Shwa

Except for the Cadman thing. But of course that was before 2006. I must agree that this government has been relatively free from brutish scandal so far, but I think it is too early to assign that to some functioning tightwad WASP ethic. It could be a function of time: Harper has had a minority government for 4 years now, while the Liberals had 13 years to screw up, and the PC's had some 9 years before them. And both those parties had free reign majorities to work with back in the day. It could be a function of tight control on the membership, the senior bureaucracy or information sources to the press; or clever methods of screwing that {so far} have avoided detection. Or there are a pile of minor eff-ups that really don't make the news because, you know, the Liberals set the bar pretty high. If nothing else, Prime Minister Harper is an astute politician who is looking to keep power through a minority government period so the appearance of honesty is a good thing for him. But give it time since appearance isn't everything.

Oh I wouldn't argue that Apidium is not monkey-like any more than I would argue that Homo Habilis wasn't human-like. But in everyday vernacular I wouldn't call H. Habilis a 'human' any more than I would call Apidium a 'monkey.' And, of course, appearances aren't everything especially when we deal with artists rendition of fossils. Use the artistic reditions of dinosaurs over the past 100 years as an example. I always thought of the Linnaean taxonomy as an adaptable structure not an end result, so it will always be flawed until the latest information is integrated. So it could be one day, once more detailed - painfully detailed - research is completed on Apidium, that the taxonomy is changed to reflect a new understanding. In the meantime, I think it would be more correct to say primate ancestor.

Regardless of any tests you may wish to apply, I was merely pointing out that you are claiming your conception of God to be 'supremer' than his.

Good posts! Now, I have also heard the difference expressed as: Atheists - can rationally prove that God does not exist; Agnostics - cannot rationally prove that Goes does or does not exist; Theist - can rationally prove that God exists. I have also heard the difference between belief and faith is that belief is holding something to be true because of evidence, whereas faith is a belief without evidence. So, supposing the above is fairly accurate, is faith (in anything) irrational?

And yet here the numbers reflect an increase in spending in education in my local board. There could be several reasons for this - an overall increase, an increase at the expense of another board, an increase that is on some sort of circuit, etc. Without looking at the numbers, I believe it is an overall increase. The author makes some good historical points - I remember that time - but I am not sure if his conclusions are all that correct. A lot of things have changes since 1992. One of those things that has changed is information technology of course and that has had a profound impact on post secondary education in the past decade which would allow for large student-teacher ratios. I suppose the real test would be the numbers of graduate and post graduate degrees handed out over the past 15 years. Yes, my kid's debt would be lower 15 years ago, but so would his pay. So there is a relative effect to be considered too including the purchasing value of the dollar, inflation and so on...

That's not my position. The numbers of Christians being 'targeted' because they were Christian is likely a very small percentage of the total deaths compared to Christians being targeted because they were of a certain nationality, a certain politic or some aspect other than their Christianity (unless you are talking about sect versus sect of course). Also, I believe the numbers will show that by far the most "Christians" killed in wars and conflicts were done in by other "Christians." You know English Protestants killing English & Irish Catholics (and visa versa) or German Christians killing English, French, Dutch, American, Canadian Christians and visa versa, or American Christians killing other American Christians, etc. That one was a doozer! If you wish to lock me into this position, please feel free.

Whoa, did you? You saw one citation from David Barret and you assumed this entire list was invalidated? LOL. Did you even read the 'commentary and context' page about Barret's figures or did you just make a snap judgement? The author of the page was giving you comparative numbers from several varied sources and then coming to conclusions about those number to arrive at his own. Is does give figures from M. Cherif Bassouni, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Milton Leitenberg, Rudolph J. Rummel There wasn't any running around, no desperation and it was a modicum of research on an night off. I get a sense that you are unable to counter those estimates with quality sources of your own? Here is a paper by Leitenberg who estimates the deaths from conflicts in the 20th century to be 136.5 to 148.5 millions. Now be careful - this was an occasional paper produced for the Peace Studies Program at Cornell so I am not sure if that will meet your test of validity. War death estimates 'should be tripled' - an interesting article from New Scientist (I hope that is OK) that suggest war death totals are underestimated. This article is based on a study from the British Medical Journal which is linked at the bottom of the page. Is the British Medical Journal a decent source for you? Here is the wiki article on WWI casualties and WWI casualties I know its a desperate running around on wiki, but they do cite some good sources, including Whites Twentieth Century Atlas. I could search EBSCO if you are not convinced yet, but I am thinking that most of any research documents will come up with similar figures.

That is interesting. Some people believe that God - or the evidence of God - is simply a matter of definition, such as Maple_Leafs182. Others, and I have heard this often, believe that a fundamental conception of God is present in everyone. What is interesting that you would write, "...such a being..." and then trample all over Maple_Leafs182 because his defintion does not synch up with yours or what you think a decent definition should be in order for you to consider it. Hmmmm...

Hmmmm. I am not so certain that it is that simple. For one, executive salaries aren't measured by numbers of executives, but in percentage of salary/bonus cost. For two, determining the differences between executive payouts means you are only comparing the differences between the salaries for employees in a like occupation in a like industry. (i.e. clerks in the insurance or pension industry) Even with your 100 employee example, (i.e. $43k X 100 = $4.3 M) the average CEO earnings in Canda is currently (as of this Jan 09 Sun article) is $10.4 M. That's a lot of clerks!

That's an interesting video, but I am not convinced and I think generally, the jury is still out. The presenter asserts that Apidium is the common ancestor to both monkeys and apes, which is fine, but I can't find anything creidble that positively classifies Apidium as a 'monkey.' It would sort of like be saying that australopithecine is human. But it does say that Apidium is a primate.

Hmmm... wouldn't it be better say that apes and monkeys evolved separately from a common simian ancestor?

I think the keyword here is "possible." Question: do you believe in God? Typical responses: Atheist - No. Agnostic - Dunno. Theist - Yes. I was thinking of taking a scratch poll here at work, but then it is tough to find atheists at Christmas time, the agnostics will just ignore me and I don't want to risk the chance of opening a door to an evangelical rant.

You'd have to take that up with him. Actually, he has claimed his definition of God. He didn't say anything about a supernatural being. The universe can be demonstrated as existant, so his God must also exist. Some people do pick tree or rocks. I suppose they want something tangible to believe in, since belief is generally easier than faith.

Ontario and my direct experience with the local board has been since 1995. So I did a little checking at the Ontario Ministry of Education for some historical data: School Board Projections (TOTAL STUDENT-FOCUSED FUNDING ALLOCATION) for our local board: The previous year figures are actuals in millions 98-99 - 381 99-00 - 392 00-01 - 411 01-02 - 422 02-03 - 449 03-04 - 475 04-05 - 504 05-06 - 528 06-07 - 550 07-08 - 584 08-09 - 611 09-10 - 629 So there are significant increases just for our board alone. Which would bear out with the size of the new hi-tech castle they built in the past 5 years. :angry: You might be able to view the same type historical funding statistics for BC here: K-12 Funding Allocation System

Do you have examples? I mean, I don't think there are any government executives that make millions like most large enterprise executives do. Certainly there are bonuses for government executives, but nothing near the bonuses for some companies.

Clarification - any of them will do. Or, if you don't understand the question: Do you believe in God/gods/supernatural deities? No, they are demonstrating to anyone. But the point is, if atheism is essentially 'like' the null hypothesis that requires a demonstration, then it is being demonstrated all the time according to the believers. For instance, Maple_Leafs182 demonstrates that God is the Universe, so God must be true if the Universe is.

Really? "pure" fantasy? Seems to be a popular one then: Deaths by Mass Unpleasantness: Estimated Totals for the Entire 20th Century That is, if you trust the source of the compilations and, of course, it only pertains to the 20th century which includes Asian figures. But I mean, the number is up there for one century's worth of mayhem. And the 19th century was no stroll in the buttercups either.

Ah the good old noosphere! Excellent. But where does that fit in with the logosphere or blogosphere? Oh, to be Jung again!

I can't speak for people, but I can speak for myself and I think that a consensus on meanings is very possible within the active participants of a particular discussion. Of course we might have a problem defining what an 'active participant' means...

But the hypothetical atheist still has to answer the hypothetical question: do you believe in God? There are millions of people who demonstrate daily that their claim of the existance of God is true. Null Hypothesis suggests that the question hasn't been considered. The point being is that we can philosophize, but it is a rare person indeed, in our society, who has not had the God-concept question in their lifetime. For instance, Maple_Leafs182 defines God as the Universe. I doubt even the most ardent atheist could argue that very well.

Hmmmm. Maybe not that high of a figure. It could be 180 million total over the past, say, 2000 years or so. Trouble is, it would likely be found that the majority of those 180 millions were killed by other Christians. Oops. Wouldn't that be a bummer if it were true?

So? You started a thread on a public Internet Forum; that doesn't give you 'ownership' rights to ruin it for others. (unless you are the mod of course. Are you a mod? No? Didn't think so.) So like I said earlier, I think you should knock off all your shenanigans right now before I get even more ticked off because that is no way to treat people and it isn't very nice at all.

AND Don't get your panties in a bunch fellas, I said 'common ground' if you had bothered to actually read what I wrote. Common ground as a common understanding of the meaning of a word/concept. Which is why I referenced three common, everyday acceptable dictionaries. I could have referenced 5 or 10 or 20, but I had time constraints. The point I was trying to make to our agnostic friend here, is that atheism and agnosticism - by defintion - do not refer to the same thing despite his ardent wishes that they do. Now, as for 'absence of belief" being significantly different from 'not believing' or 'having no belief' please, let's hear your arguments on this in context of our modern culture here.

First of all, there is a lack of precision as to what an atheist is. We can all go by your defintion (or Dawkins or whomever else) but that is not very economical. Thus, "people" generally turn to a dictionary to sort out the meaning of the word in the English language. Merriam-Webster - "one who believes that there is no deity" Cambridge - "someone who believes that God or gods do not exist" Oxford - "the belief that God does not exist." By the defintion of the word using the suffix "-ist" that indicates someone who adheres or advocates something, i.e. "believes" in something where "-ism" is adherence to a class of principles or doctrine of some sort ("believes" in them). So lets throw out what you think it means, because it is confusing and ridiculous. Let's go by defintions that have been commonly used for quite a bit of time and have a well defined meaning in the English language. This is called 'common ground.' (And while we are at it, lets get rid of this notion that atheism and agnosticism are the same thing because clearly they are not.) So if we put your beliefs within the context of the accepted language resources, what does it tell us? It tells us that you are agnostic. Now why do you resist that? I dunno. Nothing wrong with being agnostic and it keeps the door open for any further data about the existence or non-existence of God, gods, deities. In fact, agnosticism would seem to me to be more of a scientific view that atheism, or at least a lot more open minded. So blah, blah, blah having written all that, a question for you: Was Fred Nietzsche a believer, agnostic or atheist?

If you hold this to be true, then wouldn't that make it a tenet and therefore contradictory to you stating that "Atheism has no tenets...?" Furthermore, since "Atheism literally has as many different forms as people who claim to be Atheists" wouldn't that make an Atheist who follows atheistic tenets just as valid an athiest as you? That's agnosticism by the commonly accepted definition of the word. Heck even Pascal faced that question. But you did today. And I would wager you have on other days here on this forum or in your real life especially on days when your positive atheistic beliefs bump up against other's postive, but contrary, beliefs of God or religion. Doesn't sound like you are sure. Could you illustrate with another "all or nothing" proposition that "comes in degrees" please? + "as a whole" Is that a sign of a sweeping generali... nevermind. I am going for the tylenol now.