How to "Know"

Frequently I run into people who say that "science doesn't know everything" or "there are many ways of knowing". This drives me crazy! Here we are living in an age of science and technology that is gathering knowledge at an exponential rate and yet, people want to turn their back on it and declare it to be wrong.

Matt Dillahunty, host of The Atheist Experience TV show brought up an excellent point to remember when talking to people about this issue. Ask them:

"If you had a better way of acquiring knowledge and truth, how would you demonstrate it?"

Of course, the answer would be to use a scientific approach! In other words, we'd need to use science to prove a better method than science...

Matt also had another great example on the show. He told a caller to pick Heads or Tails. The caller said, "heads", Matt flipped the coin and it came up Heads. There is no way the caller could have known heads would come up but yet, they made a correct prediction - one could say the caller 'knew' it would be heads. However, what benefit is there to studying how the caller knew this? Did the caller 'know'? Did the caller have a currently unexplainable method of 'knowing' how the coin would land? Maybe, but in order to find out, we'd have to test his claims! In order for the caller's claims to knowledge to have any validity, the caller would have to demonstrate that they can predict the coin flip with a far higher frequency than chance on repeated trials. In other words, use the scientific method, to know.

Tidal and Wave Power

Slightly different thoughts today. I was reading about tidal and wave power and it looks like it could be a viable technology that could provide a significant (15%?) amount of power, clean power. But then I got to thinking...

One person talked about how mother nature is providing tidal power for free and we are just wasting it by not using it. But, what did they mean by that? How is tidal power being 'wasted'? In other words, if we aren't using the energy, where is it going?

If a tidal power generation operation were to take 50% of the energy from the tide, that means that 50% of the energy the tide used to provide is not being used naturally. So, if we take tidal energy, what effect does that have on nature?

Lots of questions.

My first thought is heat. Eventually, all energy is lost as heat. Therefore, current tidal energy must be being converted into heat. Is that heat warming the water? Will the removal of the tidal energy result in lower water temperatures thereby affecting life in the water? Tides also cause mechanical erosion so a reduction in tidal energy will slow erosion - that's probably a good thing but I'm not sure if erosion provides benefits to sealife in the form of releasing minerals?

I think back to when people would have looked at an untouched forest of trees and marvel at all the wood they could cut down and then eventually cut the whole forest. Or when the nearly inexhaustible supply of cod on the Grand Banks off Newfoundland let to the virtual destruction of it. By siphoning tidal power on a large scale, what effect will we have?

Opinions and links to resources would be appreciated!

How To Follow The Commandments - Part 1

Let's start with the most popular Commandment of all:

God: "Thou Shalt Not Kill!"

Christian: "God, the enemy is trying to kill me!"

God: "Kill them, kill their livestock, dash the little ones' heads upon the rocks but save all the women who have not known a man for yourselves."

Christian: "Umm, but I'm not supposed to kill..."

God: "kill, Kill, KILL!"

Christian: "But, the Commandment...!"

God: "KKKIIIIILLLLLLLLL!"

Christian: "But God, you are so great and powerful, why not just make them disappear?"

God:

Christian: "God?"

God:

Christian: "God? Are you there? If I kill them, I break a Commandment, why don't you just do it?"

God:

God:

God:

...

Christian (with sword through his stomach): "GODAMNIT!"

Christianity Made Simple

AND it came to pass that God had a son, but not really, so He made Mary pregnant with His son, but had an angel do the deed instead.

AND His son came to be a man but was really a God.

BUT, there is only one God so the Son is God and God is the Son but yet the Son is a man who is on earth and God is the Father who is in Heaven but also on the earth as a Son.

IT came to pass that the Son was tortured for the sins of mankind as a sacrifice to God, who really is the Son on earth and the God in the sky. Thus God as the Son was tortured to please God, who is also the Son, to please God, the Son.

THE Son was then crucified and sacrificed to God, but God is the Son and the Son, God, so God sacrificed Himself, to Himself as penance for the sins of mankind.

THE death of the Son pleased God (who is now the dead Son) so God, who is now dead, resurrected the Son, but really resurrecting Himself even though He is really dead and couldn't have resurrected Himself if He is dead.

AND so, the Son died, but not really since the Son came back to life and now lives in Heaven with God, who is really the Son, so God and the Son now both live in Heaven even though there is only one God that is actually two Gods living in the same body as God and Son and mankind is saved.

AND if you don't believe this story you go STRAIGHT TO HELL!

Venomfangx Gets Fired

Venomfangx is probably the most outrageous, delusional, immoral, Christian on YouTube. I'm sure most of you have heard of him but this video shows the extent of his stunning ignornance. Hear about how he lost his job because he'd rather preach the gospel to a stranger than to do the job he was hired to do (apparently, it's happened more than once)!

But he's come up with a great solution. He'll stop working and preach on the street full time as long as viewers send him money so that he doesn't have to actually work or do anything that has any usefulness, whatsoever. Heck, I'd consider paying him to stay at home, disconnect his internet and computer and never, ever, be heard from again:

Most Inhuman Statement Ever?

I'm active in a Facebook forum that recently added the topic of Homosexuality. I edited it down to the relevant juicy bits. Here was the opening question:

A. Do you accept that it should be legal?
B. Do you accept it as moral?
C. Should gays be able to marry?
D. Should there be special hate laws for use against people beating up gays because they are gay?
E. Should political pressure be put on nations that outlaw homosexuality?

Here's one responder and my arguement with him:

He who shall not be named
A. NO
B. NO
C. NO
D. NO (people also beat up people because they are obese, etc)
E. NO

Gosh, that was easy!!

If you dont cut the tree at its roots and only trim the leaves and branches, the tree will still grow.

Why? Because homosexuals wish to pervert people with their perversion. Simple and to the point.

Me
This is evil. First, you assume homosexuals are evil and now you want to exterminate them - actually committing an act of greater evil. You are sick.

He who shall not be named
I NEVER stated that the HOMOSEXUALS are to be destroyed.

What I DID state is that the HOMOSEXUALITY should be cut right out, NOT the PEOPLE.

The HOMOSEXUAL ACT(S) IS/ARE the problem, NOT the people.

My apologies nevertheless for not clarifying my position.

Me
It's quite clear what you said. You eliminate homosexuality and jewishness* in the same way.

(*Edit: I should have said dark skin here but I left it in for authenticity)

He who shall not be named
My tree analogy was...eliminating homosexuality, NOT the people...and one major way is to educate them and their current lifestyle.

Me
Another is to educate you and your bigotry.

He who shall not be named
I would rather be a bigot, not only in your eyes, but in the entire world's eyes, than to be a bigot in God's eyes (emphasis mine) (pls note: not to be misunderstood by assuming that God is bigoted...im just making a point)

Plus, the whole world has seen the results of homosexuality.

Me
And if your god doesn't exist where does that leave you?

You just voted yourself off the island.

Goodbye.

Humanity will still be here if you ever wish to rejoin us.

I couldn't believe that this guy would take a stand against every person in the world, not for the good of humanity, but for god! How can you possibly deal with a person like this?

Excellent Video on Openmindedness

QualiaSoup on YouTube has produced another great video:



I posted this on an Atheist vs. Theist Facebook forum for a reaction from theists. So far, we can only hear theistic crickets responding....

Genesis II

In the beginning, we knew nothing so the answer was always, God.

Then, we began to ask questions. We prayed but God never replied. So, again we said, the answer is God.

It came to pass one day when a person had a question and, instead of asking God, they decided to conduct a test. The answer, strangely, was not God.

It came to pass that more people asked more questions and did not ask God for the answer. They created tests and experiments and found more answers that did not end with God.

Soon, God no longer made mountains or made babies. God did not cause the stars to shine or apples to fall. More questions and more experiments meant that God was no longer the only answer. It seemed that God was never the answer.

It is here where Science was born, and God, became god.