Moontanman

Why is it ok for a person to cripple their children by giving them an education that is made up of lies and disinformation? What if your religion said you had to pluck out on eye of your child for them to get to heaven or cut off a hand or beat them unmercifully every day. Almost any kind of abuse can be based in some religion from physical to sexual, I doubt society would put up with these things so why does religion make it ok to teach your kids a substandard education?

Yes, if that is generally the gist of what home schooling is teaching then it needs to be illegal here as well.

Again, i have to say that tomatoes that we grow do not resemble wild types very closely at all. Our cultivars of the tomato pretty much depend on humans to spread their seeds. I can say how ever i have seen tomatoes come up after large numbers of tomatoes rotted and eventually dried out on the ground but it was in the late fall and the tomatoes had no chance of survival. Yes i would have to say that absorbing water does help the seed to germinate. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomato

That is scary CharonY, any one who followed such a curriculum would be far behind any college prep type public school. 4 years of theology and only 2 of math and 2 of science?

Actually yes this does happen naturally, why would you think it wouldn't? It's important to remember the wild variety of tomatoes is nothing like the plant you are growing in your garden, this plant is totally man made via selective breeding over many years. Fruits are all different, most are meant to be eaten along with the seeds and the seeds are later excreted in the animals stool. Often the action of the digestive juices are necessary for the seeds to sprout. It is possible that mangoes were originally eaten by a very large animal like an elephant but it is equally likely the plant has a method of seed dispersal that isn't obvious as being spread in another animals excrement. Some seeds such as lotus seeds depend on being chewed by an animal to break the seeds husk to allow them to sprout. The key is in the husk or shell of the seed or egg, how well this husk protects the seeds or eggs and how much water is necessary to keep the embryo alive. Sometimes the embryo is actually dried completely and absorbs water before it can grow. Brine shrimp eggs would be a good example of this. Many seeds vary widely in how long they can lie dormant and still germinate. I doubt there are many seeds that can survive the 1000's of years mark but the few that can do so due to evolved traits that enhance their ability to survive drought and other hostile weather patterns.

Wow! Jackson, I read your link she "Dunbar" really is a religious nutcase. A very scary religious nutcase. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynthia_Dunbar Very disturbing she would have any influence at all in school books or teaching anything much less all this

Your links are largely information from sources who strive to convince Christians are under some sort of attack and belief in god needs to be defended, often by sending them money. You can see this grossly slanted "news" every morning on the 700 Club.

Jackson, can you back this up with anything other than your own claims? Like thanking god "someone came home safe or not badly injured or if he dies then at least he's in heaven" type thinking? Obviously what seems reasonable to me does not seem reasonable to others, the sad part of this i am willing to support protecting other people from having my views hammered in to their minds but the religious have no qualms about having their views hammered into mine. I don't want atheism to be taught as the "right way" but the constant BS of religion being the "only way" gets very old very quickly. Religion is shoved in our lives from the time I turn on my TV get in my car drive any where, i would have to be blind deaf and dumb to avoid the constant proselytizing. Sadly the religious will claim that anything that doesn't give god his due is "proselytizing" Godlessness. So i cannot win when dealing with the religious because they stack the deck against me no matter how reasonable I try to be. Give them and inch they want a mile give them a mile and they want nuclear weapons. Asking that I not be required to pledge to a god at the same time i pledge to my country seems to me to be a reasonable request. Especially since most of the religious can't get any two of three people to agree on just what or who god is.

I think you underestimate the idea of "extreme" there is no limit to extreme no way it can loose meaning since it is an endless dive. what appears extreme today might seem mild compared to what extreme means 50 years from now. At one time killing another person because you disagreed with their religion was extreme, now airplanes are flown into buildings killing thousands over religion. At some point we might blow up stars to kill entire solar systems over religion. Extreme has no limits, no way it can loose meaning.

No, chemo-synthetic organisms almost completely operate in the absence of free oxygen, the ones that do not can and do shift to oxygen metabolism if it is available, and as far as i know and can find out no biological chemo-synthesis would produce oxygen since chemo-synthesis is energy deficient and would not produce a more reactive chemical than it uses. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Actually there is reason to think the Earths atmospheric content of oxygen has been both higher and lower than 21% over the course of complex life. http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/reprint/201/8/1043.pdf

I think that what we are told and what we believe as kids has a profound effect on what we do and think as adults. I know that when I say the pledge of allegiance I take it seriously, i always have, it's why the "under god" part bothers me so much. I can bullshit with the best of them but when you take an oath or make a pledge it should be serious, you should do it with no qualms about it, if you can't do that due to someone else wanting you to pledge your self to the authority of god I think you have the right to take exception to it and have it changed. Our government is not supposed to force or coerce you into a position on religion. If this were a theocracy I wouldn't have a leg to stand on but this is not a theocracy, it specifically is not a theocracy. I do wish anyone who wants to pledge them selves to god all the success in the world except for the part of making me do it too. I see enough proselytizing in the country already, the government should not be a part of it. The words were put there as blatant support for a specific religion, they should be removed from it.

Whoa, the truth, it is often, ugly!

For your information a great many people care about and have cared about that word in the pledge, people cared enough to add it but fear of real reprisals in our society kept people from stating our objections. Now days we enjoy some protection from those fears but when it was injected into the pledge there was a real fear of jail and persecution if you had objected. Yes my opinion is colored by my lack of religion and i am quite sure most good god fearing people would take great offense to me going around promoting Wicca in the neighborhood, or in schools or anywhere else. Good save on the edit of extreme Christianity, I consider Mormonism and Jehovah's wittinesses to be both extreme and troubling and if you think people wouldn't give you a hard time I suggest you go to some neighborhood and start knocking on doors and asking people if they would like to reject god and Jesus and worship the religion of Wicca and become a witch, good luck, I'd wear a bullet proof vest if i was you. Rush Limbaugh is shit stirrer, he makes his living stirring other people up on issues that are often lies. Respect for my needs are just as real as anyone else's. I nor anyone else should be penalized for our beliefs or lack there of. In this case it is particularly insulting that i have to agree to the idea of a supreme being before I can pledge allegiance to my country. it's simply wrong to promote religion that way. I have never seen any religious person stand up and say Atheism is just as justified as their Christian God, on the contrary atheists are often considered a little "touched" and need to be saved from our selves, (if we are lucky) hence the idea of going around knocking on doors to ask me if I've heard the good news. The idea that God is a good thing to put in the pledge is simply tyranny of the majority religion, nothing less.

So pangloss, inserting God into the pledge is ok, but taking it out is wrong? Typical religious behavior, it's always ok to acknowledge god but going back to what the pledge originality said is bad? What if the pledge said Thor, or moon goddess or Gaea? it all boils down to "does our country promote a specific religion" and yes it does, it not only favors a specific religion it goes out of it's way to inject that religion into our lives and supports people with that agenda. Yes I could not recite the pledge just like I don't go to church or let Jehovah's witnesses or Mormons in my house on their weekly rounds of proselytizing. But why can't the pledge be non religious? Why does god have to counted when I pledge my allegiance to my country? why? Again if the pledge said Thor or Gaea or Satan can you imagine how many people would go bananas? Why is it ok to go with the Christian god and not others? why? It goes far beyond the simple pledge as well. If I wanted to teach religion in schools most people who be fine with it, in fact most people seem to think it's great idea as in "if we only put god back into our lives all of our problems would go away, I have heard that so many times when people talk about problems with unruly students in schools. But if i wanted to teach atheism in schools I'd be run out of town on a rail, if I was lucky, yes our government supports religion, a specific religion, and it frowns on people who do not get with that agenda. I think it's sad and it shows just how sad and small religion is, not god, but his followers who cannot allow dissent or competition and the need they have to make sure religion is shoved down everyone throat as much as possible. I can just about imagine what would happen if I went around in my neighborhood promoting Wicca, i would imagine i would be in deep trouble quite quickly, I would almost certainly be asked by the police to stop and if i didn't the laws that allow them to arrest anyone who is a nuisance would be invoked and I'd find myself in the back of a patrol car very quickly.

Pangloss, you don't understand, the pledge is not optional, if you don't say the pledge you are automatically equated with the godless heathens that hate our country, try this just one time, go to an event where you are noticeable and everyone is saying the pledge of allegiance and simply do not do it. Be prepared for a very bad reaction, try it is you are in the public eye as a leader of any type, run for some minor office and don't say the pledge, the repercussions can resonate even to your job, reflect on your kids, and cause you antagonism through your community. Just that one simple act can have a great negative influence on your life. Children are especially vulnerable to these negative effects. There is real coercion to saying the pledge and the very fact that "under god" was added after the fact is enough for me to see religious coercion in this. What is says is, if you don't say the pledge you are not an American and to be an American you have to give god his due. It's not right, it has nothing to do with me hating my country or not loving my country it has to do with me being expected to acknowledge God before I can acknowledge my country. This was specifically set up like this by 1950's era people who were doing their best to destroy everything America is about to further their own ends. It needs to stop, the phrase should be removed, there is no reason for it, if you want to acknowledge god do it in your own church, don't require me to do so before my behavior is judged correct.

My rule of thumb has always been never have sex with anyone who doesn't make you feel like your heart will leap from your chest and then back off and make sure you like them for other reasons before you have sex, sex is not something you do to get it over with or because it's time or any other reason but because you want to and it feels like you absolutely must. This is the same advice I gave my sons and if I'd had daughters I'd have given them the same. Find other friends, it might take awhile but i am sure there are lots of other people who will be your friend if you let them and the best of them do not require you to do anything but be their friend.

I think it should be pointed that "under god" was added by Mc Carthy era witch hunt types who wanted to show how superior we were to Godless communism. Most of God types forget that those of us who do not believe get more than a little but tired of being consistently trolled by the believers. You stand on street coners, the billboards are every where. Churches on every corner. God is injected in every single part of our existence, why in the name of the non extant God do we have to acknowledge god before we can acknowledge our love for our country? If i put up a billboard asserting that god was non-existent and that religion as a useless parasite on humanity how long would you think it would be up? About 15 seconds if you could find someone willing to put it up to begin with. Believe in your god, go to church, give them your money but do not try to make me acknowledge your god. I grew up hearing how our enemies were godless people, and how we were special because god loves us, all the way from the president to the local simpleton who runs the school board. I for one feel I've backed off enough, it's time to stand up and be counted, if you want god to run your life fine, but leave god out of the government and stop equating love of god and love of country, it's stupid and pointless.

lucktiger, how many forums you gonna troll with this stuff?

No one should ever have sex until "they" want to have sex, to have sex just to please someone else is simply wrong. If this person is really your friend she wouldn't be telling you this, it sounds like she has hidden agenda, at the very least she does not have your interests in mind. Tell her no, if she can't be your friend because you won't do what she says then she is not much of a friend. I am male, and god knows I've used many a line to get girls to have sex with me but this is about the most disingenuous line i have ever heard, tell your friend to have sex herself and leave you out of it, sex is not necessary on some external time frame, sex should be because you want it, not because someone else wants you to have or thinks you should have it. Stand up for yourself, tell her to mind her own business. This is the most important statement you have made, stick to your own agenda, don't allow others to make you do anything you are not ready for.

I don't know if nec209 visited the site i gave a link to but a nuclear light bulb rocket could out preform chemical rockets by a factor of 10, but as it says in the article to maintain reliability figure about 6 or 7 times the best chemical rockets. if you had read the link I provided you would have seen the idea of a rocket that could lift 8 times what the Saturn 5 moon rocket lifted in one shot, one stage ground to orbit, reusable and it can land under power. http://www.nuclearspace.com/Liberty_ship_menupg.aspx There are ways to get into space that are far better than what we are doing today or in 1969. One thousand tons from ground to orbit in one reusable rocket is pretty impressive.

I had forgotten just how stupid the "John Titor" story really was, just another right wing conspiracy nut story. So far nothing he predicted has come true, I would have thought the law of averages might have allowed him to hit a few items. lol

John Titor can answer that http://www.johntitor.com/ John has all the answers but I know why his time machine could not possibly work He is quite convincing but he left out one small detail or two

Hmmm, has John Titor raised his head yet again?

I didn't mean to say it would be easier , it just means we don't need volatile chemicals or exotic materials, we can just use our factory slag as reaction mass.

You can use waste materials as mass to change your orbits, mag fields to use this mass in mass drivers. Are you sure you don't mean interplanetary space?