John Cuthber

"Things like ADD shows a movement back to atheist animals." LOL

The conventional spelling of fusor might help. http://www.fusor.net/board/index.php?site=fusor&bn=

Re "In regards to the position of the Catholic church on birth control, is that it must be done within marriage and by responsible means, that is by the use of a natural method of misconception. " Here's an old joke. Q What do you call couples who use the rhythm method of contraception? A parents. BTW, you might want to look up the meaning of misconception.

I think it's the responsibility of the church to give up, go home and find proper jobs, but I realise that's not the issue here. However, the church seems to think it's their responsibility to address moral issues like overpopulation. At least one major religion has a bizarre view on this matter. The church probably has a view on global warming- so do the kids at the local primary school but I'm not inclined to blindly follow their lead either. In any event, it's a strawman.

How far have you got so far, and do you know what a mole is?

As opposed to swallowing the blatantly self interested nonsense that religion peddles; the stuff that's clearly fishier than a Nigerian business scheme. You cited an excellent example of this; more Catholics (good for the church) but each of them poorer (bad for the believers).

Atheism is, as you say, the lack of something but that's not always a bad thing. Currently I have a lack of tuberculosis which doesn't trouble me much The lack of TB is probably, at least in part, due to being vaccinated against it. In a scenario where TB is prevalent the question "what do I gain from a lack of TB" is roughly equivalent to "what do I gain from vaccination". What I gain from atheism is a lack of religion. Unless anyone can show me that religion is actually good for something, then I consider TB to be a reasonable analogy to religion (both, for example, have been responsible for lots of deaths) and I consider atheism to be a reasonable analogy for vaccination.

"Atheists can not concede that animals do not have religion. This would make humans, who have evolved the religious charisma, to appear one step higher. " No, I consider those who have caught religion to be one step lower; they are the ones who, at some level, choose not to think for themselves. In my opinion, only humans have the ability to be misled by religion into doing things that are not good for the species (for example it's time someone explained the effect of condoms on overpopulation to the Pope. I hope that people will accept that's just one example; there are plenty I'm not just picking on one faith here).

Atheism also gives me the freedom to decide for myself about morality. I don't need to take someone's word for it that people who eat shellfish are evil. In the same way, it would be difficult for anyone to convince me that some group of people were "subhuman" and could legitimately be wiped out. On the other hand if I thought that their destruction was God's will then I might well kill them.

Are they getting a garbled idea about ortho and para hydrogen? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_isomers_of_hydrogen

On a practical note, atheism means not having to get up for church on Sunday.

Since the site can't tell the difference between bullion and bouillon, how far do you trust it? there's not a lot of difference between a pressure cooker and an autoclave.

I think all the Mods are pink elephants, but this is an unsupported opinion. They may think otherwise but their opinion, apparently, has no more validity than mine.

I invite you to look back to the days when education was rare, and ask if you would have been better off living back then?

Have you checked eBay etc?

Are you sure? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluconeogenesis

Just for the record, to two significant figures 1000/18= 56 not 55.

Is it just me whose first thought on reading the title of the thread was; define "friend"? Incidentally since neither God nor Jesus is a member of this forum, they can't give advice here. It doesn't seem appropriate for others to give advice on their behalf. They are, according to those who believe in them, perfectly capable of making their opinions known independently of this website.

If the guy gets killed while in the process of committing the crime there's not much chance that you have killed the wrong guy. Also, there's the difference that in one case one guy ends up dead but in the other case that guy and some others end up dead. To me those look like real differences. The fact that old-time justice was different doesn't mean that it was better any more than old-time science was better. Phlogiston theory anyone?

Lol http://toothwalker.org/optics/vignetting.html

One potential problem would be that the bacteria are not just in the bladder, but in the tissues and the tissue would be susceptible to UV damage and also shield the bugs. (also urine absorbs UV very well, but that's not a major problem)

All good stuff and I'm pleased to get some support. The overriding consideration is that (f you will forgive the pun) the point is that they are all points. The torch, a distant star etc. are all practically point sources and here's the bit that Akhenaten doesn't seem to get. They don't give a point image on the retina. In all cases they give a slodge- the so called point spread function, which is about the same size as the receptor cells there (which is, as Radical Edward pointed out a pretty neat fact). Since all the photons from any "point like" source fall on the same small bunch of cells at the back of the eye the eye sees them just fine. A bit of twinkling and scattering doesn't help.

Do I have to put this in really big letters for you? I know the torch is brighter. I don't care because it doesn't matter. The point of the torch experiment is to show that the eye can see small things if they are bright. Do you actually understand what things like "diffraction limited" and "point spread function" mean? And if you don't answer the question about the photons that get to the eye but are not registered soon, people will think you are a troll. Don't forget that more photons get to the eye on the moon than would do here on earth and those photons are enough to let you see the star from here. What you are trying to say is that brighter (more actual photons) is darker ( less visible, even against an even blacker background).

You have missed the point twice. The spot on the retina is as small as it's going to get because it's diffraction limited. Making the object smaller will not make any difference to the size of the image. Also, stars are brighter than the torch. and, as I pointed out earlier, there are plenty of photons getting here- that's why you can see the stars at night. The stars are bright enough and they will form an image at the retina that looks exactly the same size and shape as the image of a torch-lit pinhole. BTW, you have not yet answered my question. Where do the other photons go?

I though Leviticus said that about people who eat shellfish too. The bible also says "thou shalt not kill" so it contradicts itself. I'm mildly puzzled by "Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them." Without their heads, just how worried about their fingertips will thy be? Whatever, I'm pretty sure that the Koran also says that you shouldn't kill unbelievers- you tell then about the word of the prophet and, if they don't pay attention that's their problem. As you might have realised, I'm an atheist so my viewpoint on the death penalty is that it's only applicable if you can be certain that they person concerned is guilty- because it's not something you can reverse. (I realise that compensating someone who was wrongly imprisoned doesn't really amount to justice). Since only the God (that I don't believe in) can be entirely sure that a man is guilty, you shouldn't have a death penalty. It's probably telling that practically no civilised nation still has the death penalty.