Hans de Vries

I know there are cloud seeding technologies already but for me that's sh*t. Will we one day we able to control every aspect of weather all over the planet? Like controlling what temperature we want to have, how much rain and when/where should it fall, how much UV we want etc. Coruscant from Star Wars (a gargantuan planet-sized multi-level megalopolis) had such a system. Personally I would like to see nice 20 degree Celsius weather in Sahara year round.

I think it would be wiser to address the more common causes of air crashes first. Suicide of a pilot is not one of them.

You may be surprised at how easily this problem can be solved. Since the Bible is not the word of God but a chronicle of Jewish history, written by Jewish scholars, there is no necessity to take Genesis literally. You may take it as a a way to show God's greatness through poetic means and such an interpretation will in no way contradict Christianity or the concpt of God. The majority of Christian denominations DO NOT take Genesis literally. Catholics don't take it literally, Orthodox Christians do not take it literally, neither do mainline Protestants and a large part of Evangelicals.

That's it. If out of hundreds of air crashes only two cases of pilots deliberately crashing their machines have been recorded (this one is the third) - then the chances of such an event happening are so low that no one takes it as a potential risk. There are probably more chances of a mid air collision (as the one over Uberlingen in 2002).

The majority of car crashes are caused by human factors - either distraction, driving too fast or under the influence - so personally, I would have nothing against automated road transport. There are unmanned trains and pilots of airliners already spend most of their time onboard on an autopilot. So why not cars?

Ridiculousness aside, I've had a chance to see detrimentall effects of UV radiation on a member of my family - I have two older cousins, one 37 and another 32 years old. The older one's been a fanatic of tanning beds, using them since early teenage years. and now she already has wrinkles and a dry, sagging skin with lots of dark spots - she looks like a ~45 years old. Her younger sister never tanned at all (she moved to North England in her late teens) and even at 32 people still mistake her for a teenager. But we moved a lil' bit off topic BTW.

Believe me, I don't live like a hermit. Dutch weather suits my needs perfectly. In summer I enjoy the cool temperatures (20-24C) and in winter/spring I simply put a moderately warm jacket on and I can exercise as much as I can outside and I get warm quickly. My remark about people's stupidity refered to those people who spend money on tanning beds. This is by far the worst thing you can do to your body except maybe taking meth for years. And premature aging of skin is the least of your concerns - light emitted by tanning beds is more UVA-intensive than natural sunlight, so you not only increase your chances of getting skin cancer several dozen times, you also significantly increase your chances of getting melanoma as opposed to the less harmful basal cell carcinoma caused by UVB rays. The majority of skin cancers are diagnosed in one specific group of people - fair skinned individuals with a history of long term exposure to strong sun as a result of years of tanning. No wonder Sydney is melanoma capital of the world.

Why do you perceive it as an insult? My stance is not more reasonable? Radiation as a carcinogen (and cause of premature skin aging) is simply unparalelled among all other things known to man. And evidence backing it is so overwhelmingly extensive that it requires no commentary. Maybe if got a type 5-6 skin, if does not bother you (I don't know) but it bothers me (as a person with typical Northern European skin tone)

People's stupidity is mind boggling. I have a type 2-3 skin and I value it so much that on sunny days I never go outside without a SPF 30 wide spectrum sunblock if the temperature exceeds 25C. Fortunately, coastal areas of Netherlands are just about a paradise for a white person when it comes to weather (it's cloudy most of the year even in summer and there is seldom more than a few days of hot weather in a row. Winters are just about OK). I simply can't imagine how can people live in places like Italy or (God forbid) Florida. If I ever had to live there, I would stay shut inside house for at least 4 months a year for the sake of my skin.

I don't know. Notwithstanding that, in his views on law in general Aquinas was much more lenient than contemporary Jewish and Islamic theologians. By 2015 AD Jews still hold Mosaic law to be valid and Muslims say that sharia law (legal precedents established by Muhammad) is still in force and must be obeyed. Jews don't implement 90% of these laws because of extreme procedural limitations - some of them can be implemented only by one type of court and only in a specific, ultra-complicated procedure - something that makes Jewish killing of apostates unlikely.

Ok, here question comes - how many churches consider old covenant law to be still in force? How many say that it's implementation is required, how many say it's implementation is not required but is is not a sin and how many prohibit it's implementation? Thomas Aquinas' stance is that implementation of old covenant laws is not mandatory but a king who decided to implement them would not become a sinner - this was the Roman Catholic doctrine in 13th century. It most probably changed since then. My observations tell me that aside from a few Evangelical Protestant churches in the US, there is no will to implement ANY part of the Mosaic law among Catholics, mainline Protestants or Orthodox - and among US Evangelicals these "calls" are more like ad hoc attempts to justify their personal biases, rather than calls for comprehensive implementation of the entire legal system.

John Cuthber: Old Covenant laws WERE indeed abolished by Jesus, at least judicial pronouncements were. If you want to learn why, read Treatise on Law by Thomas Aquinas, or more precisely it's chapter Of the Old Law

In China and India at least this preference dates back to times long long before western influence. Ideal Chinese women were ALWAYS depicted as having very pale skin. Nowdays literally every skin care product in China has whitening ingredients, including washing soap (westerners living in China complained that their hands started turning pale white after washing with regular soap). Most common explanation is that peasants worked outdoors so they were tanned while upper classes could afford to stay indoors and consequently fair skin started being associated with sophistication and cultured lifestyle - I am not sure how true it is though - after all, western world seems to be the sole exception to this rule - and only since 80 years or so (aristocratic women used to apply toxic lead-based make-up to lighten their skin).

From my own observations I noticed that all around the world there is a very strong preference for fair skin over dark for, especially for women - it is so strong that it transcends all cultures and is present since thousands of years in some places (China, India). Some nations literally spend billions of $ each year to have skin just one shade paler than what they naturally got. Am I wrong - or maybe there's some evolutionarily-inbuilt mechanism that makes people like pale skin more, similar to the one that makes women with large breasts appear more attractive?

Saudi Arabia actually tried deprogramming terrorists. Even with their intricate understanding of Jihadi mindset, the program was a failure with ca. ~90% relapse rate.

Modern theories of natural law simply state that some rights are eternal and unchanging - and therefore, most of constitutions treat many rights as inalienable, i.e. no one can be deprived of them, not even voluntarily. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_and_legal_rights

In short, natural law is the highest legal system - a set of eternal, unchanging legal norms that exist above and outside of positive law. These legal norms must be reflected in the system of positive (man made) law and cannot contradict them. There are various views on natural law - some cite God as it's source, others cite reason, even others say conscience is the source of natural law etc. The school of natural law is therefore distinguished from legal positivism which views positive law as the only source of legal norms, denying the existence of any meta-law.

The government's role is to protect our rights following from the natural law.

This topic is adressed to our members living in the United States of America. How do you judge the current US politics? All areas of US domestic politics - upholding the rule of law, nature of inter-party relationship, administrative efficiacy, protection of freedoms I would be interested in comparison with EU and comparison with United States in the past.

Will it be possible at some point of time in the future to terraform Titan without causing it to lose much of it's atmosphere? Today Titan's atmosphere is very cold, with very low energy, if we simply heat it up, it will just perish. The same also applies to Moon, Mars etc. Can we?

Well, blowing oneself up (even western converts to Islam have done that) at a young age in exchange for imaginary virgins in imaginary paradise created by imaginary deity requires immensely strong faith. I don't see such thing being committed by even very religious person, much less by an atheist. Such an act requires literally maniacal devotion - so strong that one simply can think of nothing else.

Ba'ath party was not fully secular. Iraqi Ba'athists were characterized by their massive, almost obsessive hatred of Shia Muslims. Saddam hated them so much that he said even if his finger was Shia, he would cut it off.

I have just watched an excerpt from Al Azhar University speech by Egyptian President Abdel Fatteh Al Sisi. You can feel some "novelty" in what he says - instead of usual shifting of responsibility and blaming everything on America, he recognized that something is wrong with Islam. He did this in a very subtle way, yet his message is clear. If he was just a normal Egyptian and not a president with the military on his side, he would be put to jail for blasphemy. Just watch, it's short and powerful. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEhNarfrlec

Are you sure about education? Zawahiri is a surgeon educated in a western university, Bin Laden attended the best secular schools and in ISIS there are people who are engineers. So lack of education is certainly not the only problem.

@CharonY Look at what Salafi/Islamist parties are proposing, based on sharia law: [the list is incomplete] - Obligatory veiling for women. In more severe cases, disallowing women from going outside without first asking permission of male family member. - reducing women's share in inheritance to half of what a man gets. - reducing the weight of women's testimony at court to half of testimony of men - complete ban on preaching of any religion other than Islam - death penalty for apostasy, i.e. any Muslim who converts to other religion must be killed if he does not repent within 3 days. - death penalty for adultery if adulterers are married, 100 lashes and expulsion from the city if they are not married - death penalty for homosexuality - Leving a penalty tax on non-Muslims (jizya) and banning them from making any public display of their religions These are more severe issues than church taxes and creationism at schools, aren't they? No politician in the west would even dare to propose something like that. But in the Arab/Muslim world politicians and clerics alike openly talk about these and sometimes they even win elections. In several countries (Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, Sudan) these policies are actively applied. Shouldn't it change? Shouldn't the Muslim world become tolerant like us? @dimreepr I don't know what the solution is and that's why I'm asking.