Crap Throwing Monkey

"Test" does not mean "set up and run an experiment". "Test" means "construct a theory, make observations related to that theory, see how well the theory explains the observations." Often, those observations are made in the context of a planned experiment (and the best theories are those that are confirmed by a planned experiment)...but not always. No one's built a star before, either, but we know they run by nuclear fusion through observation. As for calling it a "theory"...everything's a theory. A "theory" is a set of rules that to some degree explain how the world works. Some theories are better than others (e.g. Newtonian gravity is not as good a theory as General Relativity...because Relativity has been tested and shown to explain far more features of the universe far more accurately than Newtonian theory...even though Newtonian theory can be tested in the lab and most of General Relativity can only be tested through observation of the natural world.) That goes for every theory you might think up...global warming, evolution, genetics, even the idea that the desk in front of me is solid is nothing more than a theory (though a damned good one, considering my keyboard hasn't fallen through it. Still, at some scales, that theory breaks down.) Fundamentally, the argument of "God vs. science" isn't an argument about God or science. It's a meaningless debate between a bunch of yahoos running around jabbering at each other in total ignorance of what the nature of both "God" and "science" actually are. (The Big Bang, by the way, is a pretty good theory...but with a few major holes, not the least of which is its inability to predict anything before a certain time. It's a theory that asks one to accept on faith that a certain undefined condition existed at a certain time...which is bad science. But at some point, someone will either modify the theory to explain that unknown, or come up with a better one. That's science.)

I haven't read the whole thread, nor will I. I've never particularly liked the show...but this season I find 1) I'm forced to watch it with the wife, and 2) it's intolerable. Last night, she actually said "How come no one ever goes to the bathroom on this show?" I could only respond "You mean that's the biggest problem you have with this show?"

Did you see him confuse "fiction" and "non-fiction" in the 24 thread on the other board?

Except that they've pulled off three or four major operations in a 20-hour period by now (the train, kidnapping the Secretary of Defense, the nuclear reactors, shooting down Air Force 1, stealing a nuke...okay, five major ops). For anyone else on the planet, that's impossible...but not for 24's "accurately" portrayed "Super Terrorists".

Yeah...good thing nature isn't violent. All those carnivorous predators actually shop at the local Safeway for their meat. You don't want your kids to see Star Wars? Fine... (my mother wouldn't let me when I was young, because "Darth Vader is scary". Of course, my mother's also a f'in idjimit..) But don't try to sell some rooster and bull story about it being more violent than nature programs...

How much do you want to bet he's already pulled a Ricky Williams and blown the $10M on stupid crap and couldn't pay it back if they ask...

That doesn't prove the existence of God. That proves the existence of beer. Not that that's a bad thing, mind you... And what if you don't believe in Benjamin Franklin?

Carl Sagan could...but he's dead. Basically, the "Big Bang" is a testable theory, in that you can use it to make conjectures, make observations on said conjectures, and see if the results of your observations match what the theory predicts. Theorizing a supreme being, however, is inherently untestable, as omniscience and omnipotence forbids nothing, and thus every observation can be whitewashed via the simple expression "God's will". The nature of science is empirical, the nature of belief in a supreme being is non-empirical by definition (since, after all, that's what "belief" means). Carl Sagan was a consummate empiricist, and as such would not accept the hypothesis of a supreme being simply because it's an untestable hypothesis. And I'm not saying either position is right or wrong (though it should be clear where my sympathies lean)...I'm just saying it is how it is: there's as little room for faith in science (good science, at least), as there is for empiricism in religion.

Do you go to the zoo, sit in the monkey house, and mock the African Greens in your spare time? You know what the passers-by say when you do? "Why's he arguing with the monkeys...?"

The difference between you and me being...I "impersonate".

www.extremeskins.com It's one of their Bang cartoons. Those 'toons alone are worth the time it takes to register for the site...

He used to work at the Wegmans on Sheridan Drive in Amherst...until one day he was walking through the parking lot to the store, and got blindsided by a shopping cart...

Must be working hard, to be arguing with a crap throwing monkey on the web. What's your follow-up act, boxing with a rabbit?

http://www.connpost.com/womanwise/ci_2679248 And Hulk Hogan "retired". And if I had a toddler, I'd find better uses for my time than spending it on the internet correcting a crap throwing monkey.

Deference? Here? You sure you're on the right board?

"I'm an injured !@#$in' soldier!"

Well...for starters, get a BIG car...

Oh, I don't know that that's REALLY necessary. But thank you anyway...

Maybe. I don't know. I'm just too upset and depressed to think about it. I haven't cried for a long time, but Sesame Street got the best of me this morning. As a classic Sesame Street fan and collector, I have over 9 thousand tapes from 1969 to 2005. Everything, from Big Bird's first meeting with Snuffleupagus, all the old Bert and Ernie shows, Oscar the Grouch's first trash can, I mean I have them all and every dang muppet ever to hit the street, every customer of Mr. Hooper's Store to hit tv and some who have not!!!! I bet I have tapes that PBS or Children's Television Workshop dont have in their warehouses!! Tonight, I added my last tape and Im done collecting. I just watched the greatest muppet of all time eat his last cookie. Cookie Monster! I dont care if you hate Sesame Street or what, everyone here knows the name! He looked VERY hungry and had a great snack of chocolate chip cookies and milk. He even grabbed an oatmeal-raisin cookie from the cookie jar that had a huge picture of Cookie Monster on the side of it. After following him for the past 26 years, it just hit me that I'll never see Cookie Monster eat another cookie again and man does it suck. I started crying, I could not help it. My wife, who watches from time to time, got upset. Its like losing a hero. Hats off and God Bless the Cookie Monster!

Very much so. I distinctly heard the sound of one hand clapping when I read it...

Even Paul's letters to the Romans? I have an easier time imagining those written in Latin than in Greek...and it was those specifically I had in mind when I mentioned Latin. I could very well be inaccurate in this case (and I'm even willing to stipulate that you know more about it than I - which never happens )...and I know the care that was taken through the Middle Ages in copying over manuscripts (there is a reason Xerox's original trademark was a monk, after all). Still, "Russian telephone" is an unavoidable feature of human communication, and "remarkably few" changes are still changes. I had no intention of suggesting otherwise. I've read modern works translated to English from other languages that have had their meanings changed significantly by the interpreters' choice of rendering vocabulary. As you said...multiple different translations help (I mentioned the Tao Te Ching earlier...I've got two translations of that, three of Sun Tzu, two of Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo). Ultimately, though, one must somehow try to read it in the original language to derive the original meaning (as I'm still trying to do with the Koran - Arabic's an unholy B word-mother of a written language). But even so...that leads to situations where works go through multiple translations in multiple languages. I would not be the least bit surprised if Hebrew portions of the Bible were subsequently translated to Greek, then Latin, then English, which leads to a LOT of room for interpretation of vocabulary alone (for a non-religious example, the Greek agora has a slightly different meaning from the Latin forum has a markedly different meaning from the English "market place". I'm not aware of any particular verse in the Bible where that translation would take place...but hypothetically a parable of Jesus delivered in the agora or forum would have a significantly different context than in a "market place"). And even within languages...I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if the "modern" translations of the Bible I've seen weren't simply translations from the KJV into "modern" language...and despite being ostensibly the same language, they're practically different books.

In other words...God's like a circle if you take away every single concrete identifiable property of a circle. May as well say God's like a bowl of Jell-o...minus the water, gelatin, artificial colors and flavors, and the bowl.

I'm willing to be most versions are...the "modern" versions I've seen are hideous in that regard. And I remember a discussion I had with a minister at a bible church once who told me "You MUST take the Bible at its literal word! There is NO room for interpretation!" So, wise-ass that I am, I asked him "You mean you read it in the original Greek, Latin, and Hebrew then?" To his credit, he was smart enough to know that translation IS interpretation...to his detriment, he said some very un-Godly things in response. But by definition, the Bible's been changed throughout the ages, if only through multiple games of "Russian telephone". Accepting one non-original version over another at this point strikes me as...well, fallacious, really, though I will stipulate that some fallacies are more fallacious than others. True enough...IF they base their religious beliefs on said bible. I've read both the Tao Te Ching and the Koran...neither of which makes me a Buddhist or a Muslim...

Why not? Seriously...it's the one I read, albiet my preference is for its literary rather than spiritual qualities. The "new" editions, where they try to translate it into every modern English argot short of ebonics, bug the living hell out of me...

I've just now decided to be an athiest...just to piss you off.