Questioning Society discussion

GO!!!

1.Turn of lights when you're not using them
2.Don't liter
3.Despose of chemicals properly


(opps!time for theater....I'll be back later to check the list!)

4. Be careful not to waste water (when showering, brushing teeth, washing dishes, etc).
5. Use the air condition sparingly.
6. Use as few plastic bags as possible and instead of throwing out the ones you use, re-use them over and over.

Reduce
Reuse
Recycle

it best not to use cars when there not needed. its also good exercise.
plant trees, make the earth a greener place
dont waste electricity (did sum one say that already?)
dont dump trash in rivers! its not good for the fish, earth or water!
they should stop with factories and find a better way to make things with out hurting the environment
dont kill animals- it may not have much to do with the earth but its a problem
over population is creating more damage and garbage to the earth...

and last but not least their is a poem i wrote:

The pale blue sky
The dark black sea
The lush green grass
surrounds me
The factory smoke
makes me choke
killing the earth
around me
Pale blue skies are now darker
Dark black seas now are sharper
Lush green grass dying farther
can we stop this
population
growing larger
makes it harder
for us to save the EARTH

That's awesome. I wish more people would read it. It's a good start. You cover a lot of issues just in that one poem.

Use the canvas bags that are being sold at grocery stores instead of plastic bags.

Recycle.

Don't allow cars with heavy exhaust systems.

Try to clean with non-toxic materials.

Use disposable things when possible.

7. I heard that putting a bottle in the back of your toilet (where the water is) is a way to conserve water
8. Only wash full loads of laundry
9. Turn off the water while soaping yourself when you shower

Also, if you go to wickedday.com, there is a section in the discussion board called "What would Elphaba Do? - Discussion on living a greener life." This could be a good place to look.

Reusing paper and plastic bags is also a good idea, like Farah said.

Also, buying biodegradable plates. I went to a meeting and there were some there. They are made from like potatoes or something like that. I ate a piece. Ya, it's edible. Not very tasty though.

Perpendicularandi wrote: "That's awesome. I wish more people would read it. It's a good start. You cover a lot of issues just in that one poem."


thanks! cool name btw :)

if you are in Texas, this is important:

get your representative to vote for a public analog TV recycling program.
send a letter! keep all of those TVs out of the landfills!!

for more info go to:
www.texasenvironment.org

wait why?

1.Reduce
2.Reuse
3.Recycle
4.Turn of lights when you're not using them
5.Don't liter
6.Despose of chemicals properly
7. Be careful not to waste water (when showering, brushing teeth, washing dishes, etc).
8. Use the air condition sparingly.
9. Use as few plastic bags as possible and instead of throwing out the ones you use, re-use them over and over.
10.it best not to use cars when there not needed. (its also good exercise.)
11.plant trees, make the earth a greener place
12.dont waste electricity
13.dont dump trash in rivers! its not good for the fish, earth or water!
14.they should stop with factories and find a better way to make things with out hurting the environment
15.over population is creating more damage and garbage to the earth
16.Don't allow cars with heavy exhaust systems.
17.Try to clean with non-toxic materials.
18.Use disposable things when possible.
19. putting a bottle in the back of your toilet (where the water is) to conserve water
20. Only wash full loads of laundry
21. Turn off the water while soaping yourself when you shower

Go Bella! Thanks for getting all the rules!

1. make something out of earthfriendly products (example:pop tab bag)
2.in the summer turn your airconditioning up (hotter) 2 degrees. in the winter thurn it down (cooler) 2 degrees.
3. make a rug out of an old towel.

1. Reuse water bottles
2. Recycle
3. Pick up trash

Nothing should go into the hurricane drains except water. Everything we wash down the drains goes into large bodies of water.

Bella, I agree with all that except 21 lol
I'm too lazy to turn the water off while I soap up and plus then the water will be cold when I turn it back on :P lol

the rest of its good though keep it up :P

Don't leave the water running while you brush your teeth.

i agree with Kyle

-While you're eating food that your parents/spouse made, don't complain. Think about everything that had to happen for you to get that food. Also, wasting your food is throwing away your own money. ((I don't know if that helps the earth...))
-Unplug things even when you're not using it, because it still uses energy even if it's off.

Alia, love the poem. Enter it into the contest for May!!!
don't liter, and if you see some pick it up.

thanks bella! i think i will....
p.s you make me smile, haha

lol.

I love your poem Alia, it makes a point poetically. To EARTH!

lol. thanks laura
*gives vertual hug

To save the earth, don't vote for stupid people.

To save the earth, learn! You cannot know too much, be too smart, try too hard. To build a better world, you have to be the best that you can possibly be (and hope that it is enough).

To save the earth, embrace the rational. The earth isn't magical, it isn't alive. It is mechanism. Very, very complex mechanism. We must learn its mechanism, plumb its secrets, understand what might break it -- and what can heal it. You won't discover these things from prayer, and ceremonies performed on hilltops with symbols of imagined power are simply a waste of time.

To save the earth, save mankind from itself. Save mankind from overpopulation by embracing birth control. Save mankind from war by working to eliminate its root causes: ignorance, poverty, irrationality, greed, stupidity, nationalism, certain religious theisms. Save mankind from disease by learning its causes.

To save the earth, learn about ecology.

To save the earth, learn physics. Learn about how energy is generated, and how it is used. Energy is what makes civilization function -- it is the one resource that can stand for all the rest. Invent controlled fusion. Support large scale solar energy projects. Support large scale wind energy projects.

To save the earth, turn off the lights. Not the lights in your house -- don't waste those, but use them as needed. Turn off the myriad lights that make the earth glow from space at night. Turn off the streetlights, the neon lights and advertising displays and billboards. Turn off the lights that illuminate deserted parking lots, and empty shopping malls after hours. We waste an enourmous amount of money and energy illuminating empty streets or roads already lit by car headlights in a day.

To save the earth, work to preserve its species, its remarkable biological diversity. Support conservation, especially in marine biology and animal habitat.

To save the earth, become Enlightened.

And pass it on.

rgb

This green movement is a load of crap. They were saying we were going into an ice age not too long ago and everyone was scared over that...Now suddenly everyone is on the 'it's too hot' band wagon.

Being green is the new black and all the celebs that yell the loudest tend to leave the biggest carbon foot print.

Mars is getting warmer too. Who's driving a hummer there?

The Earth is getting hotter. Yes. It got hot and then cold and hot and cold...That happens. And we'll be able to live off the planet by the time we totally kill it. That's evolution. Cows don't care that their farts are destroying the ozone so why should we care that we're wasting some electricity or using disposable plates? We're animals, this is part of evolution.

H wrote: "This green movement is a load of crap. They were saying we were going into an ice age not too long ago and everyone was scared over that...Now suddenly everyone is on the 'it's too hot' band wagon..."

There are two statements here. You assert "The green movement is a load of crap." This is statement one. Then you go on a diatribe that seems to suggest that you doubt that antropogenic global warming is occurring, that the warming observed over the last two hundred years is natural and has been highly exaggerated, that the warming claimed over the last 2000 years is almost entirely smoke and mirrors. Possibly a third one when you say that exhausting natural resources critical to civilization is evolution in action.

Let's take these in a reverse order. Exhausting natural resources does cause evolution, by selecting against the idiots that do it. This happens in the animal kingdom when a species overgrows its food supply and thereby starves until obliging predators and starvation whittle down its numbers and its food supply recovers. There are some lovely sets of coupled differential equations and numerical simulations that demonstrate this, not to mention animal studies that support the observation that most animals are evolved to act in self-destructive ways when population pressure exceeds a critical threshold, eating their own young and worse.

Humans, of course, have a serious evolutionary advantage. We can actually understand what the math tells us is going to happen if various key resources are exhausted, and we have the science to -- in some cases -- ameliorate or delay the day of reckoning. However, biological systems are enormously nonlinear and the price one can pay in human misery is sickening.

As a single example, my wife's family is from Michigan. When visiting them for the last 30 years or so, we all go fishing because Michigan has great lakes (and Great Lakes) to fish in that are chock full of fish.

Unfortunately, you can't eat them. Well, you CAN eat them -- they recommend no more than one meal of fish a month, and only of certain species. They are chock full of lead, PCBs, mercury, all teratogens (pregnant women are advised not to eat any at all). Some places, like Saginaw Bay, are worse than others. Industries in Michigan have been dumping all of these things into the lakes for a hundred years, and basically the lake is toxic. It will take another 100 years after completely controlling the dumping to MAYBE clear the lake -- the metals in particular have an enormous concentration half-life in the biosphere and unfortunately are simply flushed to the sea, where it is similarly unsafe to eat e.g. swordfish.

The problem with evolution in action is that it is hard on the individual members of the species doing the evolving. Babies with birth defects, adults with cancer and gradual heavy metal induced brain damage are perfectly natural aspects of evolution. If we simply dump mercury into the environment wholesale, I'm sure we'll evolve into a mercury tolerant species in a few tens or hundreds of thousands of years, no problem. Or we could use memetic evolution and decide that dumping mercury into the environment is a bad idea, balance short term benefits against long term risks, and elect not to do it.

From this point of view, your choices are: Be "Green", where that is taken to mean being aware of ecological consequences to both personal and collective (political, social, economic) action and acting in the best long run interest of self and society, or be "Stupid" and act purely personally selfishly or for short run benefit of your favorite multinational corporation or country. After all, in the long run we'll all be dead. What do we care if we leave behing a wasteland? It just means we were maximally successful, right, and it will be up to our descendants to "evolve" to live in it.

Second, let us consider Anthropogenic Global Warming. I agree with you completely (surprise!). I'm a physicist, I understand the nature of evidence, I understand the dynamics of the systems involved in at least an approximate way, I've bothered to actually look up the numbers to see if AGW "adds up" to a plausible hypothesis and it does not.

I could actually give a far stronger argument against it than you have, one based on these numbers. The arguments for it are rife with things like the mind projection fallacy (correlation is causality) and even there there are natural systems -- in particular the solar/earth orbital cycle -- that are nearly perfectly correlated with global temperatures over times as long as our proxies and radiometric dating work. Over the last 2000 years, the solar cycle has been correlated both with historically warm periods and with historically cold periods, and we are very much in a solar warm period.

This suggests (if nothing else) that there are multiple competing models for the observed GW. Examination of the actual numbers and our understanding of causes in my opinion leads one to the conclusion that it is more likely that CO_2 is a small correction to a model where almost all the temperature variation observed from solar-derived nonlinear effects, not the dominant driver where solar effects are the perturbation. However, as hypotheses go support for either is far from certainty. It's a hard problem.

Third, is the Green movement a load of crap? Yes and no. Yes, sometimes it gets to the point where it resembles a religion more than a sane and sober process of assessing the best scientific understanding of the ecological consequences of our personal, social, economic, and political choices so that we can improve those choices and thereby (possibly) avoid the kind of catastrophes that require us to rapidly evolve "the hard way" by means of the more or less violent elimination of 3/4 of the population of our species (say).

The religious aspect of it is easy to understand and lamentable. One half of the population of the world has an IQ less than 100. A disproportionate number of these individuals simply cannot understand science and do not think rationally as a general rule, they behave according to much broader social and religious precepts.

When driving down the highway having just finished their McDonalds based dinner, they do not think "If I throw all of this garbage out of the window of the car, I will create an unsightly mess, and if everyone did it we'd drive down many highways bounded by a midden of decaying garbage, which would stink and be a health hazard. I will therefore rationally decide to dispose of it properly." They either think "if I throw this out I might get a ticket and have to pay a fine" or they think "Throwing garbage out on the highway is bad" because they've received a prolong social message couched in religious terms that are easy to understand ("Love the earth." "Preserve it for your children's sake." "Pollution is wrong"). These are simple precepts, taught on a moral basis much the way one learns that it is a "sin" to kill the kid down the street to take his cool basketball shoes long before one understands the political theory of Jefferson and Locke that explains why one shouldn't do this even if one can conceivably "get away with it".

The bad thing about the Green movement's religious aspect is that it short-circuits reason. It relies heavily on the precept that the religious leaders use reason on everybody's behalf and that we can trust them to do the right thing. And of course they don't -- it is too complex, and the cost-benefit analysis has to take into account some unlikely outcomes with enormously negative effects, which equates to pushing AGW even if it might be wrong, because of the high cost if it is right. I disagree, but then, I'm rational.

rgb

rgb wrote: "There are two statements here. You assert "The green movement is a load of crap." This is statement one. Then you go on a diatribe that seems to suggest that you doubt that antropogenic global warming is occurring"

I didn't say global warming is a load, I said the green movement. It's just another way to alarm people in a slow news week and sell specialty bags and food that gouge the consumer.

I concede that the Earth is warming and that we are wasting it's resources. I do believe that's natural and is inevitable. I also believe we should do our best to prolong the life of the Earth but it's 'destruction' is inevitable.

I recycle, I always have. I use energy saving electronics and lighting, and I have since before this Hollywood-smell-your-own-flatulence-green-movement-thing. I don't throw out things that hurt the environment, I'll either find a charitable organization to donate it to of find someone that can recycle it.

So, It's not that by evolution I mean throwing cation to the wind and we should do whatever we want because we're the top dog...We should make good choices as to not bite the hand that feeds us but it IS inevitable that we will exhaust the Earth's resources. This whole 'Change your light bulb' thing isn't going to change that. It won't prolong it either because the people who do the WORST to the ozone and environment (China) aren't doing anything to improve conditions.

We might as well think ahead and start taking care of space because that's our only escape.

rgb wrote: "I could actually give a far stronger argument against it than you have">

I'd expect you to give a better argument on anything I've said, considering your age and education.

rgb wrote: "When driving down the highway having just finished their McDonalds based dinner, they do not think "If I throw all of this garbage out of the window of the car, I will create an unsightly mess, and if everyone did it we'd drive down many highways bounded by a midden of decaying garbage, which would stink and be a health hazard. I will therefore rationally decide to dispose of it properly." They either think "if I throw this out I might get a ticket and have to pay a fine" or they think "Throwing garbage out on the highway is bad" because they've received a prolong social message couched in religious terms that are easy to understand ("Love the earth." "Preserve it for your children's sake." "Pollution is wrong"). These are simple precepts, taught on a moral basis much the way one learns that it is a "sin" to kill the kid down the street to take his cool basketball shoes long before one understands the political theory of Jefferson and Locke that explains why one shouldn't do this even if one can conceivably "get away with it".">

I agree with you totally...I consider myself a moderately un-intelligent person myself so I can understand the need for social conditioning. I've always said (in private company) I'm glad that everyone is on the band wagon of cleaning up after themselves even though they've been dooped into it.

H wrote: "So, It's not that by evolution I mean throwing cation to the wind and we should do whatever we want because we're the top dog...We should make good choices as to not bite the hand that feeds us but it IS inevitable that we will exhaust the Earth's resources. This whole 'Change your light bulb' thing isn't going to change that. It won't prolong it either because the people who do the WORST to the ozone and environment (China) aren't doing anything to improve conditions.

We might as well think ahead and start taking care of space because that's our only escape"

Actually, I don't agree that we're going to exhaust the Earth's resources as if it were some inevitable consequence, at least not within sane timeframes (that is, by the time the Sun burns out yeah it will have happened, and it may have happened a million years from now even long before that point).

The reason is that that there is really only one resource that "matters" -- energy -- and only one secondary parameter that determines our fundamental lifetime -- population.

If we control our population so that we can live within the Earth's renewable resource tolerances (where energy can be substituted for almost any other resource, if it is cheap enough) then we can live in a scientifically maintained balance as a part of the Earth's ecosystem indefinitely. We "can" do this within any available energy budget, but the level of population that will balance the desired level of civilization varies more or less directly with population until it hits bottlenecks of nonlinear growth as resources pass critical points where "just" energy can substitute.

As a simple example, if energy is truly cheap enough, the large-scale desalination of seawater and its transport to arbitrary locations becomes just a matter of building the plants and the pipelines. Deserts can be made to bloom, fundamentally altering the global ecosystem (and incidentally binding up a whole lot of CO_2, if anybody still cares). If energy is cheap enough, filtration of ocean water and extraction of its residual mineral content becomes feasible -- one can systematically recover e.g. mercury and bind it safely back up again in non-bioactive forms. Recycling of existing mercury used in industrial processes gets cheaper with the cost of power, there is less incentive to throw it away and mine new mercury instead. This extends to iron, aluminum, and many other metals instead. Make energy cheap enough, and landfills can be opened and mined by big "digesters" that basically superheat everything and then fractionally recover the raw materials.

Population is still key, though, as we have to support an ECOSYSTEM, not just as many humans as possible. Right now IMO the world's population is about 3x sustainable. If someone dropped the cost of energy to 1/10th its current cost, it might BARELY be sustainable, although I think not. 2 to 4 billion are probably workable numbers for a balanced global population, adjusted up or down as we develop a more complete understanding of just what its carrying capacity is without causing the collapse of any important global ecosystems. 1 billion might be better still, especially as we develop intelligent machines that make up the difference in labor so that the wealth is concentrated in the fewer people.

Again, though, I agree that ultimately settling the solar system and eventually the stars is going to be critical for our long term survival, but critical when? If we behave rationally, it might be critical in tens or hundreds of thousands of years, or even millions of years -- so long a timeframe that evolution will have transformed our descendants into something we would scarcely recognize, long enough a timeframe that we will have probably uplifted machines, dogs and other primates to intelligence comparable to our own today.

There, too, we face serious challenges. There isn't a whole lot of real estate in the solar system that is suited for humans. The earth's moon and maybe mars (the latter with some serious terraforming effort, serious as mining a new atmosphere for it and maybe increasing its mass over a few tens of thousands of years of investing enormous amounts of resources) are arguably settleable; mercury no, venus with more terraforming effort expended than mars, the gas giants are too cold and poisonous. The moons of the gas giants maybe. Terraformed arcologies in the asteroid belts maybe. But in all cases the ecosystems will be fragile -- I don't see anything that would make a robust "earth replacement" in this solar system.

The stars? Sure, but much as I love SF, as a physicist I know too well that the stars are, um, "difficult". Really really difficult. So difficult that even a cursory examination of the difficulty makes you instantly conclude that no, we will never, ever, make it to the stars. Every science fiction story ever written that has postulated intersteller travel has been wildly optimistic compared to what physics and economics dictates. The ones closest to "possible" -- hollowing out small moons, installing an ecosystem inside of them capable of sustaining them without sunlight for hundreds to thousands of years, and then accelerating them up to speeds where interstellar journeys would take only thousands of years -- are still ludicrously implausible and presuppose cheap fusion power, surplus wealth and time required to build planetoid-scale ships, a superhuman knowledge of arkology (if your ecosystem fails you all simply die, period) and/or things like true AI, suspended animation, radiation resistance and control. I've read almost zero SF books, lifetime, that proposed a plausible way to get to even the closest stars in the equivalent of covered wagons, ready to settle whatever is discovered at the far end.

Ultimately, interstellar travel relies on the discovery of new physics. REALLY new physics -- again, I don't see anything that is even remotely plausible supported by actual experiments, let alone an actual theory that isn't actively contradicted by experiments and much more successful theories. It is one thing to write SF novels involving "wormholes" or the like; quite another to come up with a plausible theory of an actual wormhole complete with an engineering specification and control.

rgb

rgb wrote: "If we control our population so that we can live within the Earth's renewable resource tolerances "

My opinion is based on my beliefs that we can't control the population. People in America already see China's regulations on births as laughable and inhuman so how do we get these teenaged sluts to stop popping out kids let alone those who believe God put them on Earth solely to have children?

rgb wrote: "Again, though, I agree that ultimately settling the solar system and eventually the stars is going to be critical for our long term survival, but critical when? If we behave rationally, it might be critical in tens or hundreds of thousands of years, or even millions of years"

You seem an intelligent type...When has humanity ever been rational?

I'm not suggesting that to live in space we should time warp are way to a galaxy far far away...There are some hopeful plans already for habitable space stations. Not too long ago the things we do now in science weren't conceivable outside of science fiction novels so I think that when the need comes, we'll find a way to live on way or another.

Even if that means gunning down the lower classes (me) to make more room available for the upper classes (presumably you...I would do this for you...Live long as prosper, as long as we're on the Star Trek thing)

H wrote: "Even if that means gunning down the lower classes (me) to make more room available for the upper classes (presumably you...I would do this for you...Live long as prosper, as long as we're on the Star Trek thing)
"

Now you're scaring me.

Look, one problem with the world today is that people don't study history and tend to be trapped in a local mindset, especially young people who often haven't been alive long enough to observe much change.

I've seen enormous changes in the half-century I've been alive. Most of them have been not only good, they've been extraordinarily good. Humanity is moving in the direction of rationality, and it is slowly evolving a global scientific perspective and an associated non-religious ethos.

Here's just a sample of what I've personally seen, or know of from simple extrapolation of history:

a) Collapse of most of the world's remaining large scale oligarchies and despotisms. The most important features of this process have been the emergence of Europe, most of South America, India, China, and parts of Asia and Africa from feudal society and to societies that are at the very least far more free than they were 200, 100, or 50 years ago.

b) An enormous reduction of overt racism, especially in the US.

c) An enormous reduction of global nationalism -- creation of e.g. the Euro and multinational regional currencies (a process that continues, but slowly).

d) The reduction of the threat of global (nuclear or otherwise) war from very high and occasionally happening to very low.

e) An enormous reduction in the control religion exerts on individual lives. Relatively few people have an unqualified belief in the unconditional truth of religious theistic scripture anymore, as science and historical study has rather relentlessly proven it to be false. This is one of the primary points of social conflict that remains, largely because unconditional scriptural idolatry goes hand in hand with stupidity and ignorance, the latter at least due to an ongoing failure in our educational system and strength of will. However, barring a literal miracle the historical process is more or less inevitable at this point as scriptural mythologies are no longer sustainable in the face of an obviously superior scientific worldview.

f) An enormous increase in the global standard of living, decrease in global poverty, increase in wealth, increase in the safety and fairness of society as a whole. There are glaring exceptions, to be sure -- but in (say) the early 1900's there was nothing but exceptions.

g) An enormous increase in medical science and global health.

h) An enormous reduction in the global levels of "war". The world is more peaceful today, and has been more peaceful longer, than it has been for a very long time if not ever. Even in the "golden ages" between world wars in the last century there was a tremendous amount of regional conflict and war, it just wasn't global. We have regional conflict now, but even the cold war has been over for twenty years at this point, and regional conflicts are no worse than they ever war and have been confined to certain geographical locales. Arguably the last "major" war that brought global powers into opposition was Viet Nam, or possibly the ex-Soviet Union vs Afghanistan.

And more, of course. Much, much more.

The point is, that it is silly to be cynical. History is not stationary at this time. Sensible people of good will are indeed making sensible, rational decisions more often than not, and far more often than they did historically 50, 100, 200, 500, 1000, 2000, 4000 years ago (log scale deliberate). 4000 years ago humans were just inventing writing and urban civilization in a few tiny enclaves of the world. Today we communicate in real time across global distances in virtual communities that destroy the barriers between people. A mere 260 years ago, religious mythicism was so dominant that humans were still being put to death for publically challenging it in Europe.

Today I can write reams of text in a public forum stating that e.g. Christianity and Islam and Judaism and a large part of Hinduism and Zororastrianism and the various ex-paganisms are nothing but myths, false, even a bit silly and directly contradicted by science and objective history and -- nothing happens to me. I am not jailed, am not persecuted, my words are not suppressed. They may even convince people to abandon their birth-superstition, if not right away, in time as they realize e.g. that Genesis is false, and that this knocks the mythical foundation out from under e.g. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and leaves one with no good reason to believe the rest.

IMO, there is nothing wrong with the world that education and the slow, systematic construction of a non-nationalistic global society won't cure. IMO, the internet has already created the means for both, and that at this point the historical process is almost inevitable, barring dinosaur-killer asteroids, nuclear war between India and Pakistan or North Korea and the rest of the world.

The largest remaining global conflict (the former two are regional, not global) is the one between historical Islam and everything else. It's historical roots date back to the fall of the Ottoman empire post WW I. Science is the enemy of Islam as much as it is the enemy of Christianity or Judaism -- perhaps even more its enemy.

Islam is fragmenting and evolving at double time to try to accomodate science, even as the primitive tribal societies that remain after the regional fragmentation of the last 90 years gradually absorb science, technology, and move forward to rejoin the rest of the world. The scientific worldview is fundamentally incompatible with scriptural theisms, including Islam, and Islam is evolving memetically to gradually change its scriptural memes (via that all powerful "interpretation") to accomodate the fact that its science is wrong, its creation myth is mythical, its reliance on Genesis puts it on the same (false) footing as Judaism and Christianity. It is also evolving to become less patriarchal and less confrontational with other faiths. Education and the need to interact peacefully with a global secular civilization drive this process; the exploitation of wicked men and short term greedy interests oppose it.

So I don't think it is necessary to bring about a global war to eliminate you (or me) or any particular racial or religious or regional or national group to make way for a global balanced ecolonomy (a word I just made up that means "ecological economy":-). All that is required is humans of good will working with a global vision towards an ethical global society. This process is emergent, IMO, at this very time. It requires nothing but clear articulation to become a set of memes that drives a social phase transition, plus time.

On that log scale, 25 year from now the global religious conflict will largely be resolved, with religion(s) the losers. In a world without kings, without the divisiveness and irrationality of religion, with an emerging global ethos, with universal secular education, with stable renewable energy resources defining the unity of global currency, and with an overarching global ecolonomic vision, who knows what humans can achieve?

So be optimistic my friend. It probably won't alter the historical process (although it might -- optimists make more sweeping changes by believing that change is possible than do pessimists who think that it isn't:-) but in the meantime you'll be a bit happier...;-)

rgb

And I'm not the "upper classes" -- the only thing that could possibly differentiate you and me classwise is education and time. My parents were the children of peasants from Missouri, poor farmers basically. Everything they, and I, have become, is due strictly to education and opportunity, not birthright.

rgb wrote: "Now you're scaring me."

Good heaven lol It was a joke. I don't want to be gunned down!

I agree that as the human race evolves we are being superficially rational. The overt racism in America has diminished but the racism persists none the less. Racism in other countries are just as rampant as always though. I'm not going to go into any more examples because I'm too damn lazy but the end point I'm aiming for is that I'm one of those crazy conspiracy/as above so below sort of people who feel that the more modern and free things appear the tighter the noose is becoming around our necks and the more we rely on scientific reasoning ALONE the less in touch with reality we are.

rgb wrote: "And I'm not the "upper classes" -- the only thing that could possibly differentiate you and me classwise is education and time. My parents were the children of peasants from Missouri, poor farmers basically. Everything they, and I, have become, is due strictly to education and opportunity, not birthright."

I was thinking household income wise. I assure you, you are doing better than I am right now lol

I doubt we'll ever agree on much because I am a pessimist (but one of the more happy people you'll meet because I do enjoy pessimism so much) and I am one of those crazy the-Masons-control-the-world people who also rely on my pagan beliefs quite a bit.

H wrote: "I doubt we'll ever agree on much because I am a pessimist (but one of the more happy people you'll meet because I do enjoy pessimism so much) and I am one of those crazy the-Masons-control-the-world people who also rely on my pagan beliefs quite a bit."

Well, far be it from me to move you from your comfort zone...lol:-).

BTW, "scientific reasoning" is redundant. Reasoning is reasoning, and yes, reasoning alone puts you in touch with reality outside of your momentary, instantaneous perceptions of it.

Racism hasn't disappeared, but it is way, way reduced from when I was a kid. In 1959 if you'd suggested that a black man would be president today it wouldn't have even made believable science fiction. If you'd suggested that it would be illegal not to teach evolution in the public schools, and illegal to teach any sort of religious view of human origins including the thinly disguised religious crap known as "intelligent design" nobody would have believed you. If you proposed that the Soviet Empire would no longer exist, that the global communist "menace" would no longer exist, that Europe would have a single currency, and that the greatet threat to world peace would be some nut cases hiding out in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan, again it wouldn't have been believable even as science fiction (and it would have come as an enormous relief to a world that was becoming resigned to the "inevitability" of global thermonuclear war followed by a collapse of society back down to barbarity).

And the Internet wasn't even a gleam in the eye of its original users (including myself) until sometime in the late 80's. Obviously you take it more or less for granted -- it has always existed if you are under 25 or even 30. Information has always been a google, a trip to wikipedia away.

Not so for me. I remember well going through Physics Abstracts from the 1880's on -- a set of books containing only the ABSTRACTS of physics publications to date, sorted out by PACS number that was lined up on thirty feet of linear table, right down the middle -- in the Duke physics library. After three or four days of working through them, year by year, PACS number by PACS number, and collecting the references, one would scurry back into the stacks, pull enormous dusty bound journals and take them to the photocopy machine to copy a paper one at a time at a nickel a page. It could take two weeks to collect a dozen papers relevant to your work, six months to pursue the papers linked to papers and build an actual library of papers on a new research area that interested you, and THEN you had to go to work.

The same process, collecting the same papers, now takes a couple of hours, and I can do it without moving my ass from my chair. I can also access textbooks, extensive review articles on e.g. Wikipedia or Mathworld to prop up any places where my math is shaky. I can contact the thirty other people in the world working on it, join a mailing list, and carry out discussions (like this one) on a daily basis with people halfway around the world I've never actually met. I can form collaborations with them, do joint research with them, and publish with them (and have done all of the above) without so much as a long distance phone call.

Be as pessimistic as you like, but recognize that things change, and are changing fast. They are changing globally. Look at the number of Iraqi and Irani women there are on Goodreads, for example. I'm friends with a rather surprising number (where "one" would have been a bit surprising). Global culture, transcending religious and cultural difference, in direct opposition to ONE major antifeminist driving force in their own countries.

Evolution, indeed revolution, in action.

As for global conspiracies, yeah, right, maybe. But never ascribe to superhuman intelligence and malice that which can be adequately explained with everyday ignorance, stupidity, and greed.

rgb

rgb wrote: ""scientific reasoning" is redundant."

What science says doesn't always turn out true. It is a reasoning, no doubt, but not the only one.

I do understand that things change very quickly and man has a short term memory but I also believe man himself (or herself) never really changes. Maybe as far as our DNA or immune systems go, but our mentality is that of our great-great-great-great-Whatever-Adam is.

You seem adamant to point out that things that couldn't be fathomed not too long ago are now common place but you said before that interstellar travel is "ludicrously implausible" So perhaps is ludicrously plausible?

You seem pretty anti-creationist. I'm the opposite in that I believe in a plethora of Gods. Have you always had these non-religious convictions? I recall you mentioning you are a humanist, I'm more accustom to humanists not being so vehemently opposed to "religious crap"

"I do understand that things change very quickly and man has a short term memory but I also believe man himself (or herself) never really changes. Maybe as far as our DNA or immune systems go, but our mentality is that of our great-great-great-great-Whatever-Adam is. "

Only 100 years ago, racism was accepted and common. Look how we changed that. 50 years ago, being gay was horrible, and now we changed that too. If we kept a Bronze Age mentality, we would still stone adulterers and cut off the hands of thieves.

"You seem pretty anti-creationist. I'm the opposite in that I believe in a plethora of Gods. Have you always had these non-religious convictions? I recall you mentioning you are a humanist, I'm more accustom to humanists not being so vehemently opposed to "religious crap" "

The ones who have the guts to say it are.

H wrote: "What science says doesn't always turn out true. It is a reasoning, no doubt, but not the only one. "

Science is what we believe the most because we can doubt it the least. This is a precise statement, and a quantitative one. It is a dynamic state because our degree of ignorance is constantly changing as we learn more. Science completely embraces the imperfection of its own current state of knowledge, in contrast to all the alternatives pushed by religions, which claim "perfect truth", knowledge without doubt and hence without reason.

You are incorrect, therefore, when you assert that there are other things that can be called "reason" that stand as alternatives to science. To the extent that they can be shown to lead to actual consistent knowledge that can be objectively verified as "least doubtful" in some fuzzy and changing and imperfect coupled network of mutually supporting and consistent knowledge, they are a part of science. To the extent that they do not, what they generate is not knowledge, it is fantasy.

To put it another way, I am a reasonable human. If you want to convince me that any given assertion is true (in the sense that it is "most plausible", something that I can be led to conclude is most likely true, since absolute knowledge of truth is impossible for nearly any proposition about the Universe), I'm willing to be convinced.

Now, how are you going to go about convincing me? If you claim that you have prayed to ancient gods and they have answered your prayers and therefore they must exist, please note that this is an empirical scientific argument from the beginning. You are claiming that you've done an experiment that increases in your own mind the evidence in favor of the existence of a set of sentient beings capable of influencing earthly events.

Very interesting, I'll reply. Just what are those events that you were convinced were the answers to prayers? Could they have alternative explanations? Could it be that they happened naturally, for reasons that had nothing to do with your prayers? When you pray in this way are your prayers always answered, or only sometimes. Do you get exactly what you ask for, or does something happen that you could never predict by ex posteriori "interpret" as the answer to your prayers? By what physical mechanism are the prayers answered? After all, matter is moved around, energy changes hands. Are the laws of physics violated by the exchange? If so, I'm going to be very skeptical simply because there is an enormous amount of evidence that the laws of physics are true, far more than the evidence you are claiming for the violation. I'd want to see very careful demonstrations of these violations before I concluded that they occurred. If they do not violate the laws of physics, then why is it that you are claiming supernatural origin for the events?

This is an example of the problem you encounter with science. It explains everything in the best possible way, given the totality of the evidence. There are no gaps left to be filled by supernatural entities. There are not places where a different sort of "reason" can give a different answer -- one of the defining characteristics of reason is that it will always give the same answer given the same data, even if that answer is a form of "I don't know".

Lack of knowledge is precisely equivalent to God in most theistic worldviews. God isn't necessary to explain that which happens due to natural causes. God is unreason, ignorance, the great "I don't know, so it must be God".

You seem pretty anti-creationist. I'm the opposite in that I believe in a plethora of Gods. Have you always had these non-religious convictions? I recall you mentioning you are a humanist, I'm more accustom to humanists not being so vehemently opposed to "religious crap"

I oppose it because unreason is not harmless, it is not cute, it is not good. Unreason is evil. Scriptural theism is unreason, and hence evil. Yes, these are all value judgements, but I think it is pretty easy to justify them historically and humanistically.

As I attempted to demonstrate above, reasonable humans need to be able to examine the evidence available from the sum total of human experience and come up with at least approximately the same understanding of how everything works. If they cannot do this, you have suicide bombers, you have religious wars, you have people whose vote counts as much as yours or mine voting on policy issues such as whether or not to bother to implement conservation principles where I think we should because our great grandchildren might want not to live in a toxic desert (if they live at all) and they think that there is no point because Jesus is coming, the rapture is at hand, and Jesus will renew the Earth for 1000 years after casting down the antichrist and sending all the earth's sinners straight to hell.

This is not harmless. It is delusional, it is a form of madness. There is an old saying; normal people build castles in the sky, but crazy people go to live in them. Religion is quite literally a set of sky castles. A rather lot of people nowadays intellectually know this, and belong to some faith in order to draw comfort from just a few of these castles that float above relatively "harmless" parts of the worldview terrain. Others cry jihad, others not only try to move right in and live there, they try to force the rest of us to move right in with them.

If you want to believe in a plethora of Gods, that is entirely your business. The minute your Gods start to influence your vote on policy decisions that ultimately affect me, I become a hostage to your unreasoned belief. We can both look at the same evidence and arrive at completely different conclusions about simple matters of fact, let alone about complex ethical issues. You can vote a certain way on critical issues because (you assert) "my Gods want it that way" according to whatever irrational means your Gods use to reveal their Holy Wishes.

This is why I oppose theistic religion so strongly. Note well, I'm not even an atheist -- I'm actually a panendeist, and think that it is plausible that God exists in an open Universe that is much, much larger than just what we can directly measure at this time. I do not think that God divinely communicates perfect truth to humans, especially not to stupid, ignorant, humans who are too lazy to seek approximate truth the right way -- by hard work, common sense, and using your eyes and senses to learn how the world works by studying the world.

God's word, so to speak (metaphorically) is written in the heavens, in the rocks of the earth, in the ancient light of the stars, in God's own highly metaphorical hand. If you want to learn of God (or "Gods", whatever that means) study the world, not theistic myths and nonsense written by ignorant humans in ignorant times, humans who lacked the magic keys of reason.

rgb

rgb wrote: "Science is what we believe the most because we can doubt it the least.

You are incorrect, therefore, when you assert that there are other things that can be called "reason" that stand as alternatives to science. "

That is a matter of opinion in my...well, opinion. Not everyone can believe in science the most. You can, other's can't. They merely rely on science to survive.

rgb wrote: "Now, how are you going to go about convincing me?"

I'm not going to attempt to convince you of anything at all. That's not the type of person I am, I was simply giving you my point of view as you did yours. I encourage others to have their own respective paradigms and I'll keep mine. I do enjoy listening to other's world views and convictions but I've little respect for those that don't respect others own views.

You assume I pray to ancient archetypal gods and having my fanciful wishes fulfilled I have proven to myself that they exist, that isn't so. So, thank you for the long winded skepticism but it wasn't necessary lol I believe that prayer is a form of meditation and that we solve our own problems.

rgb wrote: "Lack of knowledge is precisely equivalent to God in most theistic worldviews. God isn't necessary to explain that which happens due to natural causes. God is unreason, ignorance, the great "I don't know, so it must be God"."

You are assuming I am one of those people who walk around with blinders, believing that God controls everything and pity those around me who haven't 'come unto Christ' This isn't the case at all and you needn't be this sort of person to be religious. You must have only interacted with fundamentalists and academics but I assure you, not all of us are so polarized in our beliefs.

rgb wrote: "You can vote a certain way on critical issues because (you assert) "my Gods want it that way" according to whatever irrational means your Gods use to reveal their Holy Wishes."

My religion doesn't come into play in the voting booth. You need to be worried about my nut job conspiracy theory beliefs coming to play in this situation, because they do.

rgb wrote: "This is why I oppose theistic religion so strongly. Note well, I'm not even an atheist -- I'm actually a panendeist, and think that it is plausible that God exists in an open Universe that is much, much larger than just what we can directly measure at this time. I do not think that God divinely communicates perfect truth to humans, especially not to stupid, ignorant, humans who are too lazy to seek approximate truth the right way -- by hard work, common sense, and using your eyes and senses to learn how the world works by studying the world."

What makes you think I don't feel the same way? Obviously you just jumped to conclusions as to what my religious convictions are...So, why? Did a born again Christian break your knee caps or something?

"That is a matter of opinion in my...well, opinion. Not everyone can believe in science the most. You can, other's can't. They merely rely on science to survive. "

Merely? You depend on science more then you probably know. Everything you have, own and use is the product of science.

"You must have only interacted with fundamentalists and academics but I assure you, not all of us are so polarized in our beliefs. "

It does not matter if you are fundamentalist or moderate, the mere thought that the world contain the supernatural is ridiculous.

"So, why? Did a born again Christian break your knee caps or something? "

Christian do much worse things for their religion.

Lauren wrote: "Merely? You depend on science more then you probably know. Everything you have, own and use is the product of science. "

Did I say I was one of those people?

Lauren wrote: "It does not matter if you are fundamentalist or moderate, the mere thought that the world contain the supernatural is ridiculous. "

What is ridiculous is to be intolerant. You are allowed to have your own opinions and I'm not calling them ridiculous. Prove to me there is no such thing as the 'supernatural' or whatever you meant by that.

Lauren wrote: "Christian do much worse things for their religion. "

So do people of every faith (even science)

"What is ridiculous is to be intolerant. You are allowed to have your own opinions and I'm not calling them ridiculous. Prove to me there is no such thing as the 'supernatural' or whatever you meant by that. "

Has there ever been a case of the laws of physics being bent in any way, such as ghosts? Faeries? No unicorns? Hm, no one asked me to prove unicorns DON'T exist, so do I assume they do?

What has ever been done in the name of science and progress equivalent to A)The Dark Ages B)The Crusades C)The Holocaust? I can't think of any, can you?

Science is not faith-based, we believe things because we actually have proof that they exist, not a 2,000 year old work of fiction.

H wrote: "What makes you think I don't feel the same way? Obviously you just jumped to conclusions as to what my religious convictions are...So, why? Did a born again Christian break your knee caps or something?"

I don't think one way or the other. Truthfully, it sounds like we do think far more alike than differently although I don't believe in gods. And I do believe in being tolerant and at the same time spreading a clear message that there is a big difference between superstitious, myth-laden, scripture-based theism and scientific knowledge. Perhaps not you, but many, many people confuse the two in very fundamental ways, and over most of recorded history the former completely dominated and insisted on dogmatic acquiescence in its proposed worldview at peril of dismemberment, death, torture, ostracism, imprisonment, enslavement, confiscation of goods and chattels, and being called names and pummelled with rotten vegetables and ordure in rituals of public humiliation.

So far, scientists have avoided doing this. Well, except for the rituals of public humiliation. We really like those. (Kidding, just kidding:-).

We will have to agree to disagree about there being multiple kinds of reason, especially if you wish to assert that different kinds of reason can take the same evidence and the same axioms and arrive at different conclusions. I'd ask you to defend this assertion and prove it (or at least justify it somehow), but of course you'd have to use reason to do either one, or you'd have to answer "because I think it does" without attempting a proof and call that your reason. Just remember, the reason your math instructor could confidently grade your papers is because there really are right and wrong answers in reasonable theories. Science and evidence based reasoning is soggier -- it doesn't lead you to absolute Truth with a capital T, only to a network of beliefs that don't contradict one another and that work better than anything else you've considered so far to explain the evidence, but there are still answers to many questions that are very, very strongly believed to be truth, and together they form a network of beliefs that are so strong we call them physical laws and insist that all our subordinate theories not contradict them, unless they are prepared to replace them with something that works better.

Sometimes the latter happens. The history of science, indeed, is the history of paradigm shifts and discoveries where that has happened. One day, everybody believes a certain set of truths, they brush their teeth and go to bed, and the next morning when they get up to read their morning paper there is a better explanation there and by evening their beliefs are completely different, metaphorically, where a day is more like years and where the morning paper is a lot of published research and vigorous free debate leading to reasonable people changing their minds concerning their set of conditional beliefs about the world.

This is precisely the process that is lacking in organized religions except for a few rare mavericks like Quakerism (which I have a great respect for). All the truths there are presumed to have been revealed by divine fiat and are not to be questioned or challenged by mortal man, even when they are directly confounded by evidence and common sense.

Why am I so vehement? Why am I so "intolerant" of people who wish to rub blue mud in their bellies (metaphorically speaking) because it tells them that this is pleasing to God in an ancient text (and no, I'm not referring to you, unless this describes you)? For the same reason that I'm "intolerant" of people who get the wrong answer on a physics test. For precisely the same reason. Only a complete fool, making an entire series of fundamental, tragic, mistakes about the entire way the world is put together, could believe that God gives a rat's ass about "wave offerings" of dead animal parts, the particular forms of our acts of sexual congress, and so very many more individual pieces of insanity that are the actual blue mud of so many scriptures.

I'm intolerant because if you go to India and wave a piece of cow, you risk being torn to pieces. If you go to Saudi Arabia and wave a piece of pig, ditto. If you go to Salt Lake City and hold hands with your male partner in the middle of downtown, bad things are almost certain to follow. If I create a website that contains my very own line drawing of a bearded man wearing an arab headdress and army boots and put underneath it "Mohammed Wears Army Boots", I risk having a death sentence pronounced on my by people who live thousands of miles away or having my head broken by some who live closer. Because if one of my sons gets a girl pregnant at the age of seventeen and they decide that having a baby at that age is incredibly stupid and they go together to get an abortion, they risk being publicly humiliated or even being blown to bits and killed by religious nuts who think that post-natal abortion is just fine, as long as it is sanctioned by their own warped view of scriptural deity. Because in Africa, right now, there are women who are having sex with their HIV-positive husbands without a condom because the Pope commanded it.

What I'm really curious about is how anybody can be rational and not want to end these tragic and irrational consequences of theistic scriptural religion. How can anybody believe that the Book of Mormon was actually written by anybody other than Joseph Smith as a work of pure fiction. How anybody can believe that the book of Genesis is literal truth, to the point where they wish to mandate that it be taught as literal truth in all schools, and will settle for it being taught as if it were somehow supported by scientific reasoning?

Americans are lazy, and in most cases tolerant to the point of destruction. All of the firebrands are on the side of the religious, willing to firebomb clinics, "target" legislators for defeat because they aren't born again Christians, trying to pack the Supreme Court to undo the constitution itself, trying to free up their state legislators so that they can transform their religious views into law for all of the residents in their states.

Maybe, just maybe, there need to be a few who are full of passionate conviction and who oppose not the freedom to have and practice any religion that doesn't hurt other people as a part of its creed, but your freedom to impose your religion on anyone else, including your own children. Maybe there need to be advocates who do speak out for the scientific worldview and extol is virtues abstract and concrete, and who speak out against the competing religious worldviews instead of pretending in silence that there is no conflict (which is the prevailing "official" position of scientific organizations, lest they attract the ire of the much larger organizations of the religious).

Have Christians peed on my post-toasties? Naaaaw. I'm descended from them and related to them, both the rabid and non-rabid type. I was raised as one. I'm just tired of the whole thing. Ultimately, I was raised on a pack of lies that amount to a global conspiracy (you'll like that part) to convince everybody that Santa Claus is real. Not just until I was five, but until I was ten, fifteen, twenty. Lies woven into our very society -- printed on the dollar bill, required as part of the Scout Oath (GOD and my country), integrated with our system of courts, recited in the classrooms every day. This global conspiracy possesses an enormous amount of political power and literally shapes the world I live in in countless ways both good and bad but in the end, all of them irrational.

It's like living in a madhouse, after waking up one day sane. The Emperor has no clothes. I should be silent and "tolerant" about this?

I think not.

rgb

rgb wrote: "there is a big difference between superstitious, myth-laden, scripture-based theism and scientific knowledge"

I agree whole-heartedly.

rgb wrote: "especially if you wish to assert that different kinds of reason can take the same evidence and the same axioms and arrive at different conclusions."

That’s not exactly what I meant. You may say 1+1=2 because it's mathematically correct and (...what's his insane face called...) Pat Robertson may say it's because God want's it to be so. I would agree with you but Mr. Robertson's answer is still 2 no matter how he got to it. It's his own reasoning and it may lead him to say and condone asinine things on a bigger scale but it’s reasoning none the less and to him, it's correct. I believe that reality is different for every person. In your reality, I am some kid you are talking with online but in mine, I'm the main player. What's real to me just as what's real to you is real to you. To me, that makes us both as right as anyone else because our reality is equally true.

rgb wrote: "Why am I so "intolerant" of people who wish to rub blue mud in their bellies (metaphorically speaking) because it tells them that this is pleasing to God in an ancient text (and no, I'm not referring to you, unless this describes you)?"

I assure you sir, I rub blue mud on my stomach for purely scientific reasons.

rgb wrote: "What I'm really curious about is how anybody can be rational and not want to end these tragic and irrational consequences of theistic scriptural religion."

I agree with you.

rgb wrote: "How can anybody believe that the Book of Mormon was actually written by anybody other than Joseph Smith as a work of pure fiction."

Is the book of Mormon any less plausible than the bible? Literal truth or no?

I don't want to just keep quoting so I'll end by saying I agree with you on 99% of what you said. I'm with your brother, and yet I'm also one of those spiritual people. I'm not as angry as you are about it all, I feel more helpless than anything (not that I wont keep telling everyone what I think)

So, I don't know. We're at an impasse.

...............

Lauren wrote: "Has there ever been a case of the laws of physics being bent in any way, such as ghosts? Faeries? No unicorns? Hm, no one asked me to prove unicorns DON'T exist, so do I assume they do? "

Science said a lot of things that turned out not to be true. Let me blow your mind, I'm a unicorn and typing all this will my hooves right now.

Lauren wrote: "What has ever been done in the name of science and progress equivalent to A)The Dark Ages B)The Crusades C)The Holocaust? I can't think of any, can you? "

If you can't think of any atrocities committed in the name of science, I can't help you. No one can.

H wrote: "That’s not exactly what I meant. You may say 1+1=2 because it's mathematically correct and (...what's his insane face called...) Pat Robertson may say it's because God want's it to be so. I would agree with you but Mr. Robertson's answer is still 2 no matter how he got to it. It's his own reasoning and it may lead him to say and condone asinine things on a bigger scale but it’s reasoning none the less and to him, it's correct."

It isn't "his own reasoning", it isn't reasoning at all. In fact, this is a perfect example, thank you. You can even believe things that turn out to be true and not use reason.anywhere in the process.

The difference here is: Can God will 1+1 to be 3?

All this really shows is that Robertson is an irrational, unreasonable, idiot. Which is TRUE, and I arrived at the conclusion using REASON...;-)

I myself rub on the blue mud because it feels so good...:-)

eTBOM is less plausible than the bible proper because a) Its provenance indicates that it is a forgery, and a bad one at that; b) the thing that it is forging is an extension of the Bible. The Bible, at least, very likely has an admixture of legend mixed in with the myth, and some tiny fraction of it might be true or based on actual events, because some parts of it might maybe have been written close enough to those events for them to contain historical content. In the New Testament in particular, I find it difficult to doubt that e.g. Paul ever existed even though I find it easy to doubt that Jesus did. In TBOM all characters and all events are fiction, without even a nugget of truth, and most of the "biblical" sounding crap was copied directly out of the bible, often out of the NEW testament because Smith was an idiot, new almost nothing of the Middle East or history, and didn't care about anachronism. So TBOM has steel swords, old world plants and animals, compasses, and more, all here in America, all in 550 or so BCE. America was still in the stone age when Columbus arrived. Swords were unknown. There were no old world plants or animals, not even the ones that were most valuable (there's an entire book: Guns Germs and Steel, that does little more than lament on the fact that the New World didn't have steel and domesticated plants and animals and hence failed to invent "civilization" where the Old World, in particular the middle east, did).

So yeah, TBOM is even less plausible than the Bible as a whole, even though myth is myth. Legend isn't the same as fiction, and the Bible is probably at least partly legend while TBOM is entirely fiction.

My message to you, my brother or sister as H might be, is don't feel helpless! You're not! Be articulate (as you rather obviously are) and don't be silent when somebody hands you a pile of dog poop unless you're simply being polite at a wedding or the like. I can go to a church and behave, although I no longer pretend to go through the rituals and recite impossibilities as if that makes them more likely, but OUTSIDE of church, in elective conversation, if somebody wants to tell me that Jesus is Lord they'd better be prepared for an earful...

And do, please, direct some of that entirely healthy global conspiracy energy at the easy targets. Mormonism is a global conspiracy. Catholicism is a global conspiracy. Islam is a global conspiracy. All three have secret councils, political (and even military) arms. All three wish to dominate the formation of law according to a scriptural theistic creed as "interpreted" by dried up old men whose sole source of accomplishment and power in this world is through the superorganism they belong to and attempt to propagate and defend. Take away that power, that structure, that right to speak for God, and the Pope becomes just another old guy, not somebody capable of saying something ex cathedra as if the fact that HE'S uttering the words makes them more likely to be reasonable or true compared to, say, you or me.

Forget the Masons, the Illuminati, the Republican Party, the Rosicrucians, and so on. Forget who actually killed Kennedy. Tackle the Baptists, the Jehovah's Witnesses. These are absolutely real conspiracies, and they affect you and many others, every day, with decisions they make behind closed doors, pretending to speak for God, pretending that the Bible speaks for God (and is so contradictory and irrational that it can be "interpreted" any way they wish to hold onto their power).

I don't want them to HAVE any power. I want their power taken away. Not by force of arms, but by the holy power of reason, convincing reasonable people that there is a best way to form a worldview, and that "reading the Bible" (or Quran, or BOM, or whatever) is not it, especially if in the end you're going to let some pretender "interpret" it for you for their own ends.

rgb

P.S. -- I actually study history pretty hard, and I can't think of any atrocities committed "in the name of science" either. I don't doubt that there have been crimes committed not in the name of science but by scientists driven by greed or ambition, but when have scientists persecuted religious people for being religious, putting them in jail, killing them, forcing them to "recant" lest they "convert" to a scientific worldview and renounce their own? When have scientists carried out a holy war against the infidels who reject science?

Aside from giving them F's, of course. That's the everyday atrocity of science. Screw what your BELIEFS are. If you use 1+1 = 3, or you fail to use F = ma correctly, or you think that 2H_2 + 2O_2 = 2 H_2O, or you put down "God made me" on a test in evolutionary biology, well, too bad. You fail.

How atrocious!

"That’s not exactly what I meant. You may say 1+1=2 because it's mathematically correct and (...what's his insane face called...) Pat Robertson may say it's because God want's it to be so. I would agree with you but Mr. Robertson's answer is still 2 no matter how he got to it. It's his own reasoning and it may lead him to say and condone asinine things on a bigger scale but it’s reasoning none the less and to him, it's correct. I believe that reality is different for every person. In your reality, I am some kid you are talking with online but in mine, I'm the main player. What's real to me just as what's real to you is real to you. To me, that makes us both as right as anyone else because our reality is equally true. "

A bit of the Golden Mean Fallacy. Just because two opinions are presented does not mean that they are equal in any way.

"Science said a lot of things that turned out not to be true. Let me blow your mind, I'm a unicorn and typing all this will my hooves right now. "

Science admits it's mistakes. Last time I checked, religion won't. Pope infallibility, prime example. And you are no unicorn, unless you prove otherwise. ;)

"If you can't think of any atrocities committed in the name of science, I can't help you. No one can. "

Obviously, because whatever you are thinking of was not actually committed in the name of science, and I would not register it as such.

rgb wrote: "it isn't reasoning at all"

Let us define reasoning: the process of forming conclusions, judgments, or inferences from facts or premises.

My example of reasoning IS reasoning.

rgb wrote: "The difference here is: Can God will 1+1 to be 3?"

I've been told this. What can you say to a person who believes this? I can't do anything but gape.

rgb wrote: "My message to you, my brother or sister as H might be, is don't feel helpless!"

That's easy to say because although I share my opinions with everyone and anyone it really will do little besides start arguments. To change the world is what makes me feel helpless. A jihad on the world, I say!

rgb wrote: "Mormonism is a global conspiracy. Catholicism is a global conspiracy. Islam is a global conspiracy. All three have secret councils, political (and even military) arms. "

I agree with the last sentence but I don't know if I believe the religions are a conspiracy per se...I think that would give most of them too much credit. Organized religion, for the most part, seems more like a neat idea that got away from people and now they are drowning in their own lies. Said religions (corporations) make too much money to fail so they refuse to. I don't think this is a conspiracy but simply an enterprise with nearly dictatorship-like powers.

rgb wrote: "Forget the Masons, the Illuminati, the Republican Party, the Rosicrucians, and so on. Forget who actually killed Kennedy. Tackle the Baptists, the Jehovah's Witnesses. "

Easier said than done...The Jehovah Witnesses that come to my house are the cutest little old ladies you'll ever meet. I smile and 'ooo' and 'ah' and take their pamphlets and make collages out of the pictures.

rgb wrote: "P.S. -- I actually study history pretty hard, and I can't think of any atrocities committed "in the name of science" either. I don't doubt that there have been crimes committed not in the name of science but by scientists driven by greed or ambition"

When were the crimes of religion ever ACTUALLY about religion? It was all greed and ambition but we call it religion because...well, it's less words, for one.

rgb wrote: "but when have scientists persecuted religious people for being religious, putting them in jail, killing them, forcing them to "recant" lest they "convert" to a scientific worldview and renounce their own? When have scientists carried out a holy war against the infidels who reject science?"

Science is making it's way up in the world. Most people believe in a God but don't go to church, this is a great change from the days where you would be stoned if you did anything BUT go to church on a Sunday. Science is the new leading religion, give it a chance to cause a holocaust, it's still in it's infancy. One can't rush these things.

Lauren wrote: "A bit of the Golden Mean Fallacy. Just because two opinions are presented does not mean that they are equal in any way."

Ah, in your haste to disagree with me you forgot to understand my point. I'm saying their REALITIES are equally real to both of them.

Lauren wrote: "Science admits it's mistakes. Last time I checked, religion won't. Pope infallibility, prime example."

Actually the Pope listed a plethora of mistakes the Catholic church made not too long ago and asked for forgiveness so...

Lauren wrote: "And you are no unicorn, unless you prove otherwise. ;)"

Prove I'm not!

Lauren wrote: "Obviously, because whatever you are thinking of was not actually committed in the name of science, and I would not register it as such."

See above.

H wrote: "rgb wrote: "it isn't reasoning at all"

Let us define reasoning: the process of forming conclusions, judgments, or inferences from facts or premises.

My example of reasoning IS reasoning.

r..."

Your example is fallacious reasoning. Now if you want to define reasoning in a way that includes doing it wrong, then your space of conclusions has long since been shown by people that invented reasoning to include anything you like.

Given that fallacious reasoning can "prove" any assertion as true, it proves nothing -- it is not, in fact, reason.

It is UNREASONABLE to assert that 1+1 = 3, because it is easy to show that 1 + 1 = 2 and 2 != 3. From this tiny trinity I can prove that you are a unicorn using nothing but valid symbolic logic, without any need for something silly like an actual empirical check.

Which is completely unreasonable, because you're not a unicorn. Unicorns very probably do not exist. "Truth" is not ever available to humans, because for us to reason at all we must make assumptions and rely on observations that render our conclusions not "True" in the Aristotelian sense, but merely very, very probably true, extremely plausible, very believable in a field where all the alternatives are very, very doubtful.

Here the "proof" that you're not a unicorn is very simple. There are no unicorns. If there were unicorns, they look like mutant horses, and horses can't talk and neither can unicorns. If there were talking unicorns, they still couldn't type because they lack fingers and opposable thumbs. In order for a unicorn to exist as some sort of mutant horse, be able to talk (be sentient), and be able to type, it would need a specially designed unicorn-horn keyboard, or a hoofboard, or a direct neural interface. If any of these existed, I would probably have heard about them, as I'm heavily into computing and a unicorn keyboard would have surely been prominently featured in magazines, not to mention the fact that a TALKING mutant horse unicorn would have appeared on John Stewart at least once by now.

This has not happened, therefore you are almost certainly not a unicorn. I would bet my entire fortune against a dollar on it.

Want to take the bet?

rgb

P. S. Yes, the pope long ago admitted that papal infallibility wasn't true, and that the many popes that asserted that it was were mistaken. Of course by then it was OBVIOUS that they were mistaken.

They're still mistaken, but does that stop the Pope from saying condom use is bad while touring AIDS-ravaged Africa?

Not only mistaken, but a wee bit evil in their arrogance, I'd say.

P. P. S. -- I would argue that Science, by its nature, is quite incapable of instigating unreasonable atrocities.

Given that this is a book group, permit me to recommend that you read A. E. Van Vogt's series of Null-A books:

The World of Null-A
Players of Null-A
Null-A 3

rgb wrote: "Your example is fallacious reasoning."

So you finally agree it is reasoning.

rgb wrote: "Your example is fallacious reasoning. Now if you want to define reasoning in a way that includes doing it wrong, then your space of conclusions has long since been shown by people that invented reasoning to include anything you like."

That is my paradigm.

rgb wrote: "It is UNREASONABLE to assert that 1+1 = 3, because it is easy to show that 1 + 1 = 2 and 2 != 3. From this tiny trinity I can prove that you are a unicorn using nothing but valid symbolic logic, without any need for something silly like an actual empirical check."

And you finally agree that I'm a unicorn!

rgb wrote: "Which is completely unreasonable, because you're not a unicorn."

W-What the fuck!

rgb wrote: "If there were talking unicorns, they still couldn't type because they lack fingers and opposable thumbs. "

I never said I could speak and I said I'm typing with hooves. You can type with hooves. It takes a lot of spell checking, but it works.

rgb wrote: "This has not happened, therefore you are almost certainly not a unicorn. I would bet my entire fortune against a dollar on it.

Want to take the bet?"

I'll take the bet!

Here is my high school photo:



(BTW I love how this has turned into a unicorn discussion. But then again, don't all great discussions end with unicorns?

rgb wrote: "They're still mistaken, but does that stop the Pope from saying condom use is bad while touring AIDS-ravaged Africa?"

I wasn't saying I condone what he doesn't apologized for. I'm just impressed he can stand on his own let alone indirectly kill millions.

rgb wrote: "Given that this is a book group, permit me to recommend that you read A. E. Van Vogt's series of Null-A books"

Thank you, I will look at these (honestly)