that such things be exposed for what they are. Intentionally misleading people should be considered a crime!

Secularism doesn't teach people to be content? On the face of the question the answer is no. But teaching children to believe in Santa Claus teaches them to be content as well, what would be your point? Teaching people that there is an after life where they get 72 virgins or an after life where they have great mansions waiting for them as long as they do what religion teaches them is hardly honest or useful to anyone but the ones in control. Teaching someone to be content with their lot in this life no matter how bad it is because it will be so wonderful after they die is criminal...

Yes, the Moon does affect the crust of the Earth and the crust of the Earth rises under the influence of the Moons gravity.

As cameras become better and better and the pictures are more and more accurate wouldn't you expect pareidolia to become less and less of a problem with pictures of Mars and the Moon and or other objects in the solar system? Lately some of the new cameras are taking some pictures that are really difficult to explain away. Shouldn't the clearer pictures have made the patterns go away instead of becoming more puzzling? There are lots of them, here is an example:

I am not sure of what you are doing, you seem to be ignorant of what the abrahamic religious dogma says. I am ignorant of what the Hindu holy books say but I am quite well versed in Christianity, it's dogma and how the vast majority of christians ignore the parts they do not like. You seem to be among those that ignore the horrific things that Yahweh demands to be done and the thing he does by himself. None of the things i have listed are obtuse nor are they cherry picked. I have been quite accurate about what Yahweh demands we do, what Yahweh permits, and what Yahweh claims he does. The Christian bible is a horror story and the main character is a pathological monster, if you cannot see those things then you are either ignorant, willfully or by accident. The question of would the world be a better place with out religion depends on whether you drink the kool aid straight or if you ask about the ingredients and refuse to drink all of them. It cannot be denied that religion does good things, nor can it be denied that internal parasitic worms do good things, the good things both do are unintentional and the resources they squander could be put to better use by the people they parasitise.

I've read some speculation that tides and the resulting movement of water and stirring of chemicals might have had some significant effect on the genesis of life and had enough effect on the environment to accelerate both abiogenesis and evolution. In fact The Book "Rare Earth" , Peter Ward and Donald E. Brownlee suggests the tides and therefore the moon might be a critical component of a life bearing planet. Not having the moon and it's influence might have had a negative impact on life on the earth such that complex life might not have evolved at all. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_Earth_hypothesis From what I've read this line of speculation has lost most supporters in recent years.

If you are not aware of any religion whose dogma demands these things then you need to go back and read your holy book. Secular society gelded Christianity kicking and screaming into the modern age. Now religion comes to you with this smiling face claiming to be kind and good. But when religious dogma had the power of life and death they exercised that power quite frequently. Killing Jews was practically a regular entertainment or someone of another religion and burning and or hanging of anyone thought to be a witch or in league with Satan or accused of blasphemy.

Are you being intentionally obtuse? I never claimed secular societies were perfect, but secular societies can only threaten you with death. Believers think death is just the start of eternal torture (Abrahamic religions, others have their own punishments after death) I am not aware of any secular dogma that requires humans to abuse, kill, or enslave other humans for relatively benign behavior, I mean really, picking up sticks on the sabbath? BTW cherry picking is quite the poisoning the well don't you think? If you are going to accuse me of cherry picking please have the decency to be specific. I see no cherry picking by myself. But if I have pot meet kettle...

I've only had lobster once in my life, I prefer rock crab claws, I used to catch them scuba diving at night. I love to scuba at night! I also happen to love eggs! Goose eggs and duck eggs are my favorite. I seriously never seen a egg explode but I've seen a lot of them bust in some assholes hand when he was throwing them. It make you wonder if eggs have to have particular circumstances to explode, those moa eggs are hundreds of years old at least. I'm not so sure the the so called "thousand year old" duck eggs count. They are boiled and pickled so that is probably not a fair comparison... Catfish eggs are pretty good fried, carp eggs too, they sell popeye mullet, and shad roe here in sea food stores, they make great fish food...

Then again Moa eggs thousands of years old have been found intact... then you have thousand year old duck eggs supposed to be a delicacy!

Having been raised on a farm with more chickens than I could count i never saw an egg explode, rotten eggs were rather fragile but I've seen eggs that were months old that still didn't burst until something hit them. They stunk pretty bad and I've seen people throw them and the eggs busted from the force of throwing them. Old rotten eggs are fragile, but I never noticed any build of of internal pressure, eggs do have tiny holes so the embryo can breath. Sounds like an experiment is in order, I nominate you Phi...

Eggs explode?

Also fossils are not fount out of place. You wouldn't find a bunny rabbit in the Cambrian layers of rock, not would you find Dimetrodon with dinosaurs.

This is a great resource for information about evolution: http://www.talkorigins.org/

Teach contentment? Please define contentment and how it is taught by religions? Please tell us how teaching people to worship a mythological being promotes contentment? Tell us how teaching that killing someone who is homosexual promotes contentment? Abrahamic religions teach all sorts of things that are abominations that people have to be killed for: Working on sundays Wearing clothing made of two different types of thread Not putting the proper fringes on your robes Having sex outside of marriage But! They allow slavery, genocide, killing at gods demand, human sacrifice, killing anyone who tries to get you to worship another mythological monster, cutting off the foreskins of hundreds of men as an offering to god, 613 laws that no one can frollow all of yet breaking them means hellfire. Not true, secular charities do not threaten you with hell fire to coerce money from you. Secular charities do not teach children they are dirty sinners deserving of hell. Secular charities have to keep track of the money, report how much is taken and and what it is used for. Secular charities do not use the lions share of money to proselytize or build grand buildings to honor a mythological being that lives in the sky, they do not pay popular pastors with multiple multi million dollar mansions, private jets, secular charities are not a route to fame and fortune. Far from mainstream religion rejecting fundamentalists, fundamentalism drives the mainstream churches. Secular charities do not refuse to help people who do not accept their belief systems, they do not try to change laws to follow some ancient dogma that denies rights to anyone who they do not agree with based on the dogma of ancient books that are totally wrong about everything testable they claim about the natural world. Secular charities do not try to inject some ancient dogma into public schools disguised as science.