doG

Technology has certainly changed the communications landscape. There's no reason for anyone with something to hide to specifically use the types of communications this law covers. Heck, you can hide communications in plain sight all over the web. Just a plain list of numbers might decode some post on the web like this one to say something else. I could just post them on some lotto sight where a partner could grap them and decode this message. Only those of us that know where to look for the message would be able to piece it together. With all the pics on the web I could just hide the message in a jpg and place it somewhere on the web. Here's a sample. One of these pics contains the entire Declaration of Independence. Can you tell which one?

I could only imagine one good use for legal child porn. If it were to become suddenly legal to dispose of those that are interested in it and there was an open season on such subjects then the porn would probably be good bait to lure them out with...

Don't be too quick to dismiss religion. It is a valid social science that is a monumental variable in many societies and their governments. In this context there is much to be discussed, learned, etc.. As a first cause of man or the universe there is no more reason to discuss it here than there is cross stitch or knitting. It is an endless debate with no proof to end the debate for good. It's pointless to hash it over endlessly.

This reminds me of It Takes A Village and it's false premise that government needs to be our caretaker...

That could get tricky though. Someone like me might ask something like, "Is faith a virus or maybe a mental disorder?" and I could be talking about faith in general, not just religious faith. Why would I do that? Because I think conclusions leapt to in faith obstruct the objective search for truth. For example, just look at what Mike Difong's faith did to those 3 Duke Lacrosse players. He had all the faith in the world that they were guilty and failed to see any evidence that contradicted that faith. Theology is a difficult social science to cover though in a forum that is primarily focused on physical sciences....

Why unfortunate? It simply means that there are some atheists of faith under one definition and some which are not of faith that fall under another definition. Many words have multiple definitions. There's nothing wrong with that. It's the users of a word that can only see one definition, the one THEY want, that are unfortunate....

? What's that?

See post #156. One is a theist.....or not. I am not-theist. Happy now?

Actually it does, a·theist literally means not·theist. Everyone that is not a theist is an atheist....

No. Anyone that believes in deities is a theist. Anyone that believes there could never be any proof of the existence or non-existence of deities is agnostic. An agnostic theist believes in God even though they do not believe there could ever be any proof of God....

Not completely ignored though. The most faithful theists like to label the weak atheists as faithless with an implied derogatory intent. As you said, thankfully this is receding...

Simply because one must affirmatively believe in God to be a theist and everyone else is a not-theist or atheist. Atheists include everyone that affirmatively denies the existence of God(s) and those that simply withhold judgement on the truth or falsity of the God hypothesis. I am the later, I do not claim that there could not be a God but I refuse to accept Gods existence as fact because there is no evidence to support such a conclusion. That makes me an atheist becauuse of my skepticism, or lack of faith, instead of a faith that God does not exist, the other kind of atheist.

Yeah, tell Severian that... Skeptics about God are atheists even though they don't deny the possibility of God...

Don't hold your breath. I'm still waiting for anyone to show how skepticism requires faith. It certainly seems to me that any skeptic withholding judgement on anything to be fact because there is no evidence to support such a judgement does so with a complete lack of faith.

So simple skepticism is based on faith? If you withhold judgement for a lack of supporting evidence you do so on faith? You're right, I will never conceed that either of these is based on faith since they are based on logic...

I kind of disagree. To me supernatural is that which violates or fails to conform with the laws of nature, matter appearing from nothing and such. If phenomena complies which nature, even nature we don't understand, then it is natural, not supernatural.

That's the point. We should not let our perception get in the way of our search for the truth. Drawing premature conclusions based on faith doesn't answer any of our questions.

Isn't the supposed creation of the universe just another theory, no matter which mechanism may or may not be responsible? Why conclude any of the creation hypotheses are true without conclusive evidence? The laws of physics as we know them tell us that matter can be neither created or destroyed. Why would we conclude this law breaks down at the supposed beginning of the universe we know? To me it seems more logical to theorize that the matter of our universe was not created by the big bang or any deity. That matter was already in existence and simply redistributed by some event in time, be it a big bang or something else. It makes no sense to me to simply leap to any conclusion with faith based on the lack of supporting evidence. That the universe exists is not proof positive of creation. Why assume anything to be supernatural either? What is supernatural, things that violate the natural laws as we understand them? Perhaps the supernatural is really natural and we just don't understand all of the laws of nature. Man has been learning laws of nature since coming into existence. How many do we not know yet? Do we have any real evidence of anything that is supernatural, i.e. does not comply with the physical laws as we know them? In the end I wonder why people believe anything on faith alone. It would seem to hinder science. Where scientists have faith in God they only look for evidence that supports that belief, they inherently give less weight to evidence that opposes their belief. It would also seem to be true for those that have decided already that there is or could not be a god or those that have decided that the big bang did in fact create the matter of the universe. None of these conclusive stances are open minded. More and more I find myself of the opinion that faith is somewhat of a mental disorder.

So, that has nothing to do with deities, agnosticism is about knowledge. On the axis of theism there are 3 groups of people, those that firmly believe that God exists, those that firmly believe there is absolutely no god, and those in the middle that do not subscribe with firm belief in the existance or non-existance of God. Because those in the middle do not firmly believe in God they are atheists, even if they do not firmly claim that god does not exist. Either you firmly believe in God or you are an atheist, period. If you additionally believe that man could never know the truth then you are an agnostic atheist, also referred to as a weak atheist.

The dictionary states that faith is a firm belief in something for which there is no proof. By this definition I can see many theists that firmly believe there is a God as having faith and many atheists that claim there is no God as having the same faith. Neither of these describes me though. For me God is just a tentative theory or hypothesis like many others to explain the universe. I have no faith that this theory is true or false. I see no proof to support or refute it. I have no belief that there is or is not a God and will not until there is evidence to support such a belief or conclusion. Anyone that concludes this hypothesis is true or false does do so on faith and carries a burden of proof to support their conclusion. This is as science should be. IMO, anyone that does not conclude a belief that the hypothesis is true is an atheist. This includes everyone which concludes the hypothesis is false and everyone that draws no conclusion since a firm belief in a deity, a conclusion that the theory is true, is a requirement of being a theist. This also implies that everyone that is not·theist is atheist regardless of any faith they may or may not have in the truth or falsity of the God hypothesis. FWIW, my position is also agnostic because I do believe there could never be any proof one way or the other. I would even conceed that belief to be one of faith. That has nothing to do with theism though since agnosticism is about knowledge, not deities.

Again, your bottom line is that faith includes everyone that believes in something and those that don't. Faith doesn't distinguish anyone as being a member of the believers or not. It sounds to me like we might as well just strike it from the dictionary. What do you think?

One relies on faith and one does not. By definition faith is a belief in something, not a belief in "not something". There is a reason that we have the word faith, to describe the belief people have in something even though there is no proof to support it. To distort the meaning to also include the people that do not believe in that same something negates the purpose for having this term in the first place. Atheists lack faith that God exists just the same as they lack belief in God.

Did you uh look here or here?

Please point out the definition of faith that applies from my post above. It certainly isn't 2b(1), "firm belief in something for which there is no proof". For that definition those that lack belief in something for which there is no proof lack faith by definition....

So what you are effectively saying is that it takes faith to disbelieve in unsupported hypotheses? That anyone can put forth any cockamamie hypothesis and whomever lacks belief in their supposition does so on faith? They are different. We have observable evidence of atoms, quarks and even natural selection. We have working hypotheses that make successful predictions for these entities and phenomenon. We've got zero proof to support any God hypothesis. I wouldn't necessarily agree that it even meets the requirements of a hypothesis since it makes no testable predictions that could be tested and observed. Faith is a belief in something, not a disbelief...