Gene Frenkle

Too bad this hasn't held up too well over the years.

As a side note, this used to be a really great thread.

Quite on-topic, Douglas Adams was a great Skeptic and Athiest... How many roads must a man walk down? What do you get if you multiply six by nine? Either way. Alternately: What percentage of Americans are completely retarded? Never mind, 42 is far too low.

Gotta love Sam Harris.

Yes, you should get your flu shot. If enough people get it it grants herd immunity to the population. If you do not, you are simply sponging off those who do. Correlation does not equal causation. Sometimes the shot is ineffective because of unanticipated mutation of the season's virus (see evolution) in combination with lack of herd immunity. For those who say 'the only times I got the shot, I got the flu' (a typical excuse), realize that although the flu shot does not guarantee immunity, it DOES NOT CAUSE THE FLU. You might also be falling victim to some confirmation bias, but I doubt many posters here would cop to that. A flu shot contains an inactivated vaccine made of killed virus. The injection is usually given in the arm. Because the viruses in the vaccine are killed (inactivated), the shot won't cause you to get the flu, but it will enable your body to develop the antibodies necessary to ward off influenza viruses. You may have a slight reaction to the shot, such as soreness at the injection site, mild muscle ache or fever. Reactions usually last one to two days and are more likely to occur in children who have never been exposed to flu virus. http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/flu-shots/ID00017 It doesn't hurt to do a quick Google search before believing every thought that pops into head, because as has been discussed here in many threads, some things are counterintuitive and your first instinct is probably not right when it comes to complex things. Except religion and the creation of the Universe of course. So get your damned flu shot morons. It can't hurt you because the virus is DEAD, you help out the population as a whole - especially those most at risk and you greatly decrease your chances of getting really sick. It might be time to pick a cause that's more worthwhile - I hear the Prez is turning the USA into a Socialist State and that he wasn't even born here!

Wow, you Scientologists and your buttrape!

I really like this conversation. I'm not going to disagree with you too much here, but I think your argument illustrates a point about human nature that helps the argument for religion being made up by humans. I would say that we are hard-wired to think this way - to invent excuses for violence and persecution, a byproduct of human evolution. It's easy for me to see where religion possibly comes from when viewed from that angle. Not all Christians are anti-Evolution. Intelligent Design is Creationism re-branded to fit into a science classroom. I'll assume you agree that Creationism is an extension of religion and is by definition supernatural. Science does not deal with supernatural, so Intelligent Design has no place in a science classroom. The Discovery Institute and organizations like it are being purposely deceptive and are attempting to teach our children bad science based on religion. I am very much against this. Their position is not defensive in this slightest. Within the scientific community there is absolutely no controversy about Evolution vs. Intelligent Design because, again, ID cannot be a scientific theory and Evolution has a mountain of hard evidence behind it. I would never say that I know just about anything for certain, making me agnostic. I would see the likelihood of any one modern (or ancient) religion getting it right as near zero. I can conceive of a god who started our Universe into motion and let it go from there. I do not think this god would have to have any supernatural power, would need to still exist, or would even have any influence at all over its creation. Anything more than that and I feel like I would only be deceiving myself. I do not think that one can make oneself believe in such things. I don't think anybody can say for certain whether or not free will is real or an illusion. It's certainly an interesting subject that leads to many interesting scenarios. I guess I'll say that if time is just a variable, a fourth dimension, then perhaps we are just moving along forward and backward through space and time. If you were able to treat reality like your DVR, would people appear to move through the same space as time rolls backward and forward? If they're confined to that position in space at a given time, do they really have free will? It's all very cool stuff and much more interesting than any alternative I've ever heard of.

Wow, you Catholics and your buttrape!

Of course the point flew right over your head because (quite ironically) you don't understand the term 'irrational'.

If you listen to the podcast (and I don't necessarily expect you to), you will find an experiment in which brain waves are monitored with very precise timing. It seems that the movement of your arm, for example, begins just slightly before you make the decision to move your arm. Very interesting stuff should you take the time to try to understand before responding.

And for all of you pop psychologists with nothing but your own intuition and "experience with atheists" to go on, please don't try to pigeonhole me as someone who had a bad experience or became disillusioned with the church. You don't know what motivates me. I grew up Catholic, attended 12 years of Catholic school and never had a bad experience with anyone in that system or in any other context pertaining to religion. I have a loving family, a good job and a very satisfying life to this point. Outside of family, friends, sports, etc... the only thing that really matters to me is truth. I consider myself a Skeptic and don't buy into the garbage that most people accept as fact without first applying critical thought. This is what led my to my current views on god and religion. The wars, bigotry and problems that religion has caused since it has been around has made me more than just agnostic. The scandals within the Catholic Church, especially the seeming predilection for priests to be pedophiles, has made it easy to abandon that entity. The Intelligent Design movement and its battle against Evolution has pushed me further toward being what some of you would consider a militant atheist. None of this really matters. My motivations or anyone else's motivations do not affect the truth about religion. You may not like me or what I think. You may want to say I'm a bigot or whatever, but that doesn't change anything at all in this conversation. The truth is that religion is, always was and always will be supernatural and irrational. This is a fact and nothing you can say about me or anything else will change that fact. This is not a disparaging remark. It is the truth.

Holy shite, I'm glad you brought this up! I was listening to the most amazing episode of Radiolab entitled "Is Free Will Really Free?". It brings into question the exact thing you're talking about and the possiblity that free will is just an illusion after all! Reality is sooooo much cooler that fantasy. Anyway give it a listen if you have the time: It's scary to think that choice might just be an illusion. Perhaps we are not so in control as we would like to be. In a conversation at the 92nd St Y, Malcolm Gladwell talks to Robert about the common sense of dissatisfaction felt by people required to justify a choice to others before they made it, and he brings up the unsettling idea of priming--that certain stimuli could predispose us toward certain choices or behaviors. Yale psychology professor John Bargh takes us a step further by describing an experiment where researcher Lawrence Williams was able to alter people's opinions without their knowledge using nothing but a simple cup of coffee. http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episode...segments/113310

Well, this thread is certainly taking a turn for the worse.

Thanks I think...

Feel free to be prejudiced against any group you like. No I wouldn't. I just think we should help anyone who can't (or even won't) help themselves. I think that in any system there will be a certain percentage of people who do not do well. Improve the system and you would have a lower percentage of such people. Those benefiting from such a system should take care of those who do not - it's a numbers game. There is not much of a difference in my mind between the welfare recipients you're talking about or the people I'm talking about. They both have severe shortcomings in my mind. I think we should help both groups but that doesn't mean I have to like them or what they represent.

I can't imagine how that tooth under my pillow got replaced with a quarter unless the tooth fairy did it!

The man in the sky makes much more sense. "I can't imagine how the Universe could have come to be without god" is called an Argument from Personal Incredulity, a commonly invoked logical fallacy. Who the hell are you and why should your ability or willingness to conceive of a notion preclude it from being real, especially when there is a great deal of evidence to support it? It's also funny that you reference magic in your post. Nothing about the Big Bang or what came after requires magic or magical thinking to get to where we are today. Religion, on the other hand, relies completely on magic and magical thinking.

I'm sure the criminals potentially stumbled upon in the backwoods of Kentucky were upstanding, highly educated and without mullets.

So the first thing that pops into your head is prison ass rape? What else is new...

Completely circumstantial, but that's what I'm going with as highly probable IMHO.

Oh man, I have a fan! I (obviously) make no secret of my dislike for rednecks and I really don't care what anyone thinks about it.

This is taken to another level. It's rhetoric-inspired murder.

Say whatever the hell you want. This lynching was perpetrated by filthy, low-class, ignorant back-woods rednecks and you're an asshat if you want to defend them.

Fckuing rednecks...

Yes.