(V): not really

GTCharlie: What is socialism then.. what you think it is?

Tuesday: If all in science lived by dogma.. then would the world be still flat? The Earth still at the centre of the universe and this solar system? Should we go back to where scientists faced death when they challenged dogma??

There would be no Protestant religions, we'd still be all part of the RCC.

Anyway... It's part of the Torah.. and Judaism has no problem with Darwin, seeing as it's their religious text maybe some should just accept that.

"Creationism refers to the religious belief that humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe were created in some form by a supernatural being or beings, commonly a single deity. However the term is more commonly used to refer to religiously motivated rejection of certain biological processes, in particular evolution, as an explanation accounting for the history, diversity, and complexity of life on earth."

"Intelligent design is the assertion that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection. It is a modern form of the traditional teleological argument for the existence of God, but one which avoids specifying the nature or identity of the designer"

I prefer Darwin's evolution.  It paints a much better picture of God.  Can you imagine God sitting there and thinking?

"Now, let's see.  A little bit of this and a little bit of that and voilá!  Here is Yesinia pestis, the bubonic plague bacterium!  Now, let's see what this baby can do.  Ooops, 100 million people just died!"

"Let's see next.  I got this idea for a protozoan, let's call it Plasmodium falciparum.  If I just make it slightly so, mosquitoes can transmit to animals, people, etc.  Let's see what this thing can do.  Ooops, I just realized it will cause malaria.  It will infect 250 million and kill 1 million people each year!"

I prefer evolution.  God didn't sit around making and designing deadly diseases.  The American government might have accused Saddam of using anthrax as a weapon, but ultimately was it God who "designed" it?

No offense to those who believe in creationism and intelligent design but evolution sounds much better to me.  Did God design this?

I think the Wiccans are closer to the truth than any religion Ive studied yet, with the Buddhists a very close second.
getting back to V's arguement regarding the American constitution......""We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
pursuit of happiness is the part that makes this statement non-socialist.

Tuesday: did man create smallpox?

Snoopy: lol...yup and poison ivy too!!

Tuesday: The seven day thing comes from Egyptian knowledge of the world and of the need to plant in season. They worked out 365 days a year plus the week. And Moses was taught as an Egyptian.

"Judaism has no problem with Darwin or many other theories." of the Torah aka OT.. I believe and trust they are the experts.

"but it's a huge deception."

Why?

And btw... if Wisdom was the first of God's creations.. ie before the world was created, how long did that take? Ie the creation story as in one week does not fit with the knowledge we have of the universe, it's size and movement. It does not hold that it is not true as in God (the being God, not a old white bearded man) .. In fact from recent documentaries, the story of Genesis is more important and matches what we know of the physical and emotional world and how they interface.

And yes.. we are still learning. The science that was taught at school 20 years ago or more.. it's out of date.

Bwild: How? Are all socialists depressed??

Tuesday:

Footnotes:

1. Job 40:15 Possibly the hippopotamus or the elephant
2. Job 40:17 Possibly trunk
3. Job 40:24 Or by a water hole.

The footnotes can explain alot. Sailors use to say alot "there be monsters" but that was just a matter of not knowing what something is and being frightened of big things that could sink their ship.

(V): they are if they dont know what it means! lol

Bwild: Hey.. one word.. Vodka!!!!

here's the easiest
(V):

Socialism,like a lot of isms come in many shades of gray(not grey)

GTCharlie: And you point (as you say there are many 'isms') is about socialism.. or a certain one is??

Tuesday:

> No God didn't design that...man did. Fix it. He gave you a brain. :)

Like Snoopy said, it was God who made small pox, and for that matter ebola, HIV, hepatitis, etc. We as human being have to live with that truth. God made disease and death.

However, the point I was getting at is that we insist on putting human limitations on an infinite God. Some people believe that the only truth about God is in the Bible and nowhere else. It seems to me that if God is infinite, then why would all of his teaching be limited to the one book? Why not an infinite number of books? Why should God talk in one limited language, when he can talk in infinite languages and forms?

Science is God's language too. If evolution exists, it is because God made it too. The Bible is not the end all and be all of creation. If it is, then God seems very small to me, in fact, a few thousand pages small. The Bible was written for the level of understanding of the ancient Israelites. They were not scientists; they were nomadic shepherds. The Bible does not talk in modern scientific terms because its first audience would not have been able to understand it. Can you imagine what it would have been like if God came to the ancient Israelites and said:

"It occurred to me that life could be made up of self-replicating, evolving macromolecular structures called DNA and proteins. As those structures mutated and evolved, new living organisms would come into being over millions of years."

"Father, what do you mean?"

Genesis is written at the basic level of understanding of nomadic shepherds. As humanity has matured some of its understanding is greater, and so now God speaks another language, the language of science. In the future science will keep going and discover more and more things, but those people who truly believe in God will see in science not the denial of God's existence, but rather its affirmation.

Socialism is a matter of perspective. If somebody from the 19th century had seen the modern United States (or Europe or other countries), he would probably have thought that the country had become socialist.

"The government now has programs to help unemployed people when they lose their jobs. It pays for the education of millions. Poor people get something called Medicare. There are laws that restrict how people can invest money, buy and sell stock, carry out banking operations and how the financial system operates. There are laws that restrict how businesses operate so that workers and consumers are protected. Unions are legal and protected by law. There are laws that protect the environment. There are government agencies that enforce laws in just about every aspect of life. What happened to your country? You modern Americans have most of the things that communists and socialists preached back in my 19th century!"

Modern governments might think of themselves as anything but socialist, but in practice half of what they do came out of socialist and communist thinking.

Tuesday: no you missed the point others where making

Tuesday: The bible states in Genesis that things happened in an order, simple to complicated with mankind happening pretty recently.... Evolution says the same. It's not a denial of an almighty sPiRiT, just that it took time. As you said... time back then.. who knows.

As for Adam and Eve.. that was a fix up by God... it explains the difference between immortal and mortal.

At our current technology level a dilemma arises. When it comes to measuring things like length.. the more accurate we try and be the less accurate we can measure thanks to quantum mechanics...

If we take all the 'space' out of matter.. we can fit all the matter that makes up the human race into the space of a sugar cube.

Funny ol' world.

Crucial meeting

Its remit is to look into UK involvement in Iraq between 2001 and 2009, with the first few weeks focusing on policy in the build-up to the 2003 US-led invasion. On the third day of public hearings, Sir Christopher attacked the UK-backed process of weapons inspections in the run-up to the war, saying officials had been forced to scramble for a "smoking gun" while US troops gathered. But most attention focused on when he believed the decision to go to war had become inevitable.

Sir Christopher said the UK believed it was "pointless" to resist US plans for regime change in Iraq a full year before the invasion and speculated that the path to war was set at a meeting between the two leaders at President Bush's Texas ranch in April 2002.

Critics of the war maintain this was the moment that the prime minister pledged his support for toppling Saddam Hussein. Sir Christopher said no advisers were present for much of the meeting and therefore he could not be "entirely clear what degree of convergence was, if you like, signed in blood".

But he said there were "clues" in a speech given by Mr Blair the next day when he mentioned the possibility of regime change for the first time. "When I heard that speech, I thought that this represents a tightening of the UK-US alliance and a degree of convergence on the danger that Saddam Hussein presented," he told the inquiry. Sir Christopher, who left Washington in 2003, said Mr Blair was a "true believer in the wickedness of Saddam Hussein", his views pre-dating the election of the Bush administration.

"Sea-change"

Before 9/11 the US viewed Iraq as "a grumbling appendix", he said, but that policy was focused on supporting dissident groups and toughening sanctions rather than on military action. However, he said there had been a "sea-change" in attitudes after 9/11 which the British government had been forced to react to.

He said he had received "new" instructions in March 2002 - just weeks before the meeting between Mr Blair and President Bush - from Sir David Manning, the prime minister's foreign policy's adviser, about the UK's position over Iraq. Downing Street believed that "the fact that 9/11 had happened" meant it was "a complete waste of time" to say that the UK cannot support regime change, said Sir Christopher.

(V):

I wish these inquiries carried any real weight. Is there any real consequence for Tony Blair or George W. Bush? Or those who manufactured false intelligence? The truth that comes out of this will be a relative truth. There is no way of telling what influence oligarchic cliques like the Bilderberg Foundation or the Trilateral Commission had on the decision to attack Iraq. It also has no effect on private oil and pipeline companies that lobbyed and influenced both governments to attack Iraq and Afghanistan. Will anyone go to jail for war crimes out of this?

Übergeek 바둑이: This is just an inquiry to get the facts out. If at the end there is enough evidence to force some sort of court, then their will be one. Who and how... dunno. But the weight of public opinion over here by civilians, soldiers and their relatives is such that they want to know why we went to war.

Looks like it was just blood lust.. an easy victory for the US people to see..but a bad idea.

That 10 days before the war the UK intelligence knew pretty much Saddam was a wet paper bag in terms of military might and WMD capability is not good. We were led into this war on the basis Saddam could launch in 45 minutes WMD's (not on freeing the people of Iraq) ... Things will hit the fan.. but how much... that's another matter.

Artful Dodger:

You can rest assured that there are no ill effects next time you see some gas guzzler spewing smog into the atmosphere. I am sure all those car exhausts and industrial smoke stacks are good for humanity and for the planet. The fools who propose "flawed science" like global warming and holes in the ozone layer should give back the Nobel prizes they got, but then so should Barack Obama!

Artful Dodger:

> And BTW, this is the exact kind of dishonesty I'd expect from someone who doesn't care for where the facts lead.

Isn't that what people say about those "climate studies" produced by oil companies trying to prove that carbon dioxide emmissions are benign? Much of the opposition to global warming reminds me of the opposition that tobacco companies had when tobacco was found to be a carcinogen.

Most scientists out there are well aware that statistical inference based on long-term climatological data is open to interpretation. After reviewing that data it has been proven that global warming does not exist. The question is: is pollution good or bad? If carbon dioxide does not produce global warming, is it OK to release billions of tons of it into the atmosphere? To me it is not a matter of whether the statsitistical data can be interpreted one way or another, but whether pollutions is bad or not.

If pollution is bad, how do you decrease it? Capitalism has proven one thing: the only language capitalists understand is the language of money. The only way pollution is going to decrease is to make it count where it matters, and that is in the pockets of those who produce the pollution. Those companies that oppose pollution taxes do it for only and only one reason: they are too cheap to do their fair share. It is cheaper to pay somebody to discredit science than it is to pay taxes. The tobacco lobby proved that decades ago, and today we see a similar thing with CO2 emmissions.

Even if global warming does not exist, is it wrong to decrease pollution? And if the only way polluters are going to stop is by taxing them, then what should we do? What do you propose then? How do you decrease pollution? Just say to people "stop" and hope that they will out of the goodness of their own hearts? In capitalism people do things only out of the goodness of their own pocketbooks.

We can keep polluting as if nothing is wrong. It is our grandchildren who will have to deal with the increase in desertification in the planet. Then let's use a reinterpretation of statistical data to ignore the problem and let's pretend nothing is worng. As always, it will be the poor of the world who will pay the price, and the future generations will deal with the consequences.

Artful Dodger: in 2012 it wont matter much anyway.

Artful Dodger: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/science/projections/

"Climate projections

Because we can’t know the future for certain, our climate change scientists use computer-based climate models to project plausible scenarios, or projections, for coming centuries.

It is important to be aware that projections from climate models are always subject to uncertainty because of limitations on our knowledge of how the climate system works and on the computing resources available. Different climate models can give different projections."

**************************

Climategate and Iraqgate..... ???

Bwild: Is 2012 going to be another 1975 - Y2K thing?

Artful Dodger:
> But don't expect the government to do the job right. The government is incapable of such a task.

I think this is where the problem lies. When it came to pollution, western governments didn't even try to do a job in the first place. Smog in big cities and air pollution have been here since the start of the industrial revolution. 200 years later we are still trying to stop the problem and our governments have failed completely because they have put the profits of companies above clean air or environmental protection.

If the government is unable to tackle the problem, who should fix it then? Private industry? They are the ones who have no interest in reducing emmissions because doing so will cost them money.

I don't agree with universal carbon footprint taxation. I prefer a targetted taxation. Tax those industries that cause most of the pollution: Oil, natural gas, tar sands, utilities, car manufacturing, etc. Then give tax breaks to companies that adopt clean techonologies. Those that make no effort to change can keep paying more taxes until they realize that changing their production methods and their products will be more profitable in the long run. One thing is certain. There will be inflation because switching to new technologies will ultimately be paid for by consumers. Somewhere in this we have to find a balance because failing to act means that our grandchildren will deal with a dirty atmosphere and the environmental and human health problems that come with that.

(V): I think the aztecs my have a little more forsight than the computer geeks.
their clock is more acurate and they invented basketball!

Bwild: Mmmmm I better not go on about how polo balls use to be *cough* gathered!!

Artful Dodger: "So that puts everything into question." And not just about global warming, but almost everything that "scientific studies" report.Global warming might be real, and air pollution and destruction of rain forests and dumping pollutants in the water is obviously bad, but these jackasses have done real harm. Harm to all the legitimate causes. The end cause doesn't justify the means. Reminds me of Nixon and his boys

Artful Dodger: Really.... mmmmmm

95% of the raw data is available for scrutiny from a global climate website. That the sun can effect our weather is nothing new.. it's not a 'new' idea, I learnt about it 20 odd years ago at school. I've read about the 'leaked' data... and that it was taken out of context..

http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/2009/nov/homepagenews/CRUupdate
It's the university website.

That we have an impact on the world.. nothing new. I don't know if you know about the times before clean coal was only allowed to be burnt in London. Heavy fogs mixed with the fumes of coal fires could kill. We polluted the Thames river so much that swimming in it could be deadly.

So.. that 5% read the university website.

(V): http://www.soccer-fans-info.com/the-history-of-soccer.html

Bwildoh my Gawd....don't start him on soccer LOL...with a bit of luck he doesn;'t follow it haha...:

Bwild: Seen something like the old Chinese version in a old Jackie Chan film. Something like it has become popular these days as one of those street football skills.

Funny that the Chinese were making paper from 8000BC and didn't tell the rest of the world how!!

Heard an interesting fact the other day....

Since 1945 all produced steel is radioactive.. small level contamination from the nuclear bombs exploded, as steel production involves large amounts of air.

Any steel used in detecting radiation levels has to be gained from steel made before 1945, as such scuppered ships and U-boats from WWII which do not get categorised as war graves.

(V): Hey, what about the police who murdered the guy for no reason on the streets????
So cut and dry, should be cleared up by now???