Get your GOD-damned idiocy out of my education!

Preach it, brother!

The Panda ‘theory’ hasn’t been proven wrong beyond a reasonable doubt. In fact, I’d think that it absolutely could not be proven wrong, as it’s not falsifiable.

Sounds like you are an atheist by default, as you do not currently hold any faith in any deity.

I often say “idiot” to mean people who believe IQ tests measure intelligence.
More generaly I find “idiot” a good label for anyone who disagrees with my, clearly, superior opinions and conclusions. As it stands this does make all religious people idiots.

If you’re requiring that of FinnAgain, surely you won’t have any trouble explaining how to write a video post routine in 3DSMax v6 that will composite a sequence of pre-rendered images out in such a manner that the resultant animation will smoothly loop? Or what framerate, color depth, and aspect ratio is best for rendering out for televison, and why? Or the optimal method of creating a top/bottom material such that you can simulate accumulating snow on geometry designed for cutting into sprites?

Specific knowledge does not a genius make.

Can we get back to the matter at hand, and not allow this thread to degenerate into an intellectual pissing match?

But no matter what, Universe’s genesis will be tested for by science, not dreamed of by faith. In discussions of the Big Bang, I would wager that few scientists are advocating the Miracle Hypothesis. At least not in peer reviewed journal articles.

  1. Does the burden of proof cut both ways in regards to Zeus the Father of All gods?
  2. Does the burden of proof cut both ways on the Magic Giant Invisible Panda?
  3. Does the burden of proof cut both ways on any concept of a God or gods?
  4. Why, exactly, is Zeus outlandish but Adonai must be proven false?

I would agree that empathy is probably more important than faith in many dynamics.

Just curious, and honestly, with respect (and a little bafflement):

What on earth would it take to disprove that there is a Magic Giant Invisible Panda which created reality but ‘hides’ somewhere outside of it?

In other words, what could someone possibly do to prove to you that there was no God? God is, by definition, beyond proof, testing, and refutability. One cannot design an experiment to test for something which cannot be tested for. With the absence of a testable, refutable data-set,
what on earth
could you base
this ‘proof’
upon?

Well, to offer you a few shreds, may I suggest reading up on the holographic paradigm and relativity (throw in a bit of quantum mechanics too )?
There are far more tantalizing and thrilling reasons for hope in the world of science than in faith, and they’re testable.

Might I humbly suggest she watches **there’s something about Mary**, instead? Empathy, hope, love, evil, sexy babes, and huggable pets all rolled into one. Never fails to cheer me up.

Yep. As per my suggestion above, I’ve been led to believe semen has extraordinary hair-holding qualities. And that can and should be tested.

Hell, if it does work as advertised, can’t think of a better home business to get into to.

Talk about “hope”!

BTW, fully agree with your line of argument. Just not on your reading material. :slight_smile:

Oh, and Lib? In the battle of dueling IQ sites, meaningless at it is, at least the brainiacs that designed **the one I belong to** knew what the fuck they were doing.

a red wheel barrow
glazed with rain water
beside the white chickens.

That’s the axiom of induction. Using it to prove itself just isn’t right. Granted, your first year logic students ought to be able to prove it, but they would have to work just a little harder.

Different strokes n’ all dat.
When I get really bogged down in thoughts of mortality, my own or others, I think about how space is time. About how if you have a ruler, five inches is there even if you’re already mesured to seven inches. Time is just as physical and present as space. And then I think that Universe is expanding in both time and space, omnidirectionally. And then I think back to the ruler, and picture Universe as a series of baloons-expanding-within-baloons, or a vast onion, or an infinite lotus at whose center is Void.
But.
No matter where you are in space/time, no matter at what point along the ruler, the entire damn ruler exists, simultaneously.
But again, these are only the mental constructs I’ve drawn out of it, and I’m sure others would find their own light.

Gotsta love dat var-e-uh-bill-it-E!

Meh, feh.
My Subgenius can beat up your genius! :wink:

Sounds like still life
surely partly mystical
frozen in time, yes?

Obviously, theistic belief per se or the lack of it has nothing to do with innate intelligence but the denial of demonstrable fact when it contradicts one’s predetermined (and unreasoned) views is an act of willful ignorance. The greatest sin on this board.

People still have a right to commit that sin but they really cross a line when they try to cockblock children from learning the facts.

I’m really tired of the undue deference which is given to anti-evolutionist idiots in regards to public education. If school boards had any guts they would just declare outright that kids are going to be taught evolution as fact and that’s the end of it. There are no alternate scientific theories. Creation stories would be an amusing topic for a comparative religion or mythology class but they have no place in science and it’s time we stop pretending that these people deserve any attention at all.

I think it should even be mandated that homeschooling parents teach their kids the basics of evolutionary theory and that the kids should have to be tested on this knowledge. To do otherwise would be akin to letting parents decide that they want to teach their kids that Columbo discovered America or that Kansas is in China or that 2+2=196.

Kids have a fundamental right to a sound education and their ignorant-ass parents don’t have a right to deprive them of that.

I want to exchange, too. Email sent.

Wrong thread!

Sigh. Fucking lies spread like wildfire, while decent men and truth stay quiet.

You know, that is a club to which I could be adjoined. What’s in it for me? I mean like do the chicks dig those one percenters or what?

Actually, he said that the bible says that the sun goes around the earth.

1 Chronicles 16:30, Psalms 19:4-6, and Psalms 75:3.

There are plenty more versus in the bible that refer to the four corners of the earth, the earth’s foundations, and to the earth being flat and stationary in general.

blink blink I’m amazed. Even though I’ve never done any animation in my life, I actually know what everything you’re talking about means! True, I couldn’t answer the questions, but it all makes sense to me. I, well, just had to share that, I guess.
(shaking my head at what I’ve picked up from my husband, a 3DSMax guy who subscribes to magazines like Post, without even paying much attention and realizing it. It’s all those great Pixar movies too.)

Nods to the OP, right on…backs away, out of the Pit.

We have a painful evangelic church getting media time of late, however NZ education, money, marriage licences etc have no reference to god - we very clearly have a separation of church and state. The British ‘religious tolerance’ classes are something I would love to have introduced - not only for the theist haters, but also the aforementioned types who can show little tolerance for other religions.
‘Destiny Church’ is especially popular with Maori people (amongst others), who are over represented in prison, on welfare, in poverty etc etc. My point is that, after watching ‘Destiny Church’ do its thing, I’m thinking that religion like this does have a place - it helps to give those who have had shitty upbringings with little to no moral guidance, to develop a moral code and to give them role models for bringing up their own children. It keeps more people off the crime cycle, making my life better.

Bigot is defined as: One who is intolerant, especially in matters of religion, race or politics. Ghanima was stating his intolerance to any religion - hence, Bigot.

Nothing is wrong with it. He can bitch about it all he wants. He just joined the Bigot Club in doing so, that’s all.

I pray for the strength and wisdom to see through my problems, not to be magically saved from them. It does come back to me. As for the Zeus believer, I can only say he believes what he believes or NOT believes.

Did I do such a thing?

Both…Science and prayer.
I would plant seeds and pray for a successful crop to make bread with.
Sidenote: Eve recommended a book earlier in the thread and I read the excerpts from it whereas I am labeled as a “Moderate Religious”, and therefore I am considered (by Mr. Harris) as the bane of this world, even worse the Fundementalists, because I mix science and religion together to find a “compromise” in my beliefs, therefore I am both ignorant and an unbeliever in the “Biblical Truth”. Whatever. I wish him well, too.