-Demosthenes-

Learn how to play the ukulele. Girls like it

You should look at the specific requirements at your college/university. Most Chem Engineering degrees are monstrous (like a 100+ credits passed GE's), but overlap a lot of Chem and Math. If you're college has a lot of overlap in the required classes for certain minors then it might be worth it. But it may be worth it at some colleges and not at others. I don't know how much it would help you in the job field though, not being a Chem Engineer myself.

This highlights an interesting fact, that this isn't actually so much a technical problem as it is a social/political problem. The sad fact is that most hunger in the world is man made through war and political unrest, as apposed to simple lack of resources. The solution to a great many problems is just what you said, a world wide effort -- or rather cooperation or at least non-war.

In the 3rd world millions of people die of vaccine treatable diseases and other diseases that would be treatable by inexpensive interventions or preventions. People die of tetanus, vitamin A deficiency, Zink deficiency, AIDS, all of which are at some level preventable or treatable by some means that is much less expensive than clinical intervention -- then sending an actual doctor or nurse to treat them, or even just setting up a clinic with cheaply paid local health workers. It's ridiculously cheaper to educate a group of people on how to prevent AIDS, and even supply some minimal means, than to supply antiviral medication for a lifetime. Many child deaths could be avoided if more mothers nursed their babies, or if they knew how to treat diarrhoeal diseases at home, basic nutrition, etc etc. In the 1st world Hypertension, Obesity, tobacco, and alcohol are related to a lot of deaths and a lot of clinical money spent that could have been spent on education on how to prevent these diseases. But even if you educate are many even going to prevent their own diseases?

I don't see a reason to make CO2 back into fossil fuels, is there a cheap way to make CO2 into a some other solid solid?

It's way different.

I haven't read Jesus, Interrupted, but I have read the Bible, and it's quite obvious without reading commentary that it's fairly self-contradicting. But it's also a really old collection of writings (not originally one big book like a surprising amount of people believe ), and it's been kept for more than a few hundred years by people who may or may not had reason to change them (the scribes come to mind who had kept/transcribed the Jewish records between the OT and NT as well as the Jewish record keepers and leaders who reacted to the early Christian movement, to say nothing of early Christian record keepers who held the gospels, epistles, and revelation almost exclusively for hundreds of years). Most references to Jesus would be religious by nature, I'd think. Of course "Jesus" is only a translation of that Jewish name, one not uncommon in the day of His birth.

The Ender's Game Series (By Card) and the Robot Novels (By Asimov).

If you want to put Christianity all together like that. No, I think abstinence would work. What you're saying is that they won't do it (or won't not do it, whatever). These people aren't a bunch of animals who can't help themselves, they're just like us -- people. They can do whatever they want. Obviously it's wrong to tell someone that a condom is the devil (the thought of which is a little disconcerting). Following that advice, while ignoring all the rest and blaming the advice giver is rather irresponsible. It's the proverbial equivalent of running head on into a brick wall with my seat belt on -- and taking no responsibility for it.

It's probably good to remember that fats and proteins are used for things other than calories. This is all anecdotal (so much of nutrition is) but I know people who've done high protein/low carb diets and people who've done low fat diets, and both have lost weight. I don't know who was healthier, but I think it's pretty much a calories game. But some foods are more nutrient dense than others (more nutrients like fiber/vitamins/minerals per calorie). And a lot of people say that fat and fiber make you fuller, etc etc. There's a lot of stuff out there.

Wow I didn't realize how different other places were when it comes to education. In the states you don't actually graduate secondary school (our high school right?) in anything, you just graduate high school I wouldn't hesitate to go into any bachelor degree program from high school, even taking no pertinent classes in my major, but I don't know if that's helpful to you where ever you're at. Also, as far as I know, there isn't much calculus in Biology. There's some stats I guess, but as far as I know calculus is very physics math (someone correct me if I'm wrong -- I often am). The lower level bio classes at my school that the bio major requires aren't much harder than high school classes. I've actually started three different majors before settling where I'm at (History, Computer Science, and finally Exercise Science) and did very well in the lower level classes of each without having much of a background in some, they're not hard till you get higher in the major anyways.

That problems arise when religion is rationalized. You can come with a rationalization for any belief, be it good or bad, and believe in it. So coming from the point of view that there is a true religion I think that you could only get it straight from God (instead of making it up out of what "makes sense"). Coming from the point of view that there isn't a true religion, I think their all wrong. If I believed it because I thought it made sense. You're right of course. I think there's a lot of amateur study of the Bible, which I think is good, my study of the Bible is amateur, which lends a little to the fact that a lot of Bible "research" is shotty. I think a bigger thing is that a lot is motivated by things other than scholarship. Like the pastor who has his ministerial license, has started a church, and is making money will interpret scripture to mean whatever will make him right. Of course this isn't always the case, and I don't think usually the case, but you see my point.

So all we disagree is how much it's raining, and all I know is that I've seen it rain a lot. If you disagree I'm totally cool with that, maybe I'm wrong. It's actually a little more complicated than that. I actually know virtually nothing about the Quran, having only read parts here and there, but I've read the Bible (King James Bible) at least once (mostly more than that, but books like Leviticus only once ). In the Bible there are a lot of seemingly contradicting ideas, and a lot of outright contradicting ones But mostly when contrasting different parts of the Bible. Most striking is the difference in the OT and NT, which are so drastically different. Even further the five books of Moses are pretty different from the writings, which sound almost Christian (like Psalms), which are very different form the prophets. And even in the NT the Epistles are different from the Gospels, and Acts has a different tone from either of them with different emphases. So, although it's true there are is a lot of contradiction in the Bible, individual books and even small groupings of books are surprisingly uniform. So we both see the same problem that happens with religion is rationalized. The common belief being that it was with His death and resurrection, which is what I ascribe to. Truer words have never been spoken. I think Biblical studies are the studies that most often ignore context. Actually Paul doesn't specifically mention Peter (Cephas) it acutally appears in verse 12 in a list of names. Paul says "...every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ" in verse 12 of the KJV. He actually includes himself in the list. And says two verses before that "there be no divisions among you." He says they shouldn't be divided following different teachers. That actually what he's preaching against, even people saying they follow Paul who wrote the letter are screing it up and misunderstanding the gospel. He actually says, sorrowing that they are doing this: "I thank God I baptized none of you." Which are strong words, even for Paul. This is a very familiar idea in epistle written to the Gentiles, and even general epistles. Renouncing division is huge, emphasizing that the religion that people make up is wrong, and the only real answers come straight from deity, not reason.

I think that at least as often as not these were and are rationalizations and lines of reasoning built on top of religion. A lot of religious violence in Europe in the Middle ages was to control religious lands, in the name of a religion based off of the Bible. Now Jesus never says to take control of Jerusalem in the Bible, but if you put together some OT stuff you can come up with a rationalization. Even in Islam the Qur'an says something like "There shall be no coercion in matters of faith." (Surah 2:256) Religions today are very usually based very loosely on scripture, their mostly ideas from men. The Bible says nothing about how to baptize, nothing about Popes, bishops, what we should do on Sunday, how to do the sacrament (or communion), or any of those things. So why not go a step further and rationalize some other thing you want to do to

I wasn't very clear. We don't often refer to Israel in the OT as "Jews," but assuming that the Jews (as they claim, which is quite supported in secular history) are descendants culturally and religiously from the people of Israel in the OT (the Old Testament that is, with Moses and Isaiah and those guys) then they in face did have "Holy Men." Whether or not you want to call them that, I don't mind, but the leaders in the OT talked to God, especially the patriarchs. Vision was not uncommon, my favorite being Isaiah's vision of God. After the OT ended there were no more men who talked to God (with exceptions, but the ruling class did not). If fact the Jews have a terrible history of teaching the words of old prophets while ignoring or killing the current prophets (I'd like to cite the entire Bible here). They preferred the Hellenistic (or Greek) scholar approach, which is what they turned into by the time of the NT. (assume "with exceptions" -- oxygen does always have a 2- oxidation state, Ribosomes don't always translate proteins right, some white people can dance! etc etc) However terrible and unrighteous that was, it's not so much the case anymore. In the anglo world secularism is a big part of the culture, I'm not attacking it I'm merely calling it how I see it. By subdued I meant they commonly view their religion with less mysticism and it affects their every day lives less. This is a generalization of course. If it is true in the US, as you say, then it's still a trend. Trends can be limited to geographical locations. I'm merely pointed out that many attempt to answer the question my mixing their culture with the religious heritage. Of course this is a generalization. It's impossible to talk about a group of people with out generalizing, it's an approximation. When you open your history text book and it talks about Nazi Germany, it's a generalization. Not everyone in Germany was a Nazi, it's ridiculous to think of it that way. To say that Africa has been negatively affected by colonial powers is generalization, it's an approximation that is useful and so on.

Maybe I'd rather meant mainstream Christianity, although that might be just as ambiguous. Denominations loosely based off of the NT from the last two hundred years who have paid clergy and believe in the Trinity? It's hard to talk about absolute terms and groups when you're talking about trends. But the trend is, and has been as exemplified by Judaism, a move towards a replacement of Holy men (prophets, apostles, etc.) with a scholarly class, an abstraction of God (such as the Jews whose own scripture portrayed a very anthropomorphic God that openly appeared to people, but by NT times, dominated by Jewish scribes, their idea of God had changed a God very much not involved in their lives), and other trends are also interesting. But it's not just the Judeo-Christian ideals that are affected. If you go to Latin America in many places where the culture is different Catholicism is much more extreme, Deity is more real. Those of other faiths who are very much involved in American or European culture are much more subdued in their religious beliefs. Hindus, Muslims, or Christians aren't necessarily less Hindu, Muslim, or Christian, just have different ideas because of their cultural notions. Our culture is just very secular is all, I'm not saying it's necessarily bad, but it nonetheless has an enormous affect on everything we do, and one of those things happens to be religion.

I think this is super interesting. Modern Christianity is based of the Bible, albeit loosely. I'm obviously way biased, with my background, but mainstream Christianity is so steeped in western culture (I guess you could call it Roman long ago, or some derivative of Greek, either way today in the States and Europe we have some descendant of that culture some sort of rationalistic Anglo-culture -- I don't know what to call it -- which is not a bad culture by the way). It's interesting that this is exactly what happened to the Jews following the Old Testament, the "Hellenization" (or "Greekifying" if you prefer) of the Jews. They went from being led by the Prophets of the OT with the Priesthood of the Temple to some weird form of scholar/clergy rabbinical system (hear of scribes, Pharisees, or Sadducees -- whom Jesus was not fond of?) in between the OT and the NT. The main language that all Jew's shared became Greek! (recall the Septuagint) It's actually really strange when you think about it. After the "End of the Prophets" as it says in the KJV, everything went to Hell (Hellenization that is, of course not exclusively though ), creating some apostate system that eventually killed the Judaism's very God, Jehovah/Jesus (according to the NT of course). Then Christianity supplanted Judaism (or rather fulfilled according to Jesus) and then Greek/Roman/Western culture seeped into it and created a weird scholar/clergy system similar to the scribes and Pharisees (which was not present in the NT), and a very similar thing has happened (As the Hebrew Bible became Greek, the Christian Bible has now become English as it were). You could say western culture has killed Biblical religion twice, the Jews then the Christians. Of course modern Christianity isn't necessarily bad for being similar to apostate Judaism, or for wandering from NT Christianity, but it is interesting. There are a lot of things based on the Bible, but there's hardly enough in there to make a complete religion, too many unanswered questions. That's why Christianity is so diverse, and there are so many denominations.

Religion, or spiritualism or personal belief, seems so mixed up in rationalism and logic. When I've asked people why they believe what they do I get all sorts of evidence and some really cool lines of reasoning, but I don't understand how you can prove something logically when it is unobservable with ones physical senses. I understand why religion needs it either. I think the forcing together of these two great paradigms, spiritualism and secularism/rationalism, is unfortunate, and it seems to me -- rather illogical. Both from different worlds, the natural and the supernatural, and both based on totally different ideologies. Personally, whether right or wrong, I believe because I've tried it, and it feels good -- it tastes good. In my opinion, that's the very tone of the entire New Testament, especially the Gospels. By the way, how's it goin'?

A lot can happen in two years.

I've had like no time, I just started school, summer term. I was anxious to get back into it. Computer Science major. What the heck's been going on here?

Missionaries are pretty busy Yes.

Oh guess who's back.

Meh. Them mormons are crazy.

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