DescentBB

snoopy

I would go one step further than Ferno and say that there is no magical point at which a fetus becomes a person and there never will be, and so I can't imagine a realistic scenario where we somehow discover that our law was off by a week and thus we had unknowingly been killing millions of people n...

snoopy

Just as we must not allow political correctness to keep us from speaking truth, we must not use political correctness as an excuse to use mean and divisive language. The sickness that plagues our government, politics and the media, popular culture, and our own day-to-day interactions with each othe...

snoopy

Yeah, the immigration thing really bothers me. On one hand: I think a lot of these people should be (have been) let in - they fill a valid place in our country, and I think we grew to greatness through immigrants. At the same time, I hate the way that condoning illegal immigration just tosses the la...

snoopy

A better criticism is that she puts on the front of being part of and for the middle class in her speeches, then flies around in a private jet like the out-of-touch aristocrat she really is. This, for me too. I see this in the same vein as the personal hosting of E-mails thing: She considers hersel...

snoopy

I don't think there's any reason to scientifically presuppose naturalism. It's just that supernatural claims that people have made thus far are either found to be false or of the variety that are not easily scientifically reproducible, i.e., God works in mysterious ways. God could work in nonmyster...

snoopy

adaptive behavior very much includes reasoning, abilty to reason definitely affects other aspects of behavior. Now, I have lost any semblance of what you are trying to posit, as these arguments are based on things that just aren't true. Mostly I'm explaining Plantinga's argument. I see your asserti...

snoopy

So you're saying natural selection doesn't favor correct problem solving or the ability to learn previously solved problems? It's all a coin flip without divine intervention? The argument is that natural selection only favours adaptive behaviour, and that the belief (or reasoning ) aspect of the ne...

snoopy

My first response: "Cool!"

My second response: This will give all of the paranoid people out there fodder. I bet there are ways to regulate something like this (I.E. it's a weapon, not a toy) - and the issue to me isn't the flying, it's the gun.

snoopy

Whether you believe the Bible or not…Jesus was an actual historical figure. (in fact there were many “messiahs” around at the time) Which sort of automatically disqualifies anything else the guy has to say on the matter. IMHO really? Proof of same? I've never seen anything beyond anecdotal evidence...

snoopy

For what it's worth: I think the biggest weakness in his argument is in his claim that there isn't a correlation between true belief and adaptive behaviour. If you could demonstrate that the two do correlate, then evolutionary processes would have selected for true beliefs as a piggyback to the sele...

snoopy

Slick: 1. Naturalism - the author's definition would be naturalism as materialism - so the belief that all that exists is material in nature, and nothing exists that is immaterial in nature. This generally leads to viewing cognition and beliefs as neural structures. 2. His focus on the randomness of...

snoopy

I just finished a book that I figured would spark (maybe) interesting debate - so I thought I'd post a little summary of the book and see what ensured... The book: "Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism" by Alvin Plantinga. ISBN 978-0199812097 First, Plantinga d...

snoopy

Let's put it this way, the data on that site is not very useful in making (or refuting) the claim that storms are/aren't getting worse. That's why it's on a corporate weather site which is trying to sell you stuff. It's not where you go for good data. This we can agree on. The data they present is ...

snoopy

As far as I'm concerned: I'd be happy if the Confederate flag stuck around in exactly the same way that the Nazi flag is still around... As a symbol of the atrocities that hateful people are capable of.

That may be insensitive to the nuances of the history of the flag, but that's how I feel about it.

snoopy

Actually, the issues with your Philly schools is lack of funding and lack of parental involvement(remember, I lived there for a few years, so I saw the issues). Are you suggesting that you can take one of the kids out of that school and have him/her homeschooled by their parent and do BETTER? I sug...

snoopy

snoopys link shows no increase in severity. Try pointing out where it does. #1: The chart is missing tons data. It only shows from 1970-201. Why not show all the data? You could just as easily say "from 1997-2001 ACE dropped over 300%." It's careless. Climate change happens on a geologic ...

snoopy

****. You said homeschooling is a haven for religious whack jobs. yes, I did, and I meant that. Sorry if it offends you, but that is the local reality here. *Maybe* it's a local reality for you... but it's a big over step to apply that nationally. I dare you to tell me that the Philly public school...

snoopy

Um vision, your charts don't prove your point.

try looking at this:
ACE, Global, 1970-2015

(Note: I'm not really invested in an argument about storm quantity/severity, I'm just not a fan of people pointing to inkblots and insisting that they say what they want them to.)

snoopy

I understand now, Vander. I guess I've been approaching the whole conversion (and watching the video) through the assumption that a person's essence doesn't really change - and that the only changes in scope are those of trained behaviour. Through that lens, if people are in their essence bad, then ...

snoopy

The correlation looks pretty impressive as presented. As an engineer, I have a hard time believing that the correlation can really be that good, especially considering the size of their error bounds... I'd like to see the math & data behind their plots. But, that's really an aside. I'm not skept...

snoopy

First, the mis-diagnosis part is a problem and should be upheld.

The defamation part: I don't know. I guess surgery blurs the lines between private speech and public speech - but I don't think their trash talking is particularly criminal, it's just in poor taste.

snoopy

I can see where you're coming from snoopy, but I guess what I'm left wondering is why so many people are perfectly willing to lend credence to expert opinions in certain cases, but then completely reject them in others. To cite a recent personal example, when my mechanic tells me that my brake roto...

snoopy

"Does this guy have the background/credentials to know what he's talking about? Is there any obvious motivation or agenda that could be influencing his views? What do other reputable people in the same field think about him?" From where I'm sitting, it's like you've just decided to go aga...

snoopy

If people are not born "good," but rather created as the video suggests, why does it also suggest that people with this perception don't look to "outside forces" when viewing criminal outcome? If you hypothesize that people have an internal natural bent toward doing "bad&qu...

snoopy

I'm failing to understand why this video is such a farce... The guy might not be completely correct, but I'm really failing to see how the video is simply "anti-intellectual" or "stupid." I, for one, don't require intellectual statements to be unbiased. But if you don't believe p...

snoopy

(But srsly, LEGO GLaDOS? Waaaaaant.) link I'd consider myself an AFOL... and I'm not really too sold on this move. My guess is that the market for this type of thing is already fairly full, and I'm not convinced that the portal spin on the interchangeable character games will have staying power. My...

snoopy

But, let's be honest, part of the problem is symptomatic of the fact that most Americans(not all, mind you, but most)have very little sense of responsibility. We want what we want, but don't want to pay for it. You can see the result from personal credit card debt all the way up to the way the Fede...

snoopy

Sometimes I’m happy I’ve got the gun on me, like when my car stranded me at night and I had to walk to a gas station in the dark (clutch line broke open). . why on Earth would that make you happy? Or, to address the converse, why should someone be unhappy to walk to the gas station in the dark with...

snoopy

Actually, the opposite is happening. Great wars are less likely to happen, given the trend over the last several thousand years. Climate change might change that, which is why it is considered a national security threat. We will have to wait and see. What would you say has changed to make it so? He...

snoopy

CDN_Merlin wrote:I catch texters all the time. You know them because they fail to hit the gas when the light turns green.

I do that all the time... but not because I'm texting. Usually it's talking to my wife or the kids (in the car with me) that distracts me at the red light.

snoopy

One more comment: ITAR deals with the export of items/information. So... if you want to discuss your squirrel gun on the internet, or in some sort of public forum, be careful. If you're having a private conversation with another American citizen then ITAR doesn't apply because you're not passing the...

snoopy

I'm familiar with ITAR and can say that the restrictions are looser than they used to be in many respects. I'm no lawyer (or necessarily all that well trained on the latest and greatest nuances) but info that's published into the public domain is by definition non-ITAR, so if your squirrel gun has p...

snoopy

This author might shed some light on your question snoopy. I think I'll get a copy myself and read it through. I'm also curious how Christianity, which bases itself on humanity, sold it's soul to join with capitalism and mold our nation into what people now call a Christian Nation, even though it's...

snoopy

2 Republicans in that state, catering to the powerful industry lobbying group, WMC, or the Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce group, want to eliminate the old requirement that says Wisconsin businesses have to give workers one day off for every seven. There's some irony there, in my opinion, in t...

snoopy

Spidey wrote:Hate is good…as long as you only hate the people you think do all of the hating.

Yourself excluded, of course.

snoopy

You're forgetting that once a person actually starts the transition, not just claim they are the opposite gender, taking hormones will change the body to make that individual physically more like the gender they feel like, so any sports competition would be fair as long as there has been time for t...

snoopy

Why not just eliminate gender-separated bathrooms in general? [It avoids the question of how gender is defined.] This reminds me a little bit of the person who was suing some sort of cross-fit games because she self-identified as female but they made her compete with the men since here genes were ma...

snoopy

You could expand the dig to all government positions with a high degree of validity... I'm not convinced that the problem is entirely narcissism. (It's definitely not lack of intelligence on the high-profile government official's part - they have to play the game with an amazing degree of precision....

snoopy

I agree, but rather than waste time and resources arguing about our **** social compromise I prefer to accept it and promote a different kind of solution. I firmly believe that by the end of this century the technology will exist to save a life from the time a woman first realizes she is pregnant. ...

snoopy

Snoopy, you are conflating the scientific and legal definitions of viability. I can't help you there. You are trying to cram one into another. The legal definitions are informed by science, but are not science themselves. None of that changes the fact that, as medical science increases, we should c...

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