Jonsa

for many many years I have been on a personal intellectual quest to understand and perhaps even acquire "faith". I am no closer to acquistion but know a lot more about the objects and sources of the abrahamic faiths. I would agree that the bible isn't for me, but knowledge of it is imperative in attempting to understand the actions, motivations, morals and political beliefs of the religious and their organizations. Maybe there is some merit to the notion of a God gene in which case, I can categorically state I don't have it.

I am having difficulty in actually understanding the Devil as the source of evil in mankind. I've actually read the bible passages pertaining to Ol Luci and I have concluded that I must have some kind of reading comprehension disorder because I can't get past the circular logic. I even have gone to Christian sites to read about scripture interpretation and I just can't make the leap from the words to the interpretations put on them by biblical "scholars". If I understand correctly, those of faith believe that Satan/Lucifer/etc was a cherub made perfect in God's image, but because Lucifer was so beautiful it went to is head and corrupted himself to the extent that he wanted to be God. Of course God would have none of that, so he threw out his once perfect creation, along with 30% of the other perfect creations and cast them into hell. And thus Lucifer began a war for the souls of mankind. And from this we have Satan spreading evil. Like evil is something you can catch. Now apparently because mankind has free will, he can choose to reject evil and if he doesn't voila he is corrupted and assigned to hell upon death. that sounds suspiciously like a threat to tow the line and/or get absolution before you kick the bucket or you're gonna burn in hell for all of eternity. Seems a tad harsh if your major sins consist of life long masturbation,stealing some candy from a baby, some pre-marital sex and saying G@DD@MN frequently. I hope I have that right. Therefore, I beleive that there is no "force of evil" that manifests itself in those of feeble free will. I don't beleive that evil exists as an external supernatural force luring humans to do bad things. I think human psychology in myriad ways is the source of people doing bad things. I'll even call those bad things evil - semantically meaning beyond the pale, but totally within an average humans capability if the right threat or psychological barrier is breached.

No threats against her, but they decided to cancel fearing for her safety because she gets criticized for what comes out of her mouth? I grant you that she illicits vitriolic responses and some of the attacks are incredibly unfair, but she chose to to be a national political figure. Maybe this is another WTF moment for her.

Firstly, taking philosophical thought experiments as "science" is plain wrong. Whilst there may be other hypotheses about the origins of the universe, they aren't accepted scientific theories. Obfuscation and Sophistry do not a true argument make. Secondly, you really should brush up on quantum physics as it has been demonstrated that somthing can come from nothing and actual observations have put to rest the philosophical proposition of first cause. EMAPHATICALLY. However that does not negate your position of a creator, merely destroys one of the cornerstones of your argument. Thirdly, on one hand you argue that humans cannot possibly become omniscient, then on the other you speculate and even attempt to apply logic and derive conclusions about an existence before our space/time universe existed. I guess you are a tad more evolved than the rest of us.

Ad hominem attacks contribute nothing to the topic at hand. I think we'd all like to see a little more maturity and reasonably intelligent discussion. I vehemently disagree with creationists, evolution deniers, bible literalists. I don't hate them and while I have little respect for their opinions, at least I respect their right to be wrong. OTOH, I DO HATE holocaust deniers, nazis and other bigots and do not respect their right to be wrong. I'm full of contradictions I guess.

Yes they do know. A big chunk of that change was for "security" at the dam we were building. Seems Karzai's brother runs the security outfit and when told to piss off as he wasn't doing anything, seems all kinds of trouble ensued with workers and trucks and banditry etc. Soon as he was hired back, voila peace and light. Oldest gangster trick in the book, eh?

I'm not surprised. I believe it was Eisenhower who became depressed when told that half of all americans had below average intelligence.

Considering that despite the optics, Egypt's strong men have all been military, military courts trump civil courts, the military top brass wallow in perks, and the bureaucrats have their jobs at the pleasure of the military. This niave notion that with the wave of a wand, the entire power status quo could be swept aside and replaced by "democracy" ignores realpolitik. The military will not allow the country to fall into chaos. The opposition is almost non-existent thanks to the repression of Mubarak et al. The idea that El Baradei could step into the power vacuum if Mubharak steps down is also pretty absurd. The guy screwed up his UN job and lets face it, the UN is where you go, not where you come from. And the army would NEVER let MB "seize" power like the Ayatollah did in Iran. The ONLY hope for democracy in Egypt is through transition supported of the military. Political opposition parties need time to form and clearly articulate their vision/platforms. Any number of pols and bureaucrats need to be "replaced" as do a bevy of judges and prosecutors. The wholesale trashing existing government is never a good idea. Iran is a great example and even in Iraq, firing all the baathists and disbanding the army was a GINORMOUS arrogant and ignorant mistake (hindsight is always 20/20).

Yes, something around 1/2 the families with kids have a stay at home parent. My "long gone" comment related to the apple pie, atomic age families of the fifties. You raise a valid point wrt the not benefiting those families where one of the parents stays home. Certainly I wouldn't want to see any program that would "punish" in/directly those families. Any program should have some type of means test to ensure that higher two income families would have to pay some or all of their own freight. My wife quit her career to stay home and raise our four kids. We sacrificed a great deal economically, but I think we all benefitted enormously from that decision. Fortunately, we were in a position to make it happen, too many other families are not.

Every scientist worth their salt will agree with you in regard to theories. As for knowledge, it depends on you definition. For instance, the knowledge that the earth revolves around the sun is categorical - it has to do with the SCIENCE of orbital mechanics and isn't subject to revision. I can see a world where religious fundamentalists might abandon such categorical knowledge in the interests of supporting their scriptural interpretations of the universe, but the knowledge will still be categorically correct. The theist has enormous problems in accomodating new knowledge when it contradicts their faith based interpretation of existence. Your denounciation of ToE is but one obvious example and perhaps a refresher on the tribulations of Galileo might be helpful to you. I agree that absolute knowlege (omniscience) is far beyond the intellectual and emotional capabilities of homo sapiens sapiens. But that doesn't stop us from imagining the attainment of such, and at least we have a proven process of inquiry, experimentation, rejection and proof in validating and applying the knowledge we acquire.

I agree that day care should be a provincial responsibility. I also beleive that it is to our collective benefit that safe responsible child care is available to any parent(s) that need it. Licensing should be mandatory and standards of care enforced. For those who beleive that the parents should raise their own kids, day care doesn't absolve them of the resposibility, and for those who lament the deterioration of the family unit, I can only say that the family unit is held together by its members. The classic Leave it to Beaver family of the 50's is long gone and thankfully nothing is going to bring it back. Of course I suppose there are a lot of men who long for the days when their women were totally dependent on them, kept the place clean, took care of the kids and had dinner ready when he got home - all this while wearing pearls with perfectly coifed hair. There are over a million single parent families in this country. then there are another couple of million families where both parents work full time - that's nearly 50% of all families with kids. You can be snide about why both parents work, but for many there is no choice. It just makes economic and social sense to provide these people with affordable quality daycare. I'm not sure of the best way to do it - that's for people with a lot more expertise than me in the field.

Only sorta kinda. The charter of rights and freedoms is certainly derivative since the americans claimed so many of them first, so long ago. And hey, we borrow a lot from our neighbours and vice versa. You can keep Celine.

Seems its self evident that there is a Creator. Guess I missed the evident part. Then there's the word "inalienable"??? Life - how many states have a death penalty? Liberty - how many people are in jail in the US? Pursuit of Happiness - I like pot, it makes me happy so why am I in jail? (thats rhetorical). those rights are certainly not inalienable. True, its a semantic argument, but somebody once told me that words are important.

The Israelis were far more organized than the arabs. They had a cadre of hardened war veterans and a unified command and control. They even outnumbered the arabs fighters. As to who attacked who, technically the arabs, but tell me the Israelis didn't know that their declaration of independence on the 14th was also a declaration of war with the Arabs. And the Israelis beat the snot out of the arab armies with the exception of the Jordanians who achieved their primary objectives of capturing the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Yes, of course, forget about the imperial French and British attempting to retain control of the canal. Nasty national aspirations of the Egyptians wot? You seem to have a rather simplistic view of the history of the region. The Israelis attacked first in this one, nothwithstanding the constant skirmishes and raids into each others territory since the armistice. Er, I was talking about the American's relationship with Israel, not the Israelis relationship with the torah and their land.

An unaswerable question since we cannot conceive of an existance outside of space/time. As this thread demonstrates "backtracking" by those of faith is almost impossible, since scientific evidence is not required to support their faith. I'm personally inclined to beleive in abiogenesis. However this also does not negate a "creator". It just created the universe thru an unknown process/mechanism that produced the big bang and thereby "created" all of the ingredients and conditions for life to begin. Kinda like a Cosmic seeding program. Granted it eliminates the human conceit of "in his own image" and all that twaddle, but its still compatible with a creator belief.

I assume you mean Ol' Al's cosmological constant? An embarasment that seems really hard to kill particularly with all the postulation surrounding Dark Matter/Energy. I wasn't aware of the specific ESA experiment but its yet another proof that the quantum universe is really really weird. It is amazing to me that on the macro scale Relativity does such a wonderful job and yet ain't worth the paper its printed on for planck's scale. Seems quantum mechanics throws a really big wrench in many religious arguments not the least of which is first cause. The LHC will really juice up the whole field. Unified field theory anyone?

Religious fanatics come in all different flavours. The ultra orthodox jews behave in much the same manner as ultra orthodox islamists. They demand political preference, are intolerant, believe that they are most favoured by their god, insist on the supremacy of their interpretation of religious law, beleive that God gave them all of historic palestine, consider the "palestinians" to be the intruders, and are smug in the knowledge that they are chosen. Which may explain why they are not well liked outside of their communities.

General relativity equations predict virutally every aspect of gravity EXCEPT at the quantum level, much to Einstien's chagrin. As an aside, despite being one of the most important and revolutionary scientific advancements in history, its complete breakdown at the quantum level hints at an even more profound explanation of space/time. Maybe FTL without a wormhole will actually be attainable - beam me up!.

Anyone who ridicules the theory of evolution by asserting that humans are descendant from monkeys or apes simply demonstrates their utter lack of knowledge and understanding.

Neither evolution nor the big bang theories preclude a supernatural creator. Big Bang does not deal with what came before it or what caused it because we remain completely ignorant of what could exist outside of space/time. Evolution does not negate the possibility of a "creator" of terrestrial life. It just negates the anthropomorphic conceit that Humans were made directly by a supernatural entity. Yet, instead of supporting our increasing understanding of our universe, our environment and ourselves, many people of faith devote their energies in lamely attempting to "disprove" science on the basis of an unwavering belief in a collection of myths written by and for people who were comparatively profoundly ignorant. That they should unquestioningly embrace such ignorance is a bit baffling.

A scientific theory is quite different than a philosophical theory. A scientific theory is inductive and based on observation, quantifiable data and a set of rules (e.g. laws of physics). It is testable through experimentation and has predictive value. God is philosophical theory dealing strictly with ideas and supernatural concepts. It does not require quantifiable data, does not need to conform to established rules, has no predictive value and cannot be tested through experimentation. In what is a testament to human nature, many people of faith reject particular scientific theory on the grounds that it does not conform to their philosophical beliefs. Since evolution and the big bang are scientific theories, they cannot be objected to or negated by philosophical theories, yet that is exactly what is happening in communities of "faith". Let not the facts nor the data nor the experimental results get in the way of ones religious beliefs based on faith.

You mean that Nasser blamed the Brotherhood for the attempt dont you? Er, No, it was the Islamic Jihad although there are some who beleive it was the Islamic Group. Both of those organizations are violent terrorist organizations and not associated with the brotherhood. Al Quaida hates the brotherhood and vice versa. True some AQ members were originally members of the brotherhood, but MB was a tad to non-violent for them. Yes they are globally active. Interestingly, MB in Syria is at odds with MB in Egypt, etc. This comes from the fact that it is a truly Islamic organization with a distributed (local) power architecture. I can't speak to them all, but many of those "fronts" are legitimate charitable and educational organizations. The MB in Egypt is "clandestine" only because its been banned since 48. As to its intentions, they are clearly spelled out in their various publications. They want to see the Islamic version of Judgement Day come to pass. They are just as loony as any other religious zealots. You may not like Islamic orthodoxy, but its not better or worse than Christian, Jewish, or Hindi orthodoxy. As to them being a theat to the established world order, I suppose they are. After all, the mid east (in particular) is saddled with dictators and riddled with corruption. I don't fear the Brotherhood as much as I fear the Saudis. It is Saudi Wahabism that AQ and the its various fellow terrorist thugs believe in. And they get much of their loot from the Saudis as well.

Yes, I forgot that the US was advocating diplomatic resolution. Every Canadian knows about Pearson and peacekeeping. Yes, it is to be expected. One continually hopes for "enlightened" self interest to take hold, but unfortunately most nations are entirely too parochial to understand the other guy.

The "special relationship" started with the collective guilt over what happened to the jews in WW2. It was further strengthened when the Arabs got really pissed with the US over their immediate recognition of Israel upon beating the snot outta the the collective arab armies (jordanians excepted) in the war of independence. It was further strengthened in 56 when Nasser closed the Suez and the British, French and US "encouraged" Israel to beat the snot outta the Egyptians once again. Meanwhile, back at the ranch Nasser, licking his wounds cozied up to the Ruskies, further strenghtening the US ties. Etc. Etc. Etc. couple the political machinations with the fact that evangelical americans NEED to have the jews in Israel. It says so in their book. I certainly don't think that the relationship has much to do with the fact that Israel is the only democracy in the middle east. American foreign policy has always been concerned with their own self interests (economic, political, military), hence the litany of dictatorships it has and still does support. Listen to the talking heads of american media as they lament the support of Mubarak for the last 30 years. And as for the side play about palestinians right to self determination. I beleive they have the right. Now if only they could get their collective heads outta their butts and started behaving like adults and focus on BUILDING for the future instead of wallowing in hatreds of the past, they might stand a chance of exercising that right. As it is right now, regardless of their rights, given their monotonouosly repeated vows to liberate all of historic palestine, their chances are about nil. There isn't a rational person in the world who would let somebody who has REPEATEDLY demonstrated their fanatic desire to kill them and their families to roam free in the next yard over.