iNow

Lack of sleep for long periods leads to hallucinations, whether or not the 80 hour threshold is crossed

Concussions, too... or low blood glucose levels

We’ve gotta make a decision. We leave tonight or live and die this way

Pretty fly for a white guy

Now that poor fly needs to quarantine for 2 weeks

Not enough members probably care. Philosophy forum itself is pretty quiet overall. Further breakdowns may be logical in terms of classification, but likely aren’t necessary

Q: “Why does science rely on <insert random strawman or obvious misunderstanding here>?” A: It doesn’t.

None of that is on topic. It’s not even on your recent tangent

Racism and misogyny and jingoism are also attempts to make sense of the world, and they're all garbage unworthy of either praise or credit. Your position is pretty weak since it doesn't ask that the sense they make be accurate or helpful toward advancement. No. Science makes hypotheses then puts those hypotheses to the test and discards ones that are wrong. It uses experiment in search of conclusions. Religion, however, makes up whatever it wants then goes searching for evidence that seems to support those already made conclusions and ignores the rest. No. You might find some numerology there, but not mathematics.

Your inability to conceive of it is not a valid argument against it as a possibility. My previous point was rather clear. Of course. I covered this already in my very first post to this thread:

And it seems you’re more interested in being an emotionally volatile, childish, entitled little twat waffle and acting superior to others than in putting forth a legitimate argument that may change minds

This is a faulty generalization fallacy. Some Christians take the teachings literally, but not all, yet through poor reasoning or sloppy language (or both) you suggest otherwise. Unfortunately here again you show the errors in your own thinking, this time by introducing the No True Scotsman fallacy. One can, in fact, be a “real scientist” while also believing in ridiculous fairy tales, so long as those beliefs and fairy tales are not part of their processes or methods.

A similar thought crossed my mind, but mine was focused more on the most religious survivors of the person who died. In my life, it’s extremely common that the death hits the theists hardest and is often for some reason more difficult for them to accept. One would think that they’d be happy their dad/mom/sibling/cousin/friend is now surfing along the clouds with Jesus, but alas... that’s not what I see. The sadness and hurt and pain seems in my anecdotal experiences to be far greater in the theistic survivors than in the non believing ones. That was Spock. 🖖

That would mean he was wearing kayaks on his feet, not sandals. I see religion not as wrong, but as misguided. There are obvious social benefits and a sense of belonging, community, and connection with something larger than ourselves, but religion itself is not needed for any of that. We can experience all of those same things without dividing ourselves into further tribes or accepting millennia year old myths as valid explanations for what occurs in our universe. Also, nobody thinks science explains everything. Science is a method of removing human bias from our conclusions. It’s always provisional and always changing, but also the single best option available to us. Try not to strawman it. It weakens your already weak position. Proof is for math, not science. He has a point.

Indeed, and worse still when you push back on that concept, they conflate faith with trust or predictability. For example, they often assert "you have faith the sun will come up tomorrow, too" as if that's in any way equivalent to "I have faith that not eating meat on Friday or wearing clothing of different fibers will guarantee me an eternity floating on clouds with half naked angels."

And I might reply to your many questions one day too, just not today

Am I the only one bothered by the question? Believe in religion? Of course religions exist. No belief required. We have evidence of it. I "believe" the question is trying to explore something else entirely, but lacks the type of specificity we require in science.

Every human has biases and processes information through their own various filters. Being self-centered or egotistical is just one type of filter or bias, but there are scores of others. Seems rather arbitrary to focus solely on this one personality trait as if it's in any way more profound or important than others... one might even suggest you're corrupting your own knowledge or losing your own sense of reality.

We've become big fans of possums since learning they eat ticks, but we don't have many. We'd also be totally down with having a few chickens out back (especially given how many eggs we go through), but it's not allowed in our neighborhood.

I wish they’d leave us alone, but every time we’re outside with the kids and/or the dog, we need to do a tick check on everyone before coming back in. I’ve pushed back the tree line quite a bit and cleared lots of brush, essentially reclaiming yard space behind the garden, which has helped, but they will always have the upper hand... especially given the number of deer and foxes and groundhogs and wild turkeys and related wildlife moving through our property.

It’s probably better to view them as opportunistic. Host availability and predictability matter more than just about anything else. They’re also generalists when it comes to global populations, but specialists when it comes to local or regional populations. They’ll bite just about anything, but are better at biting certain things based on their local environment. It seems they’re pretty sensitive to temperature and humidity, and likely respond to chemical signals and similar hormone related outputs bodies generate. I cannot comment on its validity or modernity, but this overview seems comprehensive: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3790072/

More broadly, since repellents like Deet and similar products actually work, it seems rather obvious that ticks can sense and smell things in their environment that serve to alter their response or path... including differences between Person1 and Person2 Ticks also often focus on specific hosts... and will differentially bite deer over dogs or humans, for example.

Yes... and not just aggressive, but flawed. The human capacity for compartmentalization of thought is tremendous. I love sparring with theists (less so now than years ago), but if we're to pretend to have any sort of moral or intellectual high ground as atheists in this discussion then we need to avoid the types of sweeping generalizations and logical fallacies you have currently embedded in your own thinking.

Was your friend wearing Deet?

Deserves its own post here... within a few hours of the first debate last night, Weird Al published this gem: