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I certainly don't recall you ever quoting directly from any IPCC report... if you claim to have done so, it should be easy for you to either provide a MLW link reference to your claimed IPCC quotations or to simply restate your supposed/claimed IPCC quotes. As before, please provide an IPCC quotation reference that speaks to both a reduction in severity as well as a reduction in the frequency of hurricanes. . Lol, I love how you ignore 90% of my response and pretend it doesn't exist because it's convenient for you. Even the way you quote me is a misleading strawman. Please respond to what I wrote. Yep. For climate alarmists, the reasoning is: Increasing atmospheric CO2 warms the planet as it makes the atmosphere more opaque to blackbody radiation from the earth. -> Therefore we must implement significant CO2 emission mitigation policies to stop global warming. For a reasonable person, the reasoning should be: Increasing atmospheric CO2 warms the planet as it makes the atmosphere more opaque to blackbody radiation from the earth. IF the amount of warming from increasing CO2 concentrations is significant relative to climate change due to other causes IF increased CO2, global warming and the associated climate change have a net negative impact on humanity IF the costs of implementing mitigation policies out weight the net benefit of having lower CO2 levels so that mitigation is a better policy than the do nothing approach IF CO2 mitigation policies are shown to be a more cost effective solution than alternatives (such as increasing the earth's albedo using giant space mirrors or pumping sea-water into the atmosphere to increase cloud formation, such as reducing atmospheric CO2 by promoting algae growth by dispersing iron into the oceas or by replanting trees/forests, etc.) IF CO2 mitigation is shown to be a feasible global policy that can be successfully negotiated upon by all major CO2 producing nations (this includes nations run by people who believe in magic fairy tales and think the earth is 6000 years old) Then we can conclude that we must implement significant CO2 emission mitigation policies to stop global warming.

Waldo, in proper discussions people respond to what other people write. So if you want a proper discussion then either respond to my posts on page 29 (when you ran away from discussion) or concede that you were wrong. Though, I'm aware that you have a psychological issue against conceding even a single point to an opponent or admitting ever being wrong about anything, so you will probably just respond to this with another nonsense remark that it was justified to run away from the discussion. So your response to me saying that the vertical access starts at 280 ppm is to go to the end of the video where another graph starts at 175 ppm? Look, if the graph doesn't start at 0 ppm then it is misleading towards people that are bad at math/suck at graphs (I'm not one of these people but there are many out there). Furthermore, going back to 800,000 kya is again carefully chosen to maximize the perception of 'unnaturally' high CO2 levels as the past few million years have had extremely low temperatures and CO2 levels compared to the vast majority of the earth's history during which multi-cellular life has flourished. As I've stated many times, we should consider the entire period since the Cambrian explosion when looking at historic CO2 levels and temperatures. You are your strawman arguments. By 1970s as a baseline, I meant that climate alarmists will often pick various years from the 1970's as a baseline as this decade was cooler than temporally close decades and helps their alarmist arguments. Look, I just want to see the equations and theoretical models that explain how a reduction in global temperature gradient leads to an increase in either the resonance effect or the Rossby waves (which are btw 2 different phenomenon). The link you provided doesn't even contain the word Rossby; it talks about the resonance effects such as here: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/02/28/1222000110. Anyway, I have yet to see a scientific explanation as to how increasing atmospheric CO2 leads to more frequent & severe heat waves / cold waves. Not even the wikipedia entry on Rossby waves gives me any indication of evidence for your claims (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rossby_wave). This has nothing to do with Rossby waves or the pressure resonance effect. The study in the link talks about how global warming and loss of glaciers/sea ice leads to warmer summers in the northern hemisphere (duh).

Waldo, you gave up on page 29. If you want to discuss climate change again then stop hiding and respond to my earlier posts. vertical axis starts at 280 ppm and the data starts in the 1970s. Climate alarmists will always chose the 1970s as a base line (cause there was cooling before this period so it exaggerates the amount of global warming) or will use 1850s (cause it is the end of the mini-ice age). It would help your argument a lot if you didn't write gibberish. If you are referring to the resonance pressure effect for the mid latitudes of the northern hemisphere, you still have know responded to my request for you to provide me with a scientific theoretical model that explains why we should expect that the frequency of this resonance effect will increase with a decrease in the global temperature gradient (it would also be nice if I could see this theoretical model so that this effect can be quantified with a corresponding chance in atmospheric CO2 concentrations). I've provided citations earlier in this thread. You even provided citations that state this. More importantly, just providing random out-of-context statements from conclusions of scientific reports without explaining the scientific model used or the methodology isn't useful. Unlike you, I need to understand wtf the theoretical models are. With respect to reduction in hurricanes, it actually doesn't take much to understand why this would occur. Increased CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere increases the amount of black body radiation from the earth and sun that the atmosphere absorbs. This warms the atmosphere. Since the radiative greenhouse effect is a result of the atmosphere re-emitting some of that radiation back to the earth's surface (and not all of the additional energy absorbed by the atmosphere is re-emitted back to the earth's surface; some is re-emitted to outer space and some warms the atmosphere itself) the atmosphere must warm more than the earth's surface. Hurricane's act as heat engines that transfer heat from near the earth's surface towards the earth's upper atmosphere. A reduction in the temperature gradient between the earth's surface and the earth's upper atmosphere means that the efficiency of a hurricane and reduce the available workable energy of the hurricane. The result is less frequent hurricanes and less severe hurricanes. Meant lack of warming; sorry for the error.

Strawman argument. No one was making that claim.

True. Though there are non-religious ways to deal with loss. Huh? But I thought that you will be able to see those loved ones again when you go to the magical afterlife. Be realistic here, the level of sadness felt by people when loved ones die is hardly comparable to the level of sadness felt when a loved one doesn't die (but you might not see them for a while). Loved ones might move to another city, go to university, have to go off to war, have to go somewhere else as part of their job, etc. but it does not have the same emotional effect. In many cases you might feel overall happy if a loved one has to go away for a while (for example, a loved one gets into a really good university such as harvard and has to go away for a few years. But overall, you feel happy cause the pride/happiness you feel for the individual exceeds the fact that you will miss them). In the case of a person dying and going to the magical afterlife to have eternal bliss, surely this would be better for the individual than going to harvard or something, yet overall you would feel sad, not happy. The 'but I will miss them' argument doesn't seem sufficient in explaining the level of sadness people have when loved ones die, so I have to go with the 'religious people have doubt' argument. If you want to see how true religious people feel about loved ones dying then you should watch this video (it's a comedy skit about autism so it should cheer you up): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vb5rHthCXoA I do not understand the connection. Could you elaborate? I was unaware that Tel Aviv was considered the world capital of high technology. But I have no problem stating my arguments anywhere (unless the place I am located in does not allow free speech and I would be imprisoned or killed) as the merits of one's argument do not depend on where I am located. I disagree with the premise that jeudaism and islam have similar texts. The fact that Isreal and the rest of the Arab world have such different results suggests that religion does play a significant role in the technological progress of a society and counters your claim that religion has a neutral effect. Edit: I do admit that different religions have different effects on scientific progress and the advancement of society however. It creates structure sure, but in many cases it strongly muddles the distinction between right and wrong. I could point to countless religious texts that say that something is right (despite being completely morally wrong). One example is the penalty of death for apostasy in islam.

No societies were completely religious and no societies were completely non-religious. Furthermore, without census data for most of this period it is difficult to determine how religious some of these societies were. It is also different to distinguish between religious people and non-religious people that self identify as religious. This is actually a very interesting question that is worthy of its own thread. I'll give you a number of possibilities: - For most of the past, there was a lack of a scientific or non-religious explanation for various observable phenomena, and religious explanations filled this void. For example, before the theory of evolution, one could argue that deism & intelligent design was the best explanation of the origin of the species. - Religions generally advocate high birth rates, which allow them to out-populate the non-religious population after a few generations (even if it is to the detriment of society as a whole are results in over-population). Admittedly, there are/have been some religions that advocate low birth rates, but in the long run they cannot compete with religions that advocate high birth rates. Currently, despite the rapid growth of Atheism in developed countries recently, atheism is declining globally because the highly religious poor countries are breeding like rabbits. - Many religions advocate violence/hostility/persecution towards people of other beliefs or towards non-religious people, which makes society favorable towards religious people. For example, if you are born into a Muslim family and are living in a Muslim state that practices Sharia law (say any time in the past 1400 years) and you decide to convert to something else, then you will be given the death penalty. Even in less extreme cases, often people that decide to leave their religion are shunned by family, making them less likely to reproduce as they do not have family support. Edit: Also, often in the past the externalities associated with technological progress were not internalized and property rights/patents over discoveries did not exist. So religious people in a society benefited as much as non religious people in a society from new technologies that were developed more frequently by non-religious people on a per capita basis. Your claim that a religious person is about as likely to be a critical thinker as a non-religion has no supporting evidence, so please provide it. I could provide contrary evidence such as the fact that religious people are less likely to agree with the theory of evolution than non-religious people. If you want to argue that a very very small subset of religion does little or no harm towards critical thinking (such as unitarian universalism) then fine. Lol, research on the human soul. How does one 'research' something which does not exist?

Yeah cause it's not like Islamist ideology and Nazi ideology have any similarities or anything... That is not always true, especially for the west for the past few decades.

lol @ waldo, trying to justify the use of the misleading hockey stick graph and the use of 1979 as the baseline year (cause it's not like this year maximizes the perceived warming or anything).

The lack of warming in the past 13 years falls within natural climate variability and does not debunk the idea that increasing atmospheric CO2 will result in a long-term increase in temperatures. The absorption spectra of CO2 is more opaque to the black body radiation of the earth than it is to the back body radiation of the sun, which is why we have this warming effect. That said, the recent cooling has caused many scientists to rethink their modelling of the effects of CO2 and it has hurt the claims of the climate alarmists. This is basically correct, thought I think statement 2 is a bit too strong and understates our understanding of the Earth's climate. Lol, your making the climate alarmist claims look more reasonable (by many orders of magnitude). How is the amount of radioactive material released into the pacific ocean even remotely comparable to the size of the pacific ocean and the amount of radiation that occurs naturally due to naturally occurring radioactive isotopes and the small amount of radiation that penetrates to the earth's surface from space? You might as well be arguing the validity of homeopathy. Replanting of trees and increasing the plant biomass of the earth is important in solving the issue of CO2 emissions. Personally, preventing deforestation and increasing the earth's biomass to prevent excessive levels of CO2 concentrations seems like a far more feasible option than mitigation of CO2 emissions. Maybe one option is we create genetically modified plants that can grow in the earth's harshest conditions (say the Canadian Arctic or the Sahara desert) to forest these areas. There is 528x more O2 in the atmosphere than CO2. Furthermore, the amount of O2 in the atmosphere is primarily in equilibrium due to the tendency of greater levels of O2 to cause forest fires.

Lol, wat? What does this even mean? Could you elaborate? Never-mind the verses in the bible that command people to kill... (see video) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8roX4Y85E_4 In a discussion/debate it is usually a good idea to back up your claims with evidence/reasoning.

As for the video, I didn't like it because the singing hurt my ears, and the video was boring/predictable. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euler's_identity

Yes I am aware that the MB started out as a terrorist group and supported the nazis in WW2.

double post

Of course you disagree. Though I'm doubtful that you disagree because the evidence suggests you should disagree (but rather disagree because you want to believe in the converse). That's what religion does, it makes people think dogmatically and believe in what they want to believe rather than what the evidence suggests; contrary to scientific thinking. Anyway, if you want to provide evidence to prove/support the idea that religion does not slow technological progress then good luck with that. So your biggest counter argument is that some/most famous scientists during the renaissance were Christian? Lol The reason that the majority of the scientists during this time period were Christian is because they had no freakin choice. You might as well be arguing that Kim Jong Un is good for science because the majority of scientists in North Korea support Kim Jong Un. If people are born in a society where they are brainwashed by religion from a young age, are born in a society that has basically no discussion of atheism/heresy/other religions, can only become scientists through religious institutions, will not get funding unless they identify with a religion, etc., then what do you expect? After a millennium of Christian dominance of Europe and the persecution of infidels, scientific thinking finally started to occur. I don't see how that supports your conclusion. Not to mention that many of these so called Christians were essentially deists that denied the divinity of Christ. I doubt they would have been Christian if they had access at that time period to the theory of evolution. Speaking of Darwin, he got funding for his voyages and research through the Anglican church, because even in Darwin's time religion controlled essentially all aspects of life and people could not do science without the support of religion. Maybe a better way to look at things would be to look at the scientific contributions PER CAPITA of non-believers to Christians/Muslims/religious people, because the non-believers far out perform the believers. Religion wasn't a driving force, it controlled EVERYTHING. Public education, schools, universities, etc. could only be done if religious institutions allowed it. Meditation can be done without religion. Art and architecture can be done without religion. This isn't a good argument for religion. If I showed art that was inspired by murder or rape, does that make murder or rape good? Yeah, that is the point. It would be 1000 years more advanced. It does hinder critical thinking because the way religion determines truth is dogmatic and in opposition to scientific methodology. If you are arguing that a religious person needs to separate the physical world from the meta-physical then you have already excluded the vast majority of religions. If you want to argue that a very small subset of religions (such as Unitarian Universalism) aren't so bad and have little negative impact on critical thinking and reason then fine but I would like you to define this subset. Personally, I do not do recreational drugs and rarely do alcohol (certainly never do enough to get drunk). I do not like drugs but in comparison to religion, they are merely a temporary escape from reality rather than a permanent lie about reality. That said, I support the legalization of some drugs because I support individual choice and freedom. This comparison is silly.

Not a fan of the muslim brotherhood, but I'm skeptical that the military's decision was a good one. The muslim brotherhood may be islamists that want to implement global sharia law, but at least they are for the most part peaceful islamists (that want to make change through democratic political processes) rather than violent islamists (like al queda). The justification that the military gives for the ban on the muslim brotherhood isn't very good (they use a terrorist attack by an islamist group unaffiliated with the muslim brotherhood). Banning the muslim brotherhood will cause islamists to turn to violent means for their desires to implement global sharia law rather than more peaceful means. Edit: This might just be the military trying to re-implement their pre-Mubarrak regime.

So as long as the child doesn't remember then it is okay? If one performs female circumcision on a baby and the girl doesn't remember later in life is that okay? If one amputates a limb and the child remembers, is that okay? If one burns a religious symbol onto the child's skin such that they will have scar tissue that resembles this symbol for the rest of their lives, is it okay just because they won't remember? I have no problem with an individual over that age of 18 getting a circumcision by choice, but parents deciding that for their children is just wrong. Anyway, perhaps I skimmed the original post too quickly when I first posted and perhaps I was a bit too insensitive. I'll respond to another part of the original post. Your original post might not be structured as well as it could be to create a debatable topic, so am I correct in assuming that you wish to argue the validity of justifying religion on the grounds that it comforts people when loved ones die? Each death / funeral is unique and so how one should react when a loved one dies varies greatly depending on the situation and one's relationship with the deceased. I can understand why people will want to pretend to be religious when a loved one is dying or during the funeral, especially if the loved one is religious. Ex. I might act religious if my grandmother dies (because she is somewhat religious and it would comfort her) but would not act religious if my father dies (cause to me it would be disrespectful to the deceased to lie about what has happened). But that said, consider this: Why do people cry at funerals? Because they are sad. Why are they sad? Because a loved one has died and they have doubt about their religion (if they have any religious beliefs at all). If someone were a true believer and believed that the loved one has gone to the magical afterlife for eternal bliss then they would be happy for their loved one, but they are not. Given that death is sad and human suffering is sad, it would be best to avoid/reduce it, would it not? People today live longer, healthier and more interesting lives than they did say 1000 years ago, do they not? And if technology continues to progress perhaps one day human life expectancy will be basically infinite and human suffering will cease. This is where the faults of religion come in. Religion acts as a distraction towards human progress and slows our technological progress. It makes people focus on some magical afterlife rather than focus on their current life and try to improve their situation. It makes people focus on spirituality instead of the material. It slows scientific progress such as with Galileo or with banning stem cell research. It poisons the minds of young people by discouraging them from thinking critically/skeptically/scientifically. Sure religion may gives you comfort in the short run, but if it slows down the rate of technological progress then in the long run won't it increase suffering and sadness? If religion never existed then human society could easily be 1000 years more advanced today, which would mean that human life would be greatly extended, poverty would be greatly reduced, and there would be less human suffering & sadness. And this is why I view religion as ultimately immoral; because it ultimately results in in greater human suffering by reducing technological progress and human advance (which in the long run is far greater than comforting people when loved ones die). It is true that someone could make similar arguments about baseball or about movies (that they act as a distraction and slow the rate of progress), but there is a difference. Baseball, movies or religion can be considered as forms of entertainment that brighten people's lives (and therefore the reduction in human suffering in the short run can make up for the increase in human suffering in the long run due to the slowing of human progress). But the big difference between religion & baseball/movies is that religion fundamentally lies about the reality we live in and makes people think less critically about the universe. As a result, it has much larger implications on scientific thinking and on seeking the truth about the universe. Anyway, I hope that helps you understand the position of some atheists (though not all atheists agree with this). Sorry for your loss.

Which atheist in this thread has acted like a victim? Please provide evidence.

I know. People need to understand the true meaning of Christmas: commercialism. http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/why-yaron-brook-likes-christmas-consumerism-sorry-charlie-brown-1.2474906

True, but Mr. Abe went to honor the war dead and to vow to never wage war again, so South Korea and China are overreacting. It's unfortunate that shrine visits like this drive wedges between Japan and South Korea because they really need to work together to deal with the threat of North Korea, to deal with a growing nationalist China, and to establish their territorial waters (which China strongly disputes). One of the biggest issues with peace in East Asia is that all the countries strongly distort history and replace it with nationalism when teaching history in schools, to the point of absolute ridiculousness. Hey look! It's greater korea!

I want 3 minutes of my life back. That was awful.

One cannot take the story of Mohammed literally???? Good luck trying to justify this to a muslim. According to Islam, Mohammed is the final prophet of Allah and was given Allah's message by the angel Gabriel. The Quran is the collection of the teachings of the prophet Mohammed that were written down by Mohammed's friends/family/closest followers shortly after Mohammed's death and must be taken as the word of god in islam. Also, why do jews or muslims think that it is okay to mutilate the genitals of their children without the consent of the children?

True. There are atheist religions and theist religions. You can be an atheist and believe in non-sense such as ghosts, spirits, feng shui, astrology, climate alarmism and homeopathy. But atheism itself is not a religion.

North Korea is now using some of its citizens to post on random western online forums to change the view of North Korea in the west? Good luck with that. For your sake, I hope that eventually the North Korean regime will end and that North Korea will eventually be able to follow the path of economic development that South Korea took (going from one of the poorest countries to one of the richest countries in less than 50 years). I wish your country freedom & prosperity. 나는 북한 사람들이 불쌍하다

Christians that complain about people not celebrating Christmas correctly (i.e. that Christmas is about celebrating the birth of Christ) humor me considering that Christmas is essentially a variety of pagan holidays (Yule, Saturnalia, Mithras Day) that were stolen by the Christians and merged with St. Nickolas day (originally dec 6) and jesus' birthday (originally in the spring). Santa Claus was created by the Coca-cola company in the 1930's and is a merger of the norse god Odin and the byzantine saint Nickolas. Anyway, Happy Yuletide everyone! I had a yule log this year and it was delicious. Merry Xmas as well... I guess

If atheism is a religion, then not playing hockey is a sport. Or maybe the belief in nonsense fairy tales is problematic to society? Some people which to change society for the better and value truth. Some people also concerned when policy decisions are made by mentally deluded people that believe in childish fairy tales. Maybe a better question is why some theists get so uptight when atheists become more vocal about their beliefs or start to speak the truth? Perhaps these theists know deep down that their beliefs are nonsense fairy tales that are detrimental to society, but they do not wish to reject them due to a combination of fear of mortality as well as a strong emotional attachment to religion due to family members being religious.