warri0r45

:D

I'm all for nuclear power as part of the solution. Unfortunately in my country at the moment, as there's a federal election (first time voter :anxious: ) in mere months, politics is getting in the way of progress.

New Friend Request by Evergreen Terrace

Beer. I like those European pilsners.

88 ish. Done it before a few times.

If there were a price to avoid chaos and maintain some degree of order, would you pay it? I mean if that were the only way, to pay a price. Who here would rather refuse to pay and live in chaos? Anyone?

What's with all the invisible one's being thrown Reb's way?

Sorry, I still see your view as narrow. Would you rather a police force or leave enforcing law up to the people? For better or worse when it comes to your experiences, thier lack of existance would see your life a bit worse than just getting a few parking tickets, pedantic fines and hard cuffs, don't you think?

Your view of police is very narrow then. I'm sure you'd change your mind when you and a group of mates is being chased by people with baseball bats, you ring up and they come and save you from a fractured skull.

It just looks like a way to increase productivity by making working past midnight not seem like such a mental leap (as in going into a new day is more a mental leap than working 'overtime').

Aussies are out. :cry:

Basically, you're a theist. Just like being an atheist, it's not a religion, just a view (but in the affirmative) regarding the existance of a god or gods. The only people who can't be theists are atheists. The only people who can't be atheists are theists. They are both very broad and unspecific categories.

Fear comes from feeling void of control. Go into a movie, realise that you're in control and keep telling yourself that you're in control. When I say in control, I don't mean of the movie plot, I mean of the fact that it's a movie and you are watching it from a comfy chair in total safety. It's fiction and you are in the real world. Dunno, might help. I'm no expert though.

Congrats. Sounded like a [bleep] of a test. Man, you must have some work ethic. Anyway with all that study you diserve every bit of success you get. :)

Hundreds and hundreds of years ago a bunch of Scandinavian people thought the only explanation for lightning was a supernatural occurance. That turned out to be wrong. The point being just because I can't explain it now dosen't mean I won't be able to explain it in the future. It's this premise where falling back on any supernatural explanation for natural occurances fails and is the prime reason why something like intelligent design or miracles aren't scientific. Indeed it's the prime reason why science is restricted to explaining natural occurances with natural explanations. It's called 'god of the gaps' - filling holes in knowlege with supernatural explanations. It's a logical fallacy, basically. For me to be able to genuinely call these occurances miracles, I'd have to let eternity play out and see if I still can't explain them after that time based on knowns. Sure, I can believe miracles are genuine, which I personally don't because I'm a skeptic, but this dosen't make them miracles. The take home message from this is that at present, I can't explain these things (someone else may be able to, I'm not sure). However this does nothing to verify them as genuine miracles, if genuine miracles exist. It's like saying there are holes in your theory, therefore mine is verified as more accurate. Nope. For miracles to be genuine or for us to be able to call them miracles, it would have to be based on your ability to argue for them to be miraculous, not my lack of ability to refute your claim that they are. Anyway a litte more background of these miracles would be good.

Hail 3.58979291? :| Theistic agnostic, yes. You can believe in the existance of a god or gods and at the same time recognise knowing whether one exists is impossible. Out of these three: Atheist Agnostic Theist You can be any combination of two except an antheist and a theist; the only direct contradiction. Or you can just recognise yourself as one of the three. For the sake of the topic I'm an agnostic atheist.

Why am I looking at Jesus angrily?

The Baying of the Hounds by Opeth. Gotta appreciate a metal band with great songwriting and musicianship skills. Great voice from Mikael for a metal singer, too. And I mean a great voice, he could dice it with any half decent pop vocalist... then rip out a death scream and blow them away. :D

Baron, come to the dark side! It's your only hope! :twisted: :P (obviosuly you shouldn't take my advice seriously)

Oh do me pl0z lulz har har har. Dudz gota make 1 uv me itd b gud. I'm so original.

Nope. Atheism sais nothing of mocking religion at all, thus they are different, not the same thing. By the way pastafarianism was not made to mock religion, rather the teaching of intelligent design as science.

uh.. the logic is a bit flawed: By that reasoning it's completely fine to take advantage of say native tribes, because we are the dominant culture. "As long as we are beinifiting I don't really see a problem. Its not something you can say is right or wrong, it just sort of is." =P Slavery of black people is also fine according to your reasoning, because we are the dominant race and we can also treat women as we please, because we are the dominant gender. It just sort of is.... It's not flawed, you're reasoning is incorrect. He said dominate species, and native tribes, or black people during the slavery period are all the same species as us. Race or gender has nothing to do with it. Took the words out of my mouth.

You don't need to be a math wiz to figure out that if any of our weaponized inventions had killed more people than our benign inventions had saved, we'd net a population loss. Instead, we're netting a population increase of over 300% in the last century alone. Go figure. Can? What I'm arguing here is that it has helped us. The small list of examples I provided were actual. That our population has increased by 5 500 000 000+ over the last century is a cold, hard, fact. It is not a theoretical "it is possible to". It's what has actually transpired. But it has not, which is what you stated who knows how many pages back. You live in world (and by world, I continue to encompass the entire planet) in which knowledge has saved more lives than it has taken. The world is a better place today, than it ever was. It is not perfect, but then again, no one said that. I'm seeing some good arguments here.

Really, I actually thought what you posted there was very smart.

Incorrect. The largest population growth occurs in developing countries, not developed nations. Nigeria; 40 births per 1000 population. The USA; 14 births per 1000 population. Which neatly allows me to slip in another useful statistic that encompasses the 5 500 000 000 reasons; Infant Mortality Rate, Nigeria; 40 per 1000 births. Infant mortality rate, the USA; 6 per 1000 births. Anyone care to guess how these figures would've looked 250 years ago in either place? Or do you or Defender care to argue that saving babies is not a cause worthwhile? Yah. We call those places "Europe" and "North America". Developing nations have the highest population increases, developed nations hover at the replacement levels for births. The simple fact is that neither you nor Defender is thinking about what has actually changed in the lat 250 years. You give speeches on morality, you talk about how the "human heart is still corrupt", and it's all nice and great rethorics about how we're not getting anywhere. Meanwhile, discoveries made in the past centuries that has scant little to do with these fine intellectual developments, continue to save the lives of those of us quite fond of just plain being alive rather than to ponder the horrible things that we could be facing. Penicillin. Great invention. The realization that maybe drawing blood from sick patients is not a clever way to cure them, but in fact, a pretty darn stupid thing to do - of course, note how the spreading of this secret to any country outside the first world costs us money. No... Waitaminute! - agricultural developements, and as exhibit A I'd like to use a potato. Not only does the potato completely own roses when it comes to gifts, it's edible! And it originially grew only in Peru. How many millions of people worldwide have been saved by the the spread of the potato? But the potato is fairly ancient history by now. Where was I, ah, agricultural development. Okay, post-middle ages, pre-mechanized agriculture. Did the yield per unit of land increase? Yes. Are you praising any of the inventions that caused this - and who are most likely a deciding factor in the survival of your ancestors and thus your very existance? No, no. You give us rethorics. You realize the spreading of the knowledge of crop rotatation is directly responsible for millions of people *not* starving since the middle ages? And that's not even touching mechanized agriculture. 5 500 000 000 reasons. And that's just using the last centuries worth of population growth, not going back to the middle ages. You realize the knowledge of the tank killed millions? The knowledge of the nuke killed hundreds of thousands? Its not knowledge that makes a better place inless its in the hands of someone willing to do a good deed. Thats what your failing to see. I do not doubt that knowledge CAN help us, but it can also hurt us. It all depends on who has the knowledge and what their intentions are. Everyone knows giving a nuke to a terrorist isn't a good idea, or showing him how to build one. You can argue all you want how advances in technology saved many lifes, but it can also indefinatly destroy many more. As I said before, only people can make the world a better place. As Bari said before, its the human element that corrupts it. You're right. Lucky most of us are still willing to put our knowlege to good use and do good deeds. There will likely always be some degree of corruption, as there has always been.