Nigel

Yet there seems to be no end of "failed states", and "most corrupt places on Earth" (e.g., Afghan, Iraq, Nigeria, Congo, Whackistan, etc.). How do these square with your philosophy? It appears that most of these are quick to blame everyone else (e.g., Americans,"Crusaders", "neo-Colonialists", the Tooth Fairy, et al) for their failings. How does the Humanist explain this? mh Well. USA was a force for good in WWII. If you're familar with stalinist version of Communism, then Korea and Vietman were possibly justified too. But after that it starts going bad: topling the Iranian government in the late 1950s, assassinating S American politicos. And now, Iraq (Afghanistan is possibly justiifiable too). The Crusaders - no redeeming virtues. Neo-colonists? whoever you mean, the news for the colonized is not good.... In any case, Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Congo all enjoyed the benefits of British - or French - colonial rule. Just think how much poorer they'd have been without it...?

Fellow beleivers, I'm saddened and shocked at the level of vitriolic attacks on our brother Cristians. But I have the perfect solution; I'm now offering an 'Assured Salvation package', for only $50. This buys interessionary prayers for 2 nights from the Sisters of Patmos, whose lifelong silence and virginity mean when they call, God listens. I have sole access to these wonderful women (Sister Marina is the newest and youngest member - unfortunately she's also the poorest and her habits are dirty, well filthy really. I hope to improve her dirty habbits and am soliciting funds to get her cleaned up (and penicillin shots for her and, well names don't matter) Treatment will only cost $50 to cure her of malady, So for a paltry '$100 I can guarantee your position in heaven healing Siste Patmos...please send the money to Nigel@dropzone.com, with details of who you would like healed and it shall be so!

Dude, that's quite a stretch. There were too many witnesses. Too many corroborating stories. There's no evidence that they were lying or insane. Especially, not "all" of them. That is ridiculous. Well...there were 12 apostles, but only 4 gospels. And (I don't think this is contentious) written about 30 years after the 'event'. I'm with the 8 out of 12 who couldn't be arsed to contradict their crazy old friends. Also, if you have enough people with crazy ideas, the rationalists eventually get bored and give up. So a handful get through. Bit like nuclear power stations really, cheap(ish) energy for 30 years, then 10,000 years of cleaning up... So strike me down with a thunderbolt (plagues of locusts are soo passe), you silly dick! (God, not you Jaybird18)!

I really have trouble with the '...scientists could be executed..' bit. Oh, alright then - and the '...slavery...bit.

That means you don't actually know, doesn't it? Why bother? Christians can never give a coherent, sensible answer. They will almost always answer with a question. Never an answer. Yesterday, the door knocking Christians were out in force. An older woman and two kids about 10 years old knocked on mine. I'm very sure that she regretted that. I told them that I did not believe in imaginary people nor do I believe in a book that commands people to kill other people in the name of an imaginary tyrant. The lady kept inserting that there was nothing in the bible that commanded people to kill others. It was obvious that this misguided woman has been brainwashed by the biggest cult ever known - Christianity. The sad thing is the children who were also being brainwashed by religion. I got out my old bible and went directly to a number of passages where this imaginary friend commanded people to kill men, women, and children. She was not aware of those passages. What a joke that she was. How dare that she knock on my door and push something she knows absolutely nothing about. How dare these psychotic lunatics brainwash children. This goes for all religions, not just Christianity. She was appalled that I would denounce her imaginary friend in front of children. I am appalled that she would knock on a complete strangers door with children in tow in order to bring people into a cult! Her and her kind really do need to seek mental healthcare. I hear that anti-psychotic drugs, which reduce hallucinations and delusions and improve thinking and behavior are helpful, whether the cause is a medical or psychiatric disorder. Hope you Christians are enjoying your Pagan holiday. Have a happy Ishtar Day!! I'm done with this thread. I invite them in to share some fava beans and open a bottle of Chianti. Demolishing their fragile belief system seems cruel!

Giordano: 'Erhh?..Cheers church, thanks a lot man. No big deal, I'm only dead!'

Mark, I think this is a pretty common trap: Just because you or I can't understand something doesn't mean we need to invoke a supernatural explanation. (Personally, I subscribe to the 'knowledge is finite, ignorance is infinite' philosphy - ie no matter how much I know, there will always be at least one more thing I don't (bit like the 'biggest conceivable number, then add one to it' game). But I digress... Anyway I can easily imagine evolutionary theory might allow prediction of continuum of (what we call) altruism or ethical or good behavior: though an imperfect model (ants/bees in a colony are pretty much clones) ants and bees can sacrifice themselves for the good of the colony. I can imagine not killing my fellow cave-dwellers too often favors my DNA, as does killing the cave-dwellers on the other side of the glacier (unless I've mated with their women...but that's another story!). Perhaps the less related you are to me, the easier it becomes to kill/eat you? BTW 1: I think this was a weathered out, tongue in cheek, stir the pot post originally - you succeeded! BTW 2: Who's Robert E Howard, and why should anyone care about his dogmatic statement? If I state the opposite, will the net effect be zero?

I've just read the Aviacom commissioned report on the "Argus Cutter investigation - Incident San Marcos TX" and it raises morer questions than it answers. 1) What metallurgic analysis has been/will be conducted on the 'ball bearing foreign-object' (BBFO)? If from a 'shot-bag' (and it looks very small), it should be predominantly lead. If from a bearing housing, it'll be very different (? high copper content) composition. 2) It needs to be excluded that the composition of 'BBFO' cannot be associated with any other product or machinery used in Aviacom or Chemring UK (CEUK) manufacturing or logistics processes. (Judging from the diversity of products CEUK offers, how did Skysupplies conclude this (type of) product contamination was excluded?) I emailed the author at the address on the report, bounced back unknown. I then googled the author (a 15000 jump tandem master). He turns up on Linkedin.com, primarily describing himself as 'manager tabelgames - Holland Casino'. Not casting aspersions on 'tabelgames managers' but...it's not obvious the author has the engineering capabilities that Aviacom and Chemring Engineering UK would/should (and if I were either company, I'd be embarassed at this half-cocked investigation, that fails to eliminate their production processes as the root cause) have expected for a credible investigation. Of course, maybe the Linkedin.com profile is unduly modest... I'm with Mirage, Sunpath and Strong responses on this. I'm disappointed at the weak analysis by Aerodyne...Quote

Forgive the ignorance....where is Skydive Palatka? South/Central Florida? Dates are Wed 28 Nov 01 Dec? It sounds tempting....If somone can confirm the dates & location I'll be there... All the best, Nigel@dropzone.com

I've been in living in Miami for a year and jump at Skydive Miami whenever I can - which isn't too often. Very professional, well managed DZ, focused on tandems; comfortable Caravan, often operated under-capacity, so climbs fast in comfort - tandem ops have their benefits. There's an absolute emphasis on safety, quietly and unobtrusively enforced by Fred, the DZO and the staff. They'll have a quiet word in your ear if you do something stupid or dangerous, suggest how to avoid a recurrence. The staff are mostly young, international, 100% professional, with minimal to zero wankerish behavior. Despite only jumping occasionally, the staff and regulars always make me feel welcome, I've never not got on a load. Like most DZs the irreverent humor quotient is high, but SkyDive Miami is maybe a little higher than most. I recommend this place: it's the closest DZ to Miami, is safe, friendly and a fun place to be on a week-end....

I'm with you...blindly following the low man is plain stupid. I may do it, even have the skills to, but that doesn't mean I like it or agree with it.

Dude...I'm sorry - but you clearly haven't got it. Once again...when I wrote "virtually exclusive" I meant just that, no more, no less. Had I written 'mutually exclusive', I would have fallen into the logical trap you outline. But I didn't...

Er...I used 'virtually' because I didn't mean 'mutually'. Just to be clear: Science and religion are virtually exclusive: in other words there's very little, if any, overlap between them. If they were mutually exclusive, then there'd be zero overlap - which I don't think is true.

Well: the Catholic church gave Galileo a hard time (threatened to kill him, actually) because he challenged the orthodoxy of the Sun going around the Earth. It's not just because religions propose ridiculous explanations to natural phenomena - that'd be fine if that's as far as it went. It's because they kill people who don't agree with them that I have time being tolerant...

Not really. Most religions make a half-baked (to continue the cook book analogy) attempt to explain our origins (a natural phenomenon) they fail (see Genesis for some truly silly stuff) because the explanation is simply wrong.

Quote -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- .... I like your latter statement better "er, no its not." Except that's not what I wrote.. ('er...it's true there are knowledge gaps...' was the verbiage, which means something quite different) Charitably you were careless; if I were cynical I'd accuse you of the cheap debaters trick of putting words I didn't say into my mouth... Quote -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So then why is it when electrical impulses are passed down neurons outside of a host, no self-consciousness occurs as in a living being. Not sure what you mean here....However there have been some monkey decapitation experiments (ghoulish I know) where the eyes (brain artificially supplied with glucose, oxygenated blood) respond to environment. I believe the EEG's were as normal as you might expect in such a bizarre scenario. And what do you mean by self-consciousness? Is it uniquely human? Quote ------------------------------------------------------------ Morality is a quality of God not physics. Which 'God' do you mean? The Judeo-Christian god of the Old Testament? He was a vindictive, not a moral creature....Where's the moral god? ------------------------------ Quote But what if like matter and energy we will never be destroyed, what if we will be around for ever? Er, what if we won't? Why would you ever imagine you'll be around forever? Once the body's dead, you're dead, I'm sorry, but I don't believe in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, Loch Ness Monster, UFO's, the Yeti or God. And I don't believe in any of them, because they're simply fabulous constructs, without any credible supporting evidence.. Dude, bottom-line is science and religion are virtually exclusive. Where reigion tries to explain natural phenomena, it fails.

Er...it's true that there are knowledge gaps but that's OK ('Knowledge is finite, ignorance is infinite' as my old prof used to say - there's always something more you don't know). We wouldn't even know there was 'Dark Matter' without physics or cosmology. And actually, biology does a pretty good job of explaining '...the life that powers our brain...' Just because someone (you for example) can't understand something (eg 'the life that powers our brain..') doesn't mean everyone else has the same difficulties. But it's a mistake to invent a God to fill the knowledge gaps, it (the God hypothesis) doesn't explain anything, just moves the ignorance one step further back. Why not just say, for the moment, 'I don't know...'? Science has no morality? Just not true: Openheimer was tortured during (and after) the development of the Bomb - as was Einstein. Certainly, most of the engineers and biologists in my industry believe they're making a difference (OK - maybe only a very small one, and most of the time we fail). But very occasionally a new vaccine or drug or a more fuel efficient technology emerges - and I'm proud to have been associated with those (depressingly usually younger and brighter than me!) who did it.. I didn't want to take the high moral ground, but I will....I think it's a fair bet the cigarette and arms industries have higher proportions of theists than does say, the biotech industry (biologists and physicists are famously atheistic). And what's wrong with returning to the oblivion from whence we came? This life, our families, friends - and even strangers on the other side of the globe or the next generation matter much more if there's no eternal (God forbid!) afterlife...

OK...but I think the trouble is current science can pretty much explain the origin of the universe, without resorting to any supernatural intervention, ie God. Scientific 'truth' (as you call it) and religious truth are not similar - one is driven (and modified) by objective evidence, the other is based on belief, that (usually) is totally subjective, and not modified by new evidence... I think we should maybe just agree to disagree..?

Whatever clergy may decree (life begins 4 months post conception for the Iranians; conception for Catholics) doesn't make it real or true... The answer to this question is fundamentally biological, not a religious one. BTW: I decree (as Archbishop in Chief of the Church of Nigel) life begins when subscribers, sorry I meant to say souls, mail me their Salvation Guaranty Offerings ($10,000 per year). Parents should relieve newborn of this burden till they're self-sustaining.

1) I'm sorry...I mispasted the first part of the quote from your message. Should have read: '....I have no use for religion or religious teachings. My belief is based on the Spiritual teaching of Christianity' This is the self-contradictory statement I had trouble with. 2) So what exactly is the 'Creators method of creation..' alluded to in 'But please don't confuse the Creators method of creation with proof there is no Creator.'? This is maybe something we could grapple with meaningfully...

I agree 100%..

Umm, your answer raises real difficulties for me... 1) "...My belief is based on the Spiritual teaching of Christianity" If you don't find this statement self-contradictory, then it's going to be hard for me to present a logical argument you'd find persuasive. 2) "I will consider anything you can come up with." I'm sure you would. But what I'd need to know is what sort of evidence would be persuasive? For example..if 'Nature' or 'Science' published a series of papers, comprehensively backed up with data, that explained conclusively how the universe came about, without any need for a supernatural being, what would your response be?

And I'd be really impressed if your fellow Texan spent more on medical science (cf 40 million US citizens with no medical cover) than he does on killing innocent Arabs...

Even if I had any any trouble defining when 'life' begins, I'd still have no guilt about using 12 week fetuses. Let's be clear: the US practice of referring to all fetuses as 'unborn babies' has effectively demonized anyone who is brave or foolhardy enough to challenge this proposition.

OK...but first tell me: 1) What would it take, from an evidence perspective, to convince you? What type and quality of evidence would be needed? Er...Maadmax - I'm still waiting....