yup, Anders was totally creeping me out. what happens when his grow gets long and has to wear a shower cap? eww…
Yeah, I had been wondering who had shaving duty. I’m guessing one of the eights.
I can see your outright arrogance makes it hard for you not resort to spouting off insults towards peoples beliefs as a defense for your position. Also, you and I both know religious people dont hold a monopoly on violence., and even if they did most cases of violence can be blamed on people who hold extreme views of the relgions they practice.
I am not attempting to defend any particular religious view, especially in contrast with actual real science, but rather my prior post was a warning that your arrogant tone is unreasonable and unnesessary as you stand to offend other peoples belief on grounds that are clearly beyond the scope of decent scientific discussion or debate. Personally insulting someone or a group of people on grounds that it is for the greater good of your “science” makes you sound a whole like the religious exremists you purport to stand so far away from in your views.
That’s one point of view, and I will say there’s some rough merit to the conception. However, real life is not nearly so neat. Religious movements frequently have reformations, sometimes quiet ones, and Science is replete with examples of dogmatism getting in the way of progress (look into the origin of oil, for one current example.)
Let’s try to keep this civil, please. GWC is an oasis of sanity in these intrawebs and I’d like to keep it that way.
Thank you Pike, I agree.
iGhost, a charge of arrogance is difficult to deny or refute. Perhaps my bluntness and lack of ambiguity in the way I express my ideas can be viewed that way by some sensitive types. I admit I was rather… er… sarcastic… to JohnAndersonHenry’s juvenile post. This you can certainly have a go at me about. And I will apologise if it offended him.
But… attacking religion generally (and good arguments have been made against me by showing that I generalise too much) in a scattergun approach is pretty much unlikely to offend anyone.
<Casilda, you are an admitted spiritual and religious person, does my approach to criticising religion itself offend you? Have I ever personally offended you or been impolite in my discussions with you? >
…my prior post was a warning that your arrogant tone is unreasonable and unnesessary as you stand to offend other peoples belief on grounds that are clearly beyond the scope of decent scientific discussion or debate.
One cannot offend a belief. One can offend a person. If someone is so insecure in their faith, so sensitive to any external discussion of faith or religion in general that they are offended by my arrogant rants against religion, then I fear they will be offended vastly more by a great many things in life!
Personally insulting someone or a group of people…
Criticism is not insulting. At least when presented in a rational and reasoned manner. I don’t say: “You are an idiot because you believe in the god of the desert.” I say: “I think the god of the desert is a crock because… blah, blah.”
Agreed, Pike. I think you and I have locked horns enough over the last year for you to know I don’t do personal insults. I have often posted how much I enjoy GWC because of the tolerance and adult argument and discussion.
I admit my initial post here in response to JAH was sarcastic. If I offended him, or I generally brought down the tenor of GWC I sincerely apologise and will endeavour not to do so again.
I stand by my comments on religion; if they are seen as arrogant or inflammatory, well that is in the eyes of the beholders: a belief cannot be offended, it is a concept.
Should comments on religion be treated any differently than comments on, say, politics? If I criticise socialism are social democrats in Germany or Labor supporters in Australia offended?
How about sex? If I rail against the missionary position (ha, ironic, eh?) are doggy-style lovers everywhere upset and offended? Should I refrain from doing so?
Silly, I agree. But the more ‘special’ treatment is allowed for religion in public (or even private) discussion the more pernicious it is to me. Are we to make special allowances not to criticise stupid ideas, just so some people don’t fly planes into buildings? Or blow up trains?
…Feeling so very ‘Pat Condell’ today… 
Well I thank you for making your stance clear, at least now I have a better understanding on how you view other peoples beliefs, belligerence, and common courtesy.
Well, to start:
- Fossils
- Geology
- Well over a dozen types of radiometric dating.
This is odd… why would you say this? Are you trying to assert that, since scientists have made mistakes in the past (mistakes that have invariably been corrected once proven so by empirical evidence), the convergence of evidence uncovered by researchers in dozens of scientific disciplines over the past 150+ years is suspect?
Or are you just being coy?
We must respect the other fellow’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.
– H L Mencken.
We have to respect each other but people go over the top when people criticize their beliefs. Everyone religious or purely naturalist buys into things that they themselves don’t understand, but on any other subject you won’t find the kind of offense that critiquing someones religious views tend to manifest.
Someone could say that string theory is absolutely ridiculous or its an absurdity and while someone who really understands string theory may take umbrage, i doubt anyone would be burned in effigy over it.
Now i know thats not you, because i know you personally. But when people start getting more and more offended over what they see is an attack on their religion, then we get the kind of people who kill people and burn embassies over cartoons of the prophet mohammed.
Your religion is just a set of words that describe what has happened in the past, and makes statements about the nature of reality. In this at least they are no different than any other statements scientific or otherwise. Whether gravity is a theory or a fact, whether quantum mechanics are crazy, all the way down to opinions on what burger joints are best.
Religions and Your area sports team generate the most offense when insulted. But neither has to.
I’m sorry given your following statements after this declaration, you do not understand the difference between the two.
From Wikipedia (yes, it is not definitive, but it is a good quick reference)
A Scientific Hypothesis is:
Scientific hypothesis is a hypothesis (a testable conjecture) used as a tentative explanation of an observation, but which has not yet been fully tested by the prediction validation process for a scientific theory.[1][2] A hypothesis is used in the scientific method to predict the results of further experiments, which will be used either to confirm or disprove it. A successfully-tested hypothesis achieves the status of a scientific theory.[3]
Theories can become accepted if they are able to make correct predictions and avoid incorrect ones. Theories which are simpler tend to be accepted over theories that are complex (see Occam’s razor). Theories are more likely to be accepted if they connect a wide range of phenonomena. The process of accepting theories is part of the scientific method. If developing a hypothesis for an experiment in high school, students may be asked to follow the formulae of: If…Then…
A Scientific Theory is:
In the sciences generally, scientific theories are constructed from elementary theorems that consist in empirical data about observable phenomena. A scientific theory is used as a plausible general principle or body of principles offered to explain a phenomenon.[1]
A scientific theory is a deductive theory, in that, its content is based on some formal system of logic and that some of its elementary theorems are taken as axioms. In a deductive theory, any sentence which is a logical consequence of one or more of the axioms is also a sentence of that theory.[2]
A major concern in construction of scientific theories is the problem of demarcation, i.e., distinguishing those ideas that are properly studied by the sciences and those that are not.
Theories whose subject matter consists not in empirical data, but rather in ideas are in the realm of philosophical theories as contrasted with scientific theories. At least some of the elementary theorems of a philosophical theory are statements whose truth cannot necessarily be scientifically tested through empirical observation.
Theories are intended to be an accurate, predictive description of the natural world. However, it is sometimes not clear whether the conclusions derived from the theory inform us about the nature of the world, or the nature of the theory
They are very different concepts & there is no “supposed” about those differences. Niether of these concepts requires faith in any way.
Your playing a modern day name game. The word “theory” did not always mean what it does today and likely will not always mean the same. Pluto was declared to be not a planet, but now not all states hold to that title. Does this physically and actually cause there to be a change to what pluto is?
I can haz coherent response?
RS and I have disagreed about many, many things - but it’s never about a person. It’s about ideas. And the world is more interesting when we don’t all think the same way. I think that the tone of some of the more recent posts here is a bit less civil than normal (which, I’d like to emphasize does not mean that there has to be lock-step agreement about everything).
It is natural that people who identify strongly with their beliefs feel personally attacked when their beliefs are attacked - because oftentimes, I’ve observed that those individuals do not conceive of a separation between self and belief.
So to answer the questions: no and no. I enjoy our disagreements, actually, I think they’re quite interesting.
I think that is well put.
Here’s an interesting link explaining life 150,000 years ago!
http://theoystersgarter.com/2009/03/23/what-the-earth-of-150000-years-ago-was-really-like/
Welcome to the forum oaleman and thank you for posting that link. 
Superb. It even wraps up with the words of Thomas Hobbes that we bandied about a day or two after the finale. I love the “what really happened to Starbuck” joke.
All hail antibiotics (responsibly prescribed by Doc Cottle, of course). (Probably the survivors kept as much such medicine that they had.)
Yet another stellar first post! Welcome aboard, oaleman!
Fave bit:
Perhaps when Lee turned his head, Kara was quietly eaten and carried away by a leopard.
RSS really ought to read this article. The Starbuck denoument theory should cheer him up.
Maybe between the FN’s and Beretta’s along with the Cylons super strength, they could have stood a chance to hunt and protect themselves from animals long enough to create safer territories for the survivors. Not to mention the possibility that some of the Raptors and Vipers may have had some weapons still on them. It would have all run out eventually, but maybe it would be enough to cause a permanent environmental shift in favor of the humans and cylons.