Moontanman

Well you can consider it to be an atheistic society all you want but the truth is that is was a religious society, Hitler was a Catholic, he thought he was doing gods work, his followers were not atheists by any definition of the word. Atheists have a moral code just like anyone else. Religious beliefs and moral code are not the same thing. Not until religion dies will we have a chance at a truly moral society. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Nazi_Germany I am sorry Cap'n I couldn't let that one go...

WOW! What a strawman! Can you support your assertion that an atheistic society would do such things or that a religious society wouldn't?

More golden Crocoduck nominees...

Look for the formation of the moon and you should get some hits. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_impact_hypothesis I think the idea that the collision might have caused the Earth to loose it's water and other volatile constituents comes from the book "Rare Earth" I'm not sure this idea occurs anyplace else. I skimmed the book and couldn't find a reference to that, if i come across it again I'll let you know but for now I cannot substantiate that assertion.

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/12/23/1118694109.full.pdf Under enough pressure water will become a solid. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_VII bold is mine My very rough calculations seem to show that water in earths oceans would turn to ice at a depth of around 180 miles... I could be off but in fact at some depth water will turn to ice even well above it's Earth melting point. An earth like planet covered by 1000 miles of water would mean that most of that water would be ice even if the atmosphere was steam... A side note, some researchers think the Earth might well have been covered by a very thick layer of water before it collided with a mars sized body that drove most of the water away. If this is true then it might indicate that most Earth sized planets in similar orbits would be mini Neptunes instead of earth like. You could be correct, there might very well be convictions that would recycle the layers of ice in a similar way that earths mantle has convection currents of molten rock. hard to really speculate on this since we have no real model to base them on.

The over all trend does seem to be in the direction of religion having less influence. No, read the bible to see why... No, read the bible to see why... yes, secular humanism...

So you think that Biden's remark about chains is batshit crazy but belief in dragons is not? Or do you think they are equally crazy? Anyone who would vote for someone who thinks dragons are real and dinosaurs existed up until a few hundred years ago is either willfully ignorant or stupid... no wait they are the same thing. The "chains" remark is subject to opinion, dragons are real is just stupid... Rigney, I've given it some thought, in this thread you have shown your true colors.. you are a right wing nut... you are not middle of the road in any respect. If a progressive said something as stupid as this guy I'd be all over him like white on rice but all you do is try to defend him by misdirection. This guy is crazy (or a liar trying to manipulate ignorant people), if you had actually paid attention to the video instead of blaming the man who was reporting it because you don't like him you might have seen the batshit crazy. There is simply no way to defend this guy, if he was a progressive i would denounce him immediately, the idea that if you can show someone else from the other side is crazy as well doesn't make him any less crazy. But your example of crazy is not even close to the same thing. Biden might say something you disagree with but is what he said really equal to saying that dragons are real? Seriously rigney, do you want to back away from trying to excuse this guy or do you want to go with batshit crazy simply because he's not a progressive? Is not being a progressive really so important that you will excuse anything the conservatives say?

When i was a kid the adults around me would give me a hard time about reading telling me it would ruin my eyes. They often went so far as to take books away from me. When i turned 45 or so my arms suddenly were too short to allow me to read... Evidently they were correct...

I'm all for genetic engineering, I want them to create a Titanide and transfer my consciousnesses into it... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanide_(Gaea_trilogy)

Ok, what has Biden said that was completely batshit crazy?

Atypical? he is running for office, he is the man who will run against the democrats to serve in Washington, he is not some distant nutter making noise. Are you saying that this guy is not the best the republicans can come up with for this election?

Sure, which one?

Peanuts are only edible when boiled, pistachios are awesome...

It's bad enough the Republicans are supporting Creationists but this guy is even further out there, he believes in Dragons!

Well there was that troll a few months ago.... he disappeared under mysterious circumstances...

Speaking of slaves, has any one read "The Domination" by S.M. Sterling? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Domination

If you click on try you go to a page with a column on each side, look down the left hand column and click on esp experiment....

The second set of cards contains none of the first set of cards so no matter which one you choose it's not in the second set...

If i was world dictator it would be benevolent... well except of course for my personal slaves... but everyone else would be free to do what ever i allowed them to do... Athena on the other hand I would lock in a tall tower and feed her with a sling shot...

When you go back to the home page choose esp experiment, it's really a trick...

Alan, seriously you can't figure that one out?

I think it's note worthy to say that being elected to public office is often seen as and used as a route to making money, from kick backs and bribes to legal insider trading and not the least outrageous job offers once you are out of office if you voted the right way the idea that anyone runs for public office to serve the people is a joke...

Voting a split ticket instead of just going for one side or the other might help a little bit...

Damn rigney, you almost sound like you are going to vote Democratic this time... I'm not sure that one term will help "fix it" but the problem does indeed lay at the feet of our legislators. We pay them only a tiny fraction of what the special interests pay them. Doesn't really matter if you like the way they vote or you do not, Democrat or Republican, they vote on most issues the way the people who own them want them to vote. Sadly their constituents are seldom the real owners... I wish I could say that my honor is worth more than that but if someone wanted to raise my pay by an order of magnitude for voting on an issue the way they wanted i might be tempted. Money is what makes our society move, grease if you will, somehow we need to make sure the grease is used to lube the machinery of our society instead of our representatives...

Welcome 12 Monkeys...