padren

I've found labs to be really quite friendly and gentle - as a kid it was surprising that they could play with balloons and not pop them, which was explained as their teeth are bred to be soft because, as retrievers, they are bred so as to not break the skin of the bird they are retrieving. I did have one that killed a neighbor's chicken once as a kid, but it didn't even break the skin - the bird died of fright. The biggest risk generally is in vet bills if they develop bad hips, which is relatively common in labs. All in all though, any dog can exhibit just about any behavior due to much more impressive factors than breed - and some of that behavior could be extreme with regards to the rabbits. I can't speak with authority but maybe they get worked up over "small game" or something. Mine would mess with the cat a little (no lethality fear), but the cat would always win. Breed tells you more about what is more likely than not to expect, but any individual dog can break the curve. They generally do take well to training I believe (they are exceptionally loyal and eager to please), and by the sounds of it you may want to look at some training options for dealing with behavior problems.

I'm sure they'd be raised, just as people will always raise to question the "legitimacy" of any President of any opposing party after an election. It just wouldn't be as raw. There's already a Mosque a few blocks from the WTC that was built before the WTC ever existed. As far as the Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, I thought he was considered to be quite progressive: he made a few comments after 9-11 that pointed out the blatantly obvious but he didn't say anything anti-American or sympathetic to radical Islam. The closest thing to controversial was by pointing out that our foreign policy made it a lot easier for Al Qaeda to recruit/operate and that Bin Laden was trained by us. Pretty much just the facts that everyone has to admit if they aren't living under a rock. Are there some quotes I'm missing? As for the stalling of the memorial at ground zero I really can't venture to guess why... I just think 10 years is too long long time to sit on it and that some people somewhere must be languishing over making real decisions. The bulk of what I see on this specific building though, appears to be mostly a handful of people who mostly aren't even in New York turning it into more than it should be. It looks like The Mayor of New York is in favor The Community Board overseeing Lower Manhattan is in favor The City Council speaker is in favor The borough of Manhattan president is in favor Victim groups of 911 are divided, both against and in favor Yet political "pot" stirrers are up in arms denouncing it as a horribly insensitive and outright provocative project. Where was the noise before this hit the national scene? Were all these NYC politicians just ramming this down angry New Yorkers' throats in some unpopular attempt at committing political suicide as a means to advance sharia law in America? I highly doubt it. I think it's an attempt to find something - anything - can could be fashioned into a wedge, and parading it out before the next election. Feisal Abdul Rauf condemned the attacks of 9-11, and from what I know mostly in passing (from reading up on him) he's actually worked with various multi-faith organizations to promote the importance of human rights and non-radical Islam. Yet this is almost painted like a freedom of speech issue where "well we let the KKK say a lot, should we let these dirty terrorists talk hate too?" when the comparison is so far from the mark it's offensive. It reads as taking the issue of building an Islamic Center by moderates, the sort we like in this country and want people in Indonesia and Malaysia and across the Middle East and Asia to see living with us in harmony in pursuit of our common values... and turning into some sick fear campaign. Honestly if this whole hub-bub never happened, and the center was built, and some Al-Qaeda sympathetic Muslim individual was to walk by it, I would imagine they'd only feel doubt about their convictions, as a testament to all the things Bin Laden says "can't happen" stare them in the face 15 stories high: Muslims living successful, happy lives in peaceful coexistence with the very people Radical Islam viciously attacked. After this big stink though, and every single person who is a living example of what it takes to make Bin Laden actually look right (even though he's still unequivocally wrong) has declared this is solely for Radical Muslims to gloat about the attacks - then a Bin Laden sympathizer might smirk walking by. Then all the fears Al-Qaeda plays to suddenly seem to be plausible, and all the talk about equality and commonality from the US sounds like a bunch of empty talk that gets thrown out the window the moment even "good Muslims" try to do something any other demographic would take for granted. Personally, I'd like to hear Mooey's take on it all, since she lives in that city and would have a better perspective on the backstory buildup.

Honestly I blame the fact that we still are yet to build anything at ground zero - memorial or otherwise - for why ten years later it's still such an open wound. This Islamic Rec Center they are building two blocks away probably wouldn't be on the radar if we hadn't sat on the actual WTC site so long. If this is salt... it's our own fault for the wound still being open. It's also worth noting that it's backed by the Mayor, Community Board No. 1, which represents Lower Manhattan, the City Council speaker Christine C. Quinn, and the Manhattan borough president Scott M. Stringer. This isn't a handful of sneaky Muslims trying to squeak in a Mosque while no one is looking.

I don't think you understand what most "scientists" or "atheists" are like honestly, so I think the confusion is arising from that. First of all, even if any given miracle could be proven, it wouldn't be evidence of God, just some phenomena occurred as a result of processes not currently understood. That's not an atheist viewpoint, but a scientific one. Secondarily, scientists study phenomena with a level of rigor and discipline that allows for the reliable sharing of information. This is the only reason we've managed to advance as much technologically as we have - we didn't just get "smart enough to build rockets" on day... we built up a collection of knowledge that spanned countless people over multiple generations - which is impossible without collaboration. Collaboration is impossible if the data being shared is unreliable. This means that many observations that may be true, cannot be deemed reliable without better observations that can build reliable evidence of the phenomena. We utilized Galen's medical research for about a thousand years with great benefits to the advancement of medicine, but that wasn't especially scientifically rigorous, and a lot of false presumptions in his work actually held back aspects of medicine for a time. The time-frame in which we refined and improved scientific rigors coincides quite well with our advancements in understanding the world and the technology we are able to produce. It's no accident that the standards in place are as high as they are. When it comes to the latter, it seems you feel like atheists reject the idea of God due to some personal bias, despite the evidence supporting it. This is also a misconception, and atheists tend to be in my experience far more interested in philosophy and religion than most religious people - they are just less likely to take claims raised by either on faith alone. Philosophy and religion are part of our shared human culture, and understanding them better means understanding the world better. The only thing that gets rejected is data or claims that are unreliable, and that's only due to hard earned experience with attempting to "keep an open mind" and finding "facts" collide horribly when conflicting claims are taken as fact in an interest to be open minded. It's worth considering just how hazardous it is to make decisions based on misinformation - if you work with high voltage wires for instance, you learn very quickly how important it is to have reliable accurate information. It really isn't about any sort of bias - it's just what works. As for the collation between scientists and atheists - I think others have addressed that specific phenomenon well enough already in this thread.

What is I don't even. Did I miss a memo? There was a topic here not long ago that had something to do with the OP if I recall, how did we get onto beer and fishing? Sounds like a derailment to me - why not post a beer drinking thread in the lounge?

Are you sure? I've always taken his comments as at times cheeky, or with some light humor, but not nasty, quasi or otherwise.

Similar to what Paranoia said, I think that something does have to be done to deal with illegal immigration first - the 14th amendment could be just fine, but producing an unreasonable impact due to unreasonable circumstances. If we can deal with that, we likely won't need to modify the 14th amendment. Maybe we will after all, but we can't know for sure until we fix the other exasperating conditions.

I had a little experience with them. I found the people I met who put me through the tests, etc to be rather dubious and less than straight. They spoke about the damage done by thetans to play on our emotions etc, and when I commented on the language of some of their posters played on the emotional hooks they sought to nullify, they made some excuse about how only "certain level members" were supposed to see those ads whom would be unaffected, and claimed they'd move them. They didn't. The premise was faulty anyway - why attempt to play on someone's emotions if the only reason it's "morally okay" is because they won't be affected? All in all, I found the church to be less than forthright and for all the positive and negative spin the church has received, I find the negative honestly holds more merit. For the record though, I can only offer two types of assessments: one based on the sum of public information, which includes sources you may or may not trust (my own research suggests that the criticisms of the church are well founded) and the second: personal experience with the members, which may mean something to me but are entirely anecdotal when I share them with you. So really, what information are you looking for? There are public and personal experiences, but I wouldn't know how to convey this information in a manner you would find reliable.

Science cannot answer any question the questioner does not understand. I think that seems to sum up the immediate limitations.

If someone is skeptical to use a wider interpretation of evidence, it may be because "evidence" isn't something you can just "feel differently about" without repercussions. The evidence of fraud by an employee has to be evaluated, but at the end of the day the truth is either they committed fraud or they didn't. How you approach evidence determines your best chances of determining what really happened. You can't control the evidence or the incident... the employee may be innocent and yet they look guilty, or they may be guilty and there isn't enough evidence to prove it - but one thing you can be sure about is the more seriously and more exactly you evaluate the evidence, the better the chances you'll have at finding the truth. The "wider interpretation of evidence" you propose as how to deal with one of the most fundamental questions there is, would (imho) be disastrous if we applied it to everyday survival. It is unfit for scientific research, it's unfit in judicial matters, and it's just not a healthy view from a survival standpoint. As such I see no reason it's likely fit to address the question of God. Knowing what any given piece of evidence means - in terms of how reliable it is and what it suggests versus merely implies - is the single most important skill in building a usable understanding of the world we live in. It can be done well and it can be done badly. When it's done badly, things happen that you don't understand or see coming, and often that you wish didn't. There's a reason why people have a reasonably strict definition of evidence.

Not at all, it's with all processes that describe both the world and how to live in it that are based on arbitrary interpretations of allegedly authoritative sources, whether it's the authority of a book, a manifesto, or the pattern taken by tea leaves in the bottom of a cup. I am sometimes made uncomfortable by how some individuals view the US Constitution - not for their specific interpretations, but for the idea that sacrosanct rules to live by can be divined from it. In my mind, the US Constitution is a great and incredibly valuable document that has helped and will likely continue to help this country immensely, but any relevance to modern times or the future are entirely to the credit of the authors, and not a guaranteed set of fundamental truths that can be taken for granted as eternally relevant. It does appear from what I can tell, that all religions I am aware of utilize this process. Since I have an issue with the process, that does extend to religion in general.

The problem I have Severian, is not with the categories or labels, but specific properties or attributes that those individuals share, that I admittedly don't understand very well. Perhaps you can help me understand it better, because with my limited exposure I may be somewhat limited in how I can conceptualize the issue. The primary issue for me, is that people who are religious, and utilize religious thinking invoke a process that I can't really identify as any different than reading tea leaves - sometimes it's tea, sometimes it's interpreting really old books, or scrolls, or orally passed down stories - but at the end of the day it's a form of divination by reading into something. To the best of my understanding, there are many ways to interpret the more fixed works, such as the people creating the "conservative bible" to root out the poisons of liberalism, or just take the old and new Testament and interpret reasons why Christians should treat non-Christians as equals and live by a genuinely admiral set of morals, while others picket funerals and act in incredibly hateful ways. It's not that I bunch both types of Christian together - I just don't see any difference in the process. Both see multiple ways to interpret and divine meaning from a sacred set of books, and use some sort of emotional bias towards and divine meanings that appeal to their sense of morality and integrity. Honestly it's kind of scary - most Christians are pretty easy going right now for sure - but it takes less than a generation for emotional biases to change and should the good Christians of the world decide to interpret those texts in a way that assures them that the Moral thing to do is lynch me and mine, I have no way to counter such an argument - all I could do is play the Divination Game, and hope my counter-picks hit some positive emotional bias. Otherwise - without reason, and since it's not based on a rational approach I am pretty much at the mercy of the tea leaf readers. I hope it's no offensive that I would reduce the institution of religion down in that manner - I am genuinely interested in refining my understanding of the processes involved, but at this point I am at a loss as to how to see the situation differently. I understand that people have done "more or less" okay with this process over thousands of years, and most of the "mob moments" that people often attack religion for occurred during a point in human history where everyone was killing everyone in massive mobs. Non-theistic mobs have rallied around political causes and psychotic leaders with brutal results as well - many of which are more recent. I don't blame religion for these sorts of events, but from what I can tell we have two ways to cope as a species with our existence on this planet: we can try to be rational, or we can try to divine. We have often failed miserably at being rational and ended up with sadly "rationally justified" (to the perpetrators) acts of genocide and horrible actions. But, we can at least learn from that in a rational, progressive manner. When we try to interpret and divine meaning instead - unless you believe there's a higher power guiding such divinations - it's a frightening dice-roll with nothing but the emotional bias of the diviners as a safety net. It's genuinely frightening. If there's something in the process that I missed, I would happily be enlightened. I know many good people who are religious and try to take my own observations with a grain of salt so as to "have some faith in my fellow man" and not be close minded. It's just hard, because regardless of how people are categoried, the processes that individuals use, whether they have admirable or despicable results appear to be eerily similar. As an outsider, that's universally disconcerting.

Or perhaps God created the Universe in such a way it was tailored to every individual's choices. From our perspective it appears deterministic and technically it is* - but if we have one path in life, why do we have that one specific path? If it is all the result of chance, then that's one thing, but why wouldn't God be powerful enough to ensure that the deterministic features of the Universe and our individual senses of Free Will fit together perfectly? Technically, if God is a factor that supersedes the Universe by virtue of having created the place, he could whip something up in a pinch. *with some quantum randomishness for good measure, since it's always brought up

This is an incredibly old necro thread, but I actually did say in my post that it is highly unethical, and that if done would not be in a country that respects human rights - just that such a show may be watched in them. I think such a show could exist and even be somewhat popular - just not filmed or produced in the US, EU, etc. I doubt a network would touch it, but it would be all over the internet at least.

I'd like to see a warning pop up when someone goes to hit "reply" in a thread that has 3+ years of inactivity... that pops up something like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=un3-Hb9wF9s With the notation underneath: This thread died long ago! You are about to return it to the world of the living! Are you sure this is for the best? Click [x] to continue.... [y] to cancel ...sometimes there is a fair reason to do this, such as a political discussion that has a new court ruling or new events, but the practice should be discouraged - and in as an entertaining manner if possible.

My point however, is without the advantage of retrospect there is no way to know if ignorance would have been beneficial for any given scenario - to utilize ignorance as a safety mechanism you pretty much have to roll the dice... a policy that I honestly believe would lead to more harm than good from the strategy. The end result is that to remain ignorant, you roll the dice and leave it up to chance, and knowledge at least gives you the opportunity to make intelligent thoughtful decisions. Not all intelligent thoughtful decisions will have beneficial results, but most certainly more often than a strategy of ignorance.

I am not so certain that people would look unto Gold fish for salvation, but I think in general you are correct. In light of how you defined the situation above, do you think it is possible to prove or disprove God? The natural follow-up question seems to be "Prove it to whom?" and the concept of generalized proof breaks down. This topic actually got me thinking a bit about how we all as humans address philisophical issues. It seems to me, they are a combination of testable logical constructs (at least, to the point of whether the logic works or not, and how convoluted it may become) and - most importantly - very personal feelings on the matter. It's as sticky of an issue as "What is a worthwhile way to live life?" since, really there is no answer that doesn't require subjective axioms. In the end we each try to answer "What do I think is a worthwhile way to live life?" and while we may meet people that we share common views with, it is inherently personal. We can talk about worthwhile endeavors, about ethics and morals and all kinds of well structured and reasoned views but only if they are based on similar axioms. We don't even always know what axioms we use, and end up fighting over logical arguments that are incompatible from the start. If we can recognize different axioms, we can probably understand varying positions more easily in a non-adversarial manner. I honestly suspect that many theists underestimate how much time and energy atheists put into understanding their own personal feelings on these sorts of matters, and visa-versa. I often find theists expect atheists to avoid the issue altogether, while atheists often view theists as adopting a "fixed religion" as a way to avoid those concepts too. I'm sure that is true for some people within both groups, but I think both sides put a lot more thought and diligence into these things than either side may generally be aware of. I think Pioneer had a great point about language - which honestly makes it all the more fun. I'm sure there are people who study these topics with a much broader vocabulary on the subject than I, but the process of finding how to convey and communicate such topics with the requisite degree of nuance is something I really enjoy. I find the more I increase my "abstract vocabulary" to understand concepts I couldn't previously conceptualize clearly has a very beneficial impact even in the most general ways I think about all topics.

Many individuals already feel that they have proof of God. Many of those feel "you'd have to have been there" to get it, and understand it's a personal proof instead of general proof. If I saw Big Foot that would be proof to me that he exists, but I wouldn't expect everyone to take my word for it. In that sense we need to narrow down "prove or disprove" though I assume you mean some tangible conveyable proof that can reliably be shared between people. That brings us to the next problem - the definition of God. It may be possible to prove/disprove specific Gods of specific religions when the religion makes a tangible claim directly tied to the God in question. If a religion believed that a giant pitch black snake lived in the sky, and that the moon was his eye - we can go there and prove this is not the case. While the "proof" may be acceptable to most (there are Flat-Earthers out there and moon-landing deniers) it is doubtful that the majority of the worshipers of that God would change their behavior. Most would either believe the evidence was a deception, or that the Scriptures were misinterpreted somehow - but not doubt the presence of their God. So really, it becomes very difficult when the subject being investigated can change the definition of the subject to suit any new evidence that is presented. On the "proof positive" side, I don't think it's possible to prove. Consider the most personal proof a person can get - their God pops out in front of them, tells them they are God, and performs superhuman miracles. That would be a huge boost to a person's faith to have that kind of hard, tangible evidence - but what if their God then tells them to do something entirely contrary to their religion and nature? The first thought the person will have is "What if he's an Impostor?" There's all kinds of stories of demons and devils that can pull that sort of thing off - is it God or a fake? If there is no God, there would be no one to stop the Impostor, who could probably get away with the deception. In short, I'm quite certain it's impossible.

82 here. I have a hard time seeing how this can really sample from the data, due to: 1) being sure of an answer, but wrong 2) being almost certain, but still fuzzy 3) what if you know all the answers? I'm sure there's some logic and sense to it (based on the fact it has a fancy website) but it sorta evades me.

Can you explain this? I don't quite follow. The way I see it, if I had incontrovertible proof of God, delivered by hand by God himself, I would also have to rationally accept that I am unqualified to evaluate that evidence, as it could just as easily be some multidimensional fratboy playing a prank on me, and with my limited 3D over t mental capacities I would be literally incapable of knowing the difference. As such: there is absolutely and incontrovertibly no way to "know" if there is a God (as in Creator of the Universe) or not. PS: What would be the right term for me? I am not an atheist because I don't not believe in God, I believe that knowledge of God is Unknowable. As such I refuse to say "I don't believe in God" because it doesn't describe my view. I also refuse to say "I believe in God" because it also doesn't describe my view. Anyway, please let me know what you mean as I am not familiar with any deity concepts taht aren't plagued by the problem of divine hiddeness. A total side note: On the whole "atheists kill/theists kill" issue: Any self-identifying group that places the value of their group fundamentally above other groups is capable of inhumane acts against others. Whether this is based on an idea of a Master Race, Might Makes Right, Divine Right, or a State Above The People it's the elitism and subsequent devaluation of non-members that is at the source. Where I think atheists usually get sticky on where religion has been involved, is that at least when "the commies" do it, we can plainly criticize it logically and that gives us a sense of a "rational safety net" which, while not perfect, is at least something. We can say "sux to your master race" and reject it with empirical data. When religion is involved, it's a collective's "sacred belief" that babykiller killing or commie killing or Arab killing is a moral imperative and no rational explanation need be given. If people wouldn't bring religion into politics and how they interact with the world around them (leave it at a rational level) then it would be a lot easier on the nerves... as it is it's absolutely terrifying since the only way to justify a non-rational set of actions as solutions to buy into the non-rational beliefs... especially with the sheer number of conflicting non-rational beliefs out there that get tossed around as solutions to serious issues. I wouldn't entirely say that. I know a lot of people I love discussing issues with whom hold very contrary views. The key issue is being able to approach a topic in a way that is consistent with how both parties examine the issue. Two people can debate scripture quite happily even if they disagree, just as two people can discuss the rational basis of some logical conundrum quite happily. When people try to utilize different methods of examining a topic that are incompatible across the two parties then it gets sticky, IMO.

Well I like to think that the "Average SFN Member" isn't, but happy to take it and looking forward to the results.

Can we go with "I am sane enough, sort of" for the second one? In all seriousness, I find the "I am sane" test to be truly impossible, we just have to account for varying levels of insanity and cope with rigorous internal diagnostic checks. My own perceptions regularly fail to correlate, and always relate to models that I have to acknowledge may break at any time. To clarify - I know we can never prove we are sane, but I think it's easy to prove that we aren't. I just sort of just accept that I have to work with imperfect perceptions, models, and mental capabilities and hope I am sane enough to get away with it.