metadigital

Actually, Dawkins propounds a almost perfect proof of the non-existence of God in his book The God Delusion ... so, for those that believe, faith is in spite of proof to the contrary.

Yeah, I think that the human element of DnD is almost completely forgotten -- or de-emphasized to such an extent -- such that computers fail to provide the same gaming experience and fans cannot understand why. The simple answer is that groups of people interacting in a fantasy setting is much more compelling (and relies far less on rules) than what they give it credit for.

Congrats on giving me a word to look up! I found an interesting site here. Also, I found the wikipedia article pretty funny, too:

A Windows CONFIG.SYS HIMEM command?

So ... you're the thinking person's president! No spin, no photo-ops, not even a photogenic candidate ... still, my suggestion was based on your sound economic credentials and commitment to the smallest practicable government footprint ... that don't change with a shave-and-a-haircut.

Astronomy is still a very young science (evidenced by the large percentage of innovation accomplished by the ranks of amateurs), and is handicapped by the sheer magnitude of the tasks involved ... for example, Charon (the twin dwarf planet of Pluto) was only discovered in 1976 ... and Pluto was only discovered (in 1920) because astronomers were looking for a huge planet to explain some gravitational perturbations in Uranus and Neptune (which turned out to be completely erroneous calculations, hence Pluto has a smaller mass than Mercury, Io or Titan and is more like a Trans-Neptunian Object asteroid than a non-gaseous planet). The sky is just so big that it is taking a long, long time to even begin to start mapping it. Though, the (visible) universe is so incomprehensibly large that it is almost certain that everything that can be possible IS out there, somewhere. Still, colliding galactic clusters is a pretty impressive event, I'll grant you. I quoted a section of the report because I am quite skeptical of "dark matter" and even moreso of "dark energy" ... I think that there must be better explanations than stretching the existing physics models beyond significant boundaries into unrecognisable parodies of what they were originally designed to explain.

... a Man with No Name ... You scored 11 Honor, 1 Justice, 9 Adventure, and 2 Individuality! You scored higher than 92% on Ninjinuity You scored higher than 1% on Knightlyness You scored higher than 90% on Cowboiosity You scored higher than 5% on Piratical Bent

Another nutter like you?

... And you never had a moment where, during a very heated argument (of course), you might have accidentally shot her with a 40" battleship gun and/or run her over (and reversed back) in a M1 Abrams? "

taks for President!

The game webpage locked up at only 46% when I tried to play the game.

Yeah, sorry about that. I was more angling for a comic entendre (you offing your ex-wife, making her an ex-person, so to speak), but you've gone and ruined my VERY HUMOROUS comment with the cold, hard glare of reality. No wonder your ex hates you! [/runs away from yet another attempt at humour in poor taste]

I agree. Nor should it mitigate the penalty. Remeber, we are talking about finger that pulls the trigger, the hand that wields the knife so to speak. One person deliberately taking the life of another. If Sand and I got into a bar fight and one of us kills the other with a punch by freak circumstance, that is not murder, it is Manslughter, a lesser crime where you cause a death but did not intend to kill. If during the bar fight one of us pulls a weapon and kills the other, that is murder. I do not want to hear any "crime of passion" excuse then. The moment a weapon is pulled, the whole ball game changes. I see you are not familiar with passion. I have an ex wife. I know. I am interested in your "ex"ness: how "ex" are we talking ..? It is irrelevant. A human being has free will. That means if that human being chooses to kill someone, either by planning the death or because of emotional stress, he or she is still making the conscience choice to kill a person. The enormity of research that contradicts your (as usual) simplistic response is overwhelming in scope.

No, I haven't. It sounds like alarmist nonsense; the population growth is more than likely to even out and balance with what the Earth can provide, and human technology is more than likely going to re-engage with sustainable practices in the very near future ... there was a news item this week on some guy's idea to create multi-storey farms in New York, for example (probably borrowing heavily from research done in the self-sufficient Biodome experiments). Possibly...but we would still be able to survive, and ultimately again thrive even if somethind did happen. Life...will go on... You didn't clarify extraneous terms such as "minimal levels of survivability" in your initial question, so I had to make a response to help clarify your question. As for "life", there have been five mass extinctions (generally agreed terminology) in the history of the planet so far, and one of them (the Permian-Triassic extinction event) killed 53% of marine families, 84% of marine genera, about 96% of all marine species and an estimated 70% of land species (including plants, insects, and vertebrate animals). Life wants to live.

No idea, never played anything he had anything to do with ... I've only seen one of his film-from-novel conversions (Hellraiser), and I haven't read any of his fiction, though the background info on the website seems pretty solid and not altogether uninteresting.

I want dirt.

I agree. Nor should it mitigate the penalty. Remeber, we are talking about finger that pulls the trigger, the hand that wields the knife so to speak. One person deliberately taking the life of another. If Sand and I got into a bar fight and one of us kills the other with a punch by freak circumstance, that is not murder, it is Manslughter, a lesser crime where you cause a death but did not intend to kill. If during the bar fight one of us pulls a weapon and kills the other, that is murder. I do not want to hear any "crime of passion" excuse then. The moment a weapon is pulled, the whole ball game changes. I see you are not familiar with passion.

The Break-up: surprisingly well written (acted, directed) and accomplished little (reverse-) romcom. I think, of all the Friends, Jennifer Aniston has crafted the best acting career; I can't fault any of her choices.

clickie

Dawkins uses an excellent analogy he calls "climbing Mount Improbable". Mount Improbable has a sheer cliff on one side, which is the phenomena that we wish to explain, such as the organ of sight (the eye), which seems almost impossibly difficult to imagine being created out of nothing (represented by the sheer cliff). On the other side of Mount Improbable is a steady, even gradient, whereby, rather than a leap of faith, we can progress slowly, by microscopic improvements, up the slope from ground level. This side represents natural selection, demonstrating how small random changes in this generation can build upon the cumulative best changes of the past, to create the bridge to the phenomena. Does that help?

what i am trying to say is that if you have faith in God its obviously proof enough for you. im talking more about beliefs which we dont need to go into The bible offers proof of only one thing, and that is not of creation. What if I told you I have read "a lot" of the bible? in that case maybe i ment that u need faith but faith isnt a scientifical fact so that answer wont work for you I've probably read more of the Bible than you have. like i said, you need faith to believe it but I do and theres no doubt in my mind about it. even if i cant prove it to you. like i said, as much as we try, this is for the most part a proofless topic. and im not just saying oh read the bible bc jesus loves you! when i havnt my self. because i have read it and i think whats important is that you can find a "theory" or whateve you want to call it and believe that that is the truth. i have and i dont have to spend so much time on doubts and i dont think all creationist fail to understand the scientific method. some do but then again im sure there are evolutionist that fail to understand. maybe creationist are blinded by there beliefs. but to say that all do is an absolute... No, you are making a false equivalence between REASON and religious belief. The BIG DIFFERENCE is that scientists base their beliefs on observable phenomena, rather than "divine revelation", so that (at any time, given sufficient cause) a scientist can and SHOULD change their mind according to the evidence (i.e. when the questions and methods become more precise to provide better answers), viz.:

Happy Toast?

Didn't see your post, but I'll address it now for you. 1. You are confusing natural selection with randomness again. Natural selection is a solution to the problem "why is the universe like it is", and a better one than "intelligent designer" or "random chance". Why? Because an intelligent designer simply creates a bigger, harder question, viz.: Where did the intelligent designer come from? Random chance is no better at describing how the universe became what we see, either, because (as Intelligent Designers are quick to point out) it is highly improbable that it would exist in its present form given nothing but randomness. Natural Selection is a method whereby complexity comes out of simplicity, thus solving the pre-nineteenth century conundrum of how something as complex as the universe could come to exist (previous to natural selection the only answer humans could think of was "from something more complex", hence a designer). 2. You are missing the very real and measurable impact that these factors are useful for the survival of humans. I think you are also assuming that there is a dualistic component (i.e. some sort of non-corporeal part) to said concepts, which is obviously not provable nor even necessary for their complete functioning. 3. Actually, the family construct is significant, and probably one of the major contributing factors to the (uniquely human?) symbolic brain. The need to track the reputation of social groups beyond simple relationships (like "can this person be trusted to help me raise children over 20 years"), through natural selection, brought about a complete restructuring of the human mind (versus our closest relatives, for example). (I read an article recently that led me to conjecture that the corvus species might share this symbolic representative brain.) 4. It's interesting that you quote reason, too, as it is generally cited as the enemy of faith. I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. Galileo Galilei