Brainteaserfan

I think that it must be said that in any western country , though I don't like to use the term ' western ' as it makes people think there is an entity called the ' west ' , which there isn't , if twenty people , never mind 2500 , went down through the centre of a city with machine guns on pickups , grenades and rocket launchers , the government running that western country would be sending thousands of military personnel to end that problem quickly , licenced to do whatever they have to .

I assume you are talking about the rebels. If the populace was so against the leader of any western country, he/she would surely step down before the violent uprising.

I applaud your good intentions.

 

But the oceans will probably get along all right by themselves, whatever humans dump in them.

 

For example, during WWII, German U-boats sank millions of tons of Allied shipping in the North Atlantic. As a result, the floor of the North Atlantic is today littered with thousands of wrecked ships. These ships contain highly noxious cargoes. Such as planes, tanks, petroleum, bombs, shells, explosives, and tins of US Spam.

 

All this huge mass of stuff has been in the ocean for well over half a century. And the ocean seems to have absorbed it without showing any distress.

 

So will the ocean really get distressed, by our chucking plastic supermarket bags in it?

Populations may decrease, but I doubt that species will actually go extinct unless we really step up our littering and polluting. Let's start building more nuclear power plants in order to decrease pollution from coal plants. I think that that is the "greenest" thing that we can do right now.

Even the US and state Constitutions wouldn't stop citizens from killing. I'd hate to drag up gangs and mass murderers, but there are also examples of these in US history.

 

I never claimed the 10 commandments would stop Jews from killing. I simply said they were additional limits on behavior. There will always be people who do not follow any given set of rules. However, let's not fool ourselves into believing that secular law will control all behavior either.

 

 

 

Interestingly enough (in regards to the US), none of those men were atheists. And given the large number of religious affiliations it is no surprise that they created the right to religious freedom. They never would have reached consensus without it.

 

 

http://www.adherents.com/gov/Founding_Fathers_Religion.html

Neat!

However, it's interesting that 54% were Anglican. I'd expect different denominations that disagreed more with the Church of England. I'd also have expected one or two atheists.

Not all those contradictions are mere translation errors.

 

@Marat: What? I don't understand what you are trying to say.

True, but between that and the significant changes in languages over time, I think that the vast majority are accounted for.

Roman historians report that 10,000 spectators saw the Roman Emperor (almost all the Roman Emperors claimed divine status) fly across the Colosseum. So that is probably better evidence for his divinity than any proof we have of Christ's miracles. In the Ancient world there were countless itinerant miracle-makers, from magical healers in today's Turkey to the two magicians mentioned in the Old Testament as making a staff turn into a snake in front of Pharaoh. So given the context of gullible observers predisposed to believe in miracles, poor record-keeping, lack of a modern concept of the distinction between story and history (even good historians like Herodotus and Thycidides invented a lot of material but didn't seem to think that was cheating), I don't think we can really say that there is any good evidence that Christ performed any better miracles than anyone else.

But woe to anyone that dared contest this alleged "miracle".

It seems almost a disproof of the message of the Bible and of Christ's message that so many indirect and imperfect demonstrations of God's existence are given ('Hey look, I can pull a rabbit out of my hat, that must prove that what I just said is true!' -- blind being healed, dead raised, insanity cast out of a person and into animals, burning bushes as signs, stone tablets from the sky, etc.), but the simple and obvious step of just plain exhibiting God to our inspection is never taken. Why hint rather than prove if the proof is really available? Is there some serious ethical point to making salvation turn on guessing the right answer in a Cosmic Quiz Show where the contestants have a little information but still not enough to make the right guess (the last curtain turned out to have a car behind it; does that mean the next will just have a donkey?)?

 

As for the Bible being at least internally consistent, the old book 'Self-Contradictions of the Bible' written by William Henry Burr (New York: A. J. Davis, 1860) lists 144 pairs of contradictory statements over 96 pages of text.

All of those "contradictions" can be explained, most dealing with translation difficulties.

Imperfect demonstrations?

To me, it isn't a guessing game. I think that we have plenty of evidence to come to a conclusion for God.

Here is some text translated on google translate to greek and back.

Before: thou shalt not text, kill, or commit suicide.

After:

thou shalt not text, to kill or commit suicide.

In one sentence, a word has already been added and grammar changed. Thus "contradictions" occur.

NATO was originally established as a defensive alliance to oppose the forces of the Warsaw Pact, which were thought to intend an invasion of Western Europe with their massive combined armies exceeding NATO's forces many times over. Not much wrong with that.

 

But then, when the Warsaw Pact dissolved and the ideological motivations for such a massive invasion of the West by the East unravelled with it, NATO was preserved as an Imperialists' Club to assert the interests of the West against other nations. If the Yugoslav break-up and ethnic wars were not good for the NATO countries' vision of a future capitalist Europe secure for business and commerce, then NATO would just bomb the Yugoslavs into submission, even if this meant bombing from such a high altitude that innocent civilian deaths were sure to result, but if high altitudes were necessary to protect NATO pilots, so be it. And of course when it came time to assess the conflict for war crimes, the investigators were all from NATO countries so they ignored the Serbs' evidence of civilian deaths from NATO bombing and instead saw only war crimes -- by some astonishing coincidence -- solely on the side of NATO's enemies. Louise Arbour, one of the war crimes inspectors, just by coincidence was appointed to the Canadian Supreme Court after her report.

 

Now NATO is intervening in Libya in fulfillment of the UN Security Council's narrow authorization of military action to protect civilian lives and nothing else. Although Gaddafi a while ago offered a ceasefire which would have immediately brought to an end all possibility of further civilian casualties on either side, which the NATO-backed rebels refused to accept, thus making them logically solely responsible for all future civilian casualities. NATO continues to back the rebels -- solely to prevent civilian casualties! NATO is also now itself causing civilian casualties by its bombing, as it knew in advance it could not help but do, and naturally no one is counting whether NATO is now producing more civilian casaulties by its massive bombing campaign than Gaddafi's tiny forces are causing on the ground.

 

NATO's actions now remind one of the Berlin Conference of 1884 when the Great Powers met to divide up Africa among themselves. Now that the period of internicene wars among the Great Powers (1914-1945; followed by the Cold War of 1945-1991) is over, they can settle back into the old way of doing things, but instead of being called by those rather unstylish names of the past like 'the White Man's Burden,' 'European Imperialism,' 'the Mission to Christianize and Civilize the Primitive World,' it is more fashionably disguised with the name of the old purely defensive alliance, 'NATO.'

Gaddafi already claimed cease-fire to buy time, as he was lying. I'm not for the Libyan war, but gaddafi didn't mean a true cease-fire, he wants NATO to cease-fire!

Quote:

Witnesses in the western city of Misrata said earlier Friday that a pro-government assault is persisting and casualties are mounting as countries backing the council's move, such as Britain and France, get their military resources into place to enforce the measure.

"What cease-fire?" asked a doctor in Misrata, who described hours of military poundings, casualties and dwindling resources to treat the wounded. "We're under the bombs.

"This morning, they are burning the city," the doctor said. "There are deaths everywhere."

"Misrata is on fire," according to an opposition member, who said tanks and vehicles with heavy artillery shot their way into the city Thursday night and the assault continued Friday. He said Gadhafi's regime announced a cease-fire to buy time for itself. "Please help us."

End quote

Source:

http://articles.cnn.com/2011-03-18/world/libya.civil.war_1_cease-fire-khaled-kaim-rebel-forces?_s=PM:WORLD

Not quite sure what you mean.

 

There is evidence of Bibles yes. I have one.

 

There is no evidence of anything within the Bible though if that is what you meant.

 

If there is evidence in the Bible of anything, please show it.

 

Regards

 

DL

 

 

 

 

 

 

Any true believers are conspicuous in their absence just like their absentee God is.

 

Jesus tells us how they should be able to show themselves yet none will step up to move the mountain of 6 million people that starve to death yearly.

 

So much for believers caring for their neighbors.

 

This is how a true Christian show his faith.

You might note that there is no one on earth with faith.

If there was, we would all know it. They would act.

 

 

Matthew 17:20

 

And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.

 

Mark 16:17-18.

And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; 16:18 They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.

 

Regards

DL

What I meant: that there is at least some outside evidence for some sections of the Bible being historically accurate, and, IMO, more evidence for than against it.

Show it?

Alright.

First, there are surprisingly few self contradictions for an historical book that has been translated and copied and was written by more than one author. Although that isn't outside evidence, that's internal evidence.

Secondly, http://www.allabouttruth.org/bible-prophecy.htm

http://www.truthortradition.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1163

Those were external proofs/evidence.

I'm with fafalone. They could even put them inside the water floatation devices to save space.

 

 

Also, as technology advances, they could headphones with a recording to walk you through the process. Just my thoughts.

If you are crashing, there probably isn't time to listen to the recording. But, they could put a podcast out that we could access from our mobile devices and we could listen before hand. I doubt though that many would listen to them. If you were one of a few who knew how to use one, the rest of the passengers would be clamoring for you to show them.

Even the ten commandments wouldn't stop christians from killing. I'd hate to drag up the inquisition, the crusades and the witch trials, but there are also examples of this in the Bible.

 

Look at the story of Moses. What did he do after he got the 10 commandments, one of which is "You shouldn't kill people"?

 

 

 

Just a little bit later:

 

 

 

 

Quotes from here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses

 

As you can see, the 10 commandments is definitely not something that would stop jews (and in extension christians, as they share the same scripture) from killing, raping and plundering, if they believed it was ordered by their god. These examples are things that allegedly happened straight after the jews were told they shouldn't kill. It's not like they had time to forget what the stone tablets said.[/size][/font]

I think that that commandment is a translation difficulty. In many Bibles, the word kill is translated murder. Even in the KJV, where the word used in Exodus is kill, in Matthew 19:18, where the rich young man came to Jesus, this is translated as murder.

According to dictionary.com murder is:

mur·der

[mur-der]

- noun 1. unlawful intentional killing - verb (used with object) 2. to kill unlawfully and deliberately

- Related Forms    self-mur·dered- adjective    self-mur·der- noun

Since the Israelites laws were whatever God told them, then it was lawful, and thus justified in their eyes.

Matthew 19:18

18 He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness,

...one person is not considered an affirmation by scientific standards. You would have to replicate this, many times, under a controlled, monitored environment.

 

 

 

Wouldn't be as much fun, eh? Well, those centuries where we didn't have antibiotics, a lot of people died horrible, slow deaths because of a lack of proper medicine. But so long as we get the joy of discovering remedies, I can see how God would justify the suffering of countless people.

 

People are not healed through prayer. It is indeed why hospitals do not employ faith healers. Because it's all nonsense.

 

 

 

While I agree with most of what you say, I think you take it too far. Theism has been around in some form or another for thousands of years. The world has continued to develop.

From a scientific standpoint, I would agree that it is nonsense. However, having witnessed it, I believe that it isn't.

If you were God, how would you carry out population control?

So all the evidence you have is your wife confirmed it? Interesting I admit but hardly conformation. The forefront of the research you assert is still sucking hind tit to real science, I'll stick with real science, there are worldwide conferences on creationism too, they release papers in their own journals too, doesn't make it any more likely the Earth is 6,000 years old, it just means a lot of people believe it, belief does not equal evidence.

 

 

 

I am talking about believing in God instead of reality, if you read the Christian bible you will find very little limits to what can be justified by saying God wanted it to be done. The 10 commandments are a joke when it comes to what god wants, about the only one God will not allow is have no other gods before me, the rest are completely conditional.

 

 

 

 

We live in the first and only civilization based on science, everything around you is based in science, from the computer you are on right now to the aircraft flying over head to all the food and water, power, medicine, everything that keeps you and me alive. Take away science and billions of people would die within days if not hours. All we have is based in a falsifiable reality, no amount of praying or belief will provide for us unless we want to go back to preindustrial civilization, that would necessitate the removal of most of the people on the earth.

 

Try praying to make the electricity come on, or to make the water flow or to heal the sick, there is a reason no faith healers are employed by hospitals, have faith the sewage system will operate. Our entire world is based on the assumption that we can know reality and it is the same whether or not you believe it is real or not. You cannot pick and choose which parts of our science you want to keep and which parts you do not believe in, your belief no matter how strong will never change reality. Civilization as we know it developed because of science not in spite of it or parallel to it or separate from it, science and the scientific method is why were are here having this conversation, with out it most of us would never have existed to have this debate.

 

Belief is not what our civilization is based on, belief is the greatest threat to our civilization, once you actually believe your god is the only true god and his word as written is the only truth then everything falls into chaos and war and destruction, religions never bring people together, the more than 30,000 Christian sects demonstrate this quite well, they only fractionate into smaller and smaller groups that hate each other because they do not "believe" the correct way. They only believe that if everyone would just believe the way they do then we would all have peace but history shows this to be false, only when religion was gelded by secular governments did civilization prosper and advance, science has done more for humanity in the last 100 years than religion has done in all of history, i think quite it telling that god never once has pointed out antibiotics, or pain medicine, nothing what so ever but hate and division under the disguise of peace and love.

 

Christian fundamentalists are the least of it, far more Muslim and Hindu creationist types are under our radar but just as dangerous, if the creationist mind set ever takes hold in our society we will experience the greatest fall of civilization the world has ever seen, the fall of Rome will be a bad weekend during spring break compared to the number of people who will die if our civilization falls. We cannot allow biblical literalists to take hold of our technology or our civilization, they would use it to end all freedoms as we know them or possibly worse just turn "it" off and let the world die.

 

Now you know how i feel about religion, literally

Most Biblical literalists do not disagree with science, but rather support it and its research. They just insert an "except for" clause into all laws that states that God can break the rules of the natural world. I very much support science, but I have experienced something like GIA, and therefore stick with Christianity. However, I admit that it is, in some sense illogical.

Why God didn't give us instructions for antibiotics I do not know. Maybe He wanted us to have the joy of discovering them. If He told us everything, I'd think that it wouldn't be so much fun living because we couldn't discover things. People are healed by prayer and anointing though, or maybe it is luck or something.

Edit: I do not hate other Christian denominations. I am not a member of any denomination, because I agree, that we should be united, although I do attend 1 denomination.

After some thought, the razor scraper device would only be used when a serious splatter hits your windshield. Normal wiper blades are very adequate 99% of the time. But when a big bug squashes on your screen, you press a button and the razor-scrubber makes a pass over the windshield. It can be a combination of flexible plastic razor (that self-sharpens), rubber blades, spinning brush, washer fluid jets, all combining to be able to clean up the nastiest splatters in 10 seconds, and then withdraw out of view.

 

 

 

The idea of making a car impossible to die from heat exhaustion is not a crap idea. I am just lousy at describing how to do it. I am certain my system would cost only a few hundred dollars and it will make a car in hot weather always much more comfortable and impossible to kill anything or anyone locked inside the cabin. You will see it someday, and you will remember me.

The razor blade idea sounds semi-expensive, and not really needed. Why couldn't you just pull over to the side of the road and wipe off the splatter? For me, "serious" bugs don't splatter my windshield very often.

Jesus literalist. What would change your mind?

 

Many books on Jesus and Christianity have come out of late questioning the historicity and source of both Jesus and the gospels. Most of these come down on the negative side of Jesus being real or of scripture coming from the apostles.

 

 

 

 

All who believe in Jesus and scripture must read the Bible literally, to some extent.

 

After all, what other book give Jesus historicity or literal existence? None.

 

There is not one historical secular document that I know of that indicates that some miracle working Jesus ever existed.

 

The Bible begins with a talking serpent and other miracles that defy nature and physics.. This should be warning enough, for anyone who can think independently that the Bible should not be read literally. Alas, this clear message is lost on some believers .

 

Most scholars know that the Bible is myth and can be read in a variety of ways. As allegory, myth or literal. They choose not to read it literally as that would mean that they would have to believe in fantasy miracles and magic. Most will not take that leap of faith.

 

The Catholic pope and most mainstream Abraham protestant religions say not to read the Bible literally but as stated above, they must read some of it literally to believe that Jesus actually existed. They do not seem to follow their own advise.

 

As a follower of a real historic Jesus, do you recognize that you are a literalist?

 

How deeply do you believe in fantasy, miracles and magic?

 

As an adult, do you see your fantastic beliefs as those of a healthy mind?

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDbesQQi9yc

 

What would it take for you to change your mind about fantasy, miracles and magic being real? These are required for you to believe in a real historic Jesus.

 

Keeping Jesus divine in our minds may discourage some in trying to follow his lead.

 

Is there something that would change your mind or start you seeing Jesus as an archetypal good man that we are to emulate?

 

 

 

Regards

 

DL

 

 

How is a talking serpent any more defying laws of nature than a talking human? Maybe it was E.T. Besides, if God is omnipotent, than those miracles described would actually support the Bible's message IMO.

To change my mind about God, I'd either have to see another religion with at least as much evidence for it, or more evidence against Christianity than for Christianity.

How deeply do I believe? I hope that I believe deeply enough that I would give my life for Him, but nobody really knows whether they could do that unless they were in that situation.

What do you mean by "Keeping Jesus divine in our minds may discourage some in trying to follow his lead."? Jesus is commonly referred to as the Great Example.

We've been speculating about God for at least 30,000 years and it hasn't got us very far. Not even as far as deciding whether there's such a thing as God in the first place!

 

This startling lack of progress, strongly suggests that the whole issue cannot be resolved without further data. Which evidently isn't yet available on Earth.

 

We might obtain more data, if we could contact other intelligences in the Universe.

 

The only way to contact these intelligences (if they exist), is by using our Science. To build things like radio-telescopes. And perhaps, in the future, we'll develop more advanced communication devices. Using "Q-Rays", or some other yet-to-be discovered technology. Or maybe future Science will give us the data even without the putative ET's.

 

So I think we should concentrate on developing our Science, and put speculation on hold for the present.

The reason that we don't put religion on hold is because if there is some kind of an afterlife, as promised in many major religions, then we may lose something by not believing/acting in some way now.

But, yes, I agree that humans need to have an emphasis on science.

Why does a 21-year-old guy have access to a drinking water reservoir when he's drunk? Why isn't there a fence around it, if this isn't allowed?

 

In the link of the OP, there's another link (this one) which states that the officials also fish out dead animals and other feces. I'm sorry, but dead animals are a LOT more dangerous, and can carry a LOT more diseases than urine.

 

What the hell are they thinking over there in Oregon? That urine is dangerous, but rotting meat is just fine for drinking water???

And if dead animals are indeed found in the reservoir, then it's obviously treated before it's sent to the tap of the people... otherwise, we'd be seeing a lot more diseases in the area.

 

So, this is all a big media show. Rather sad, really.

IMO, I'd rather have this guy pee in the reservoir than spend my tax $ on a fence.

On another dumb law - we have a well and sewer, but have to pay a "flush tax".

IIncedia

 

My speculation has concluded that what the ancients called the soul was really our subconscious minds.

 

That aside, because it is likely wrong, the ancients did believe in a state of going into the spirit. Trances and such. Much of scripture was written by those who claimed to be in the spirit when revelation was given.

 

My experience of this, no proof of course, is that what they called going into the spirit was what we today would call telepathic contact with who they thought was God. i call it my apotheosis.

 

I also have no proof that telepathy is real, but to me, the word soul now just means a way to communicate with God. Again, to me, this bible God guy is not the God I believe in. The Godhead I found was more of a cosmic consciousness. It is the repository of all consciousness' that have--uploaded --- to it.

Seems that we all upload at some point in time. No choice.

 

Regards

 

DL

 

 

 

 

That's interesting, but I think that there is more evidence for the Bible than for that.

Yet Jesus did not officially join the Trinity till, what, 300 odd years after his death.

 

Constantine gave life to the Trinity by basically shoving it down Christianities throat.

 

Originally Posted by animefan48 Well, the reality is most Christians do buy into the trinity doctrine because of persecution of the early Gnostics and non-Trinitarians, and the religious councils were dissenters were forced to agree to a Trinitarian theology. Many Unitarian and Universalist theologies argue that when Jesus said he was the way, he meant that he was an example of how to live to be united/reunited with God. As for the name, God does give other names for himself including the Alpha and Omega, as well as some believe a name that should not be written (or even spoken I believe). Honestly, I think using the name I Am That I Am would just be confusing and convoluted, seriously. I seriously do not believe that it is a continuation of Gnostic/mystical/Unitarian suppression. Even the Gnostic and mystical traditions within Islam and Christianity do not tend to use that name, and among the 99 Names of Allah, I did not find that one. Also, many Rastafarians believe that the Holy Spirit lives in humans and will sometimes say I and I instead of we, yet they don't seem to use the name I Am for God/Jah either, so I really don't think it can be related to suppressing mystical and Gnostic interpretations. I think that originally oppressing those ideas and decreeing them heretical are quite enough, the early Church did such a good job that after the split many Protestant groups continued to condemn mystical and later Gnostic sects and theologies.

 

 

 

Yup, the bishops voted and it was settled for all time!!1 (Some say the preliminary votes were 150 something to 140 something in favor of the trinity)

 

But then Constantine stepped in: After a prolonged and inconclusive debate, the impatient Constantine intervened to force an end to the conflict by demanding the adoption of the creed. The vote was taken under threat of exile for any who did not support the decision favored by Constantine. (And later, they fully endorsed the trinity idea when it all happened again at the council of Constantinople in AD 381, where only Trinitarians were invited to attend. Surprise! They also managed to carry a vote in favor of the Trinity.)

 

http://home.pacific.net.au/~amaxwell/bdigest/bd12bbs.tx

 

Regards

 

DL

 

 

 

Do you have verses that support no Trinity? The Roman Catholic Church can't just make something official. The Bible makes things official. IMO, the Bible supports the Trinity idea very well.

http://www.bible.ca/trinity/trinity-proof-texts.htm

I disagree with the other poster quote. Many times Christianity persisted during heavy persecution. Some will bend, but those who truly believe won't.

Kids aren't graduate students.

So, I don't even a middle-schooler to have a firm grasp of the scientific method.

I'm sure they can be taught, but I don't expect most school systems to have children embedded with that knowledge.

With that said, most children might have a science topic they are fascinate with, but lack expertise on how to narrow their perspectives.

 

I think it's up to the educator to present a realm of topics (biology, math, physics, chemistry, etc.), and then try to get the student to pick a kind of feasible experiment (perhaps even replicate a simple one; or find a twist on a simple one). To find a way to get the students to narrow their interests.

 

When I was a kid, most of the experiments I did were related to physics and electronics. I also messed with experiments that had to do simple things around the house.

 

Then again, times were great. You had awesome cartoons revolving around crazy biology/genetics. You had MacGyver (inventive thinking). You had Mr. Wizard on television for kids... So, I can definitely see how today's youth aren't as inspired as much by scientific knowledge and possibilities.

http://scioly.org/wiki/Experimental_Design

I had to do this in middle school. If you wanted to do well in this event, you had to have a firm grasp on the scientific method.

Nuclear power, is a furthy, its nuclear heating for steam, just like Coal but more dangerous. The day of steam has been replaced by Carbon. Its emense energy for so little heat, plus it provides its own cooling by creation of Dry-Ice.

http://nextbigfuture...rgy-source.html

Nuclear is far safer than coal, solar, wind, or anything else. The deaths per TWh are much smaller.

Okay, so me and two friends were driving on an open road in the middle of the day. It was slightly overcast. All of a sudden, all I could see was white, and then suddenly red. It was white for a half second then red for another half second. We all looked at each other and were like, "Whoa." There was no thunder afterward.

 

The strange thing is that it wasn't like a flash of light like someone setting the flash of their camera off in your eye, it was more like someone put a white sheet of paper in front of my eyes and then a red one. All of my friends agree with this statement.

 

If it was something like ball lightning wouldn't it make our vision slightly blurry after such a close encounter?

 

I've tried finding answers on other sites but unfortunately most of the people thought it was either aliens or a government experiment. Looking for some real answers here!

Where were you, what was the date, and what was the time of day?

No to both questions. There's an option to let users view who gave them reputation, but we disable it -- it tends to cause suspicion and anger. "You gave that guy reputation but you didn't give any to me?!"

Thanks.

Is there any possibility that sometime in the future there will be the ability to sort your (and others) posts by best rated or worst rated?

It would also be neat to see thee best rated posts on the site!

What is the best way to get students excited about their science fair projects?

They get very frustrated coming up with project ideas. I have tried a few sites such scienccefairprojectsstore.com to get ideas and books but I still can't get the students excited to be involved.

If you're from the US, look up "Science Olympiad". It's pretty neat.

Religion could provide us with an intermediate case in which the proof for the existence of God was imperfect but still sufficiently good that reasonable, rational people would accept it as adequate and believe as long as they were not so hard-hearted by their sinful pride that they would not assent even to a fairly good proof on the balance of probabilities. This would actually be theologically perfect, since it would avoid the current problem, which is that reasonable people may be damned for a good-hearted refusal to believe which grows out of simple scientific rigor and epistemological caution, while people who refuse to believe out of stubborn pride are equally damned, with no distinction being made between the two ethically distinct groups.

 

But isn't it suspicious that after the West had parted company from Eastern thinking -- which became preoccupied with questions of deontology and axiology -- and instead became obsessed with epistemology and ontology, the West's predominant religion also came to focus on a parallel epistemological criterion of salvation, and theology became a Cosmic Quiz Show in which you win eternal salvation if you guess which curtain has the new car behind it, or which of the many mundane candidates for the God, Son of God, or God's Messenger title is the right one? It operates suspiciously much like those puzzles which began to fascinate the Ancient Greeks a few centuries earlier, trying to guess without adequate information whether the essence of reality was moisture (Thales), change (Heraclitus), subjective perspective (Parmenides), or atoms (Democritus)? What could be more natural than that the god of the newly epistemologically-obsessed world should pose a guessing game to sort out the sheep from the goats? What could around more suspicion that this god is not the one true god, but just a local invention, dependent in his own rules and concerns ("Do you believe in me or not" rather than "Are you living a good life?") on those of the culture that made him up in its own image?

 

Free will is of course an unscientific concept, since the basic operating assumption of science (electrons excepted? -- some people are still trying to make room for free will out of Quantum Mechanics) is that every change, motion, or action requires a cause, so for humans to be the great exception to this, and to be the sole uncaused cause in the world, material objects freely determining out of themselves their own actions (the great fallacy of physics: hylozoism), seems oddly non-scientific, especially since so many new sciences have come to demonstrate how human behavior is conditioned by hormones, brain chemistry, social conditioning, early childhood education, cultural expectations, etc., all of which deprives us of responsibility for what we do and simply makes us the locus at which external influences operating on us are manifested. So if we deny that free will is real, rather than just a posit our culture superimposes on peoples' actions because we want to have what appear to be good reasons to praise or blame them for things they do, then we can allow God's manifestation of himself to us to constrain us completely to acknowledge his existence.

 

It seems that once God deigns to present himself to humans, he is caught in a conundrum, since he must either present himself honestly -- which would mean manifesting himself in his full divinity which would have to overawe and win the instant assent of every rational observer, so no one could get any credit for believing in him, or he must present himself dishonestly, which would cause the rationality he also builds into the human intellect to induce people to deny that God exists, for which he would then punish them. The high IQs all go to Hell for being sensible enough not to see the face of the Blessed Virgin outlined in the burn left on a side of bread left by a defective toaster, while the more gullible low IQs are all saved for their incapacity for critical judgment?

Just a thought. Maybe we aren't, "rational"? Maybe a better word, "smart enough". Some of us have seen miracles. Maybe you could call it something else, chance, neurological disorders, etc. People have cancer, docs go in to operate after an anointing service, and the cancer is gone. Not a trace. There are dozens of others too. Seeing angels etc. I know I sound really odd.

Is there a way to view your posts from highest thumbs up to highest thumbs down and vice versa? Also, can you see who gave you those thumbs up/thumbs down?