octave

That's how it's claimed to work, right?

not really, GG I have read most of the Bible, how about you make an effort to actually understand what the theory of evolution actually is, it is based on far more than just a book by Darwin as well as the work of Alfred Russel Wallace. The theory has been validated over and over again through multiple scientific disciplines. For a short and easy read consider http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_of_common_descent You just can't bag evolution by bagging Darwin you need to address the evidence including modern advances in the understaning of genes. Earlier you infered that there were no transitional fossils http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transitional_fossils Just because some creationist website asserts something it does not mean that it is true.

I get that you have a strong faith and that is certainly no problem for me but I suspect that your acceptance or rejection is based on what you think supports your faith. Where do you stand on other well accepted scientific theories, General and Special Theories of

Relativity? Lewis Theory of Bonding? Germ Theory? Quantum Theory?

since this is in the Aviation Laughter section.... but be warned - blasphemy and language

In scripture salvation is only by faith in Christ and only by the power of the Holy Spirit given to those that believe can the desire to sin be controlled.

A genuine question for you GG. Adherence to a particular religion seems to be somewhat geographical, for example a child born in India will most likely have Hindu or Islamic parents they may not have ever been exposed to Christianity at all, this is not their fault but an accident of birth, none of us choose where we are born or who our parents are. My question is do Hindu children go to heaven or hell?

Au contraire, today's fundamental atheists are in fact very preachy indeed.

An example, I think you would agree with this belief:

 

GG compare this to the number of christian advertising also in terms of presenting a message this is very gentle "Probably no God" compared to this sort of thing.

Why selectively quote portions as fact if you also think it's all rubbish?

I do not quote portions of the Bible as fact but rather to illustrate that the Bible literalists like to cherry pick the parts that suit them and ignore the parts that don't so for instance I am supposing you would say Leviticus 18:22 is meant to be taken literally surely that means Leviticus 15:19 should also be taken literally or can we pick and choose.

I like freedom and Atheism is a belief system for those with totalitarian views. Plenty of examples on this thread how they want to impose their faith and doctrines on everyone else, just because they smugly claim to know better.

Dawkins is a pompous fool (Ps 14v1) but I'll credit him with honesty in that at least he says 6 out of 7, he realizes that to claim 7 (as the Athi's here apparently do) requires scientific proof of which there is non and this puts Atheism firmly into the position of being a faith.

before you proclaim your judgement on atheists perhaps you should consider Luke 6:37-42

In your view, when you die, you will be off to heaven for an eternity of bliss or whatever, whilst us atheist will go on to eternal flame and red hot pokers up the bottom - so why do you seem so angry? if you are right then you win and we lose, if I were you I would just be quietly smug and look forward to structural failure or some kind of stall/spin accident,

I am an atheist. I do not sit at home worshipping in front of a picture of Richard Dawkins, I do not want world domination, I do not want to stop anyone from believing in anything.

I think that all religions are illogical, if I talk more about Christianity than other religions it is only because I have never had a Hindu knock on my door and try to convert me, I don't see Buddhists lobbying the government to change laws to suit their beliefs.

I have no problem with school students studying comparative religion but once you allow prosthelytizing then how do you decide which religions or denominations. Faith is a personal thing

What does concern me is the lack of scientific literacy. This amazing life we lead owes so much to science and yet so many people bag scientists and scientific method whilst enjoying the fruits of science.

Within science there are well established theories (and if anyone says it is just a theory, you are just showing your lack of scientific literacy - look up what scientific theory means). We can reliably measure the age of the universe, we can measure the rate of expansion and extrapolate back to the beginning (Hubble's Law). Likewise however much some of you like to say the the Theory of evolution is on the way out it is simply not true. The evidence is much more wide ranging than many think. The evidence mounts as we learn more in areas like genetics. Indeed this is crucial knowledge when dealing with problems like Ebola which thus far is only transmitted by direct contact with bodily fluids but we KNOW that viruses mutate and it is quite possible that any mutation could be to the viruses benefit, allowing it to spread through the air like flu.

By the way I knew I was an atheist when I was quite young and long before I had even heard of the Theory of evolution or heard of Charles Darwin or Alfred Russell Wallace. If evidence came along that falsified the theory of evolution it would not mean that I would suddenly believe in a supernatural being.

Turbs you assert all sorts of thing which are quite hard to check. The reconstruction of the ark for instance, surely if this was true why has it seemingly not been replicated, as a curious person I want to see pictures I want to read engineers reports, I can't be satisfied with vague claims that have not been repeated.

As for the conclusion that atheism means living some kind of empty soulless existence is just irrational nonsense. I have been a professional musician all my life, music is one of the greats loves of my life (teaching, playing, listening). As a teenager I was obsessed with astronomy, being an active member of my local Astronomical Society, spending many nights outside with my telescope, spending time talking to amateur and professional astronomers. To me what we know about the cosmology of the beginning of the universe is much richer and deeper than saying "I can't understand where the universe came from so magic man in the sky must have done it"

Here are some of the problems I have with Bible (or at least a literal interpretation of it) :

In the creation story there is no mention of the 100 billion or so galaxies in the observable universe, what is their purpose, why create so much.

The ark, I mean really just consider Australian animals and birds, even just considering all the members of the Kangaroo and Wallaby family. Funny that Kangaroos are not mentioned in the Bible is almost as if the writers of the Bible had no knowledge of the world outside their region.

I like eating shellfish and I do quite like my new shirt, it is made of polyester AND cotton.

I have many many more problems with the Bible, far too many to detail here.

In conclusion, GG you seem to know a lot about the motivations and lives of atheists, I am not sure where your opinion on atheists comes from but what you are describing is not me or any of my friends who happen to be atheist, by the way I do have Christian friends and I also know an Astronomer who is a Christian (although obviously not a Biblical literalist)

Cheers

Doing this on an i phone is a pain !Sorry

Just for the record , that was Bex's post , WAKE up sun shine !

So it was, it helps if the quotes function is used.

I imagine that my experience after death will be much like my experience before my conception. I was not distressed by the 13.8 billion years since the beginning of the universe that I spent not existing before being alive so I don't see why I should worry about not existing after death.

One of the US Universities built an Ark from the detailed specification in the Bible and it produced a current.

Which university?, when?, were there pictures?, video? documentation? This surely must be repeatable.

No, you miss the point. Irrespective of my opinion or how you personally regard scripture you would surely agree with the principle that the head of the RCC is meant to believe the words of Jesus Christ.

It seems to me most mainstream churches accept evolution and reject the literal creationist position.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acceptance_of_evolution_by_religious_groups

To accept the literal biblical creation story (especially young earth creationism) requires ignoring much of the knowledge gained by science over the last few hundred years for example the size and age of the universe, radiometric dating, continental drift etc.

Although pure research can seem to be a luxury we can't afford, it is important to understand that often the applied science relies on discoveries made in the pure sciences.

Also usually people over estimate the amount of money spent pure research, for example the NASA budget in 2013 was 0.49% of the budget - a bargain I would say.

here is an example of astronomical research that failed in one way and yet yielded so much in an other way

The Australian radio-astronomer John O'Sullivan developed a key patent used in Wi-Fi as a by-product in a CSIRO research project, "a failed experiment to detect exploding mini black holes the size of an atomic particle".[4] In 1992 and 1996, Australianorganization CSIRO (the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) obtained patents[5] for a method later used in Wi-Fi to "unsmear" the signal.[6]

Total income to CSIRO from the patent is currently estimated at nearly $430 million.[51] On 14 June 2012, the CSIRO inventors received the European Patent Office (EPO) European Inventor Award (EIA), in the category of "Non-European Countries".[52]

Turbo is this the book you are quoting from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/forbidden-history-j-douglas-kenyon/1100623465?ean=9781591430452

If you're doing research you don't have an ignore list. I'll post the summary I mentioned to Octave, or are we nitpicking over the use of the word "disproven"

If by "disproven" you mean in the scientific sense then why do I not see mention of this in scientific journals? Why is this still taught in science degrees? By "disproven" do you mean the peer reviewed literature no longer supports it?

Darwin's so -call evolution theory (which he never claimed) has now been disproven by newer research

Bexrbetter, a question for you, could you please tell me whether all the scientific organisations listed in this article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change are in some sort of world wide conspiracy to subvert the data in order to attract funding? if so, how does this work? for example does NASA tell our BOM to alter their temperature data to match their satellite data? If you are asserting scientific fraud you probably ought to supply rational evidence.

If the worlds scientists are so corrupt that they can commit scientific fraud in order to secure funding, not just individually but in a mass coordinated way then why is it that they can't be just as easily bought by the coal industry, don't you think that a least some scientific organizations could be bought?

What I advocate is not a knee jerk reaction but a refocusing on to the new forms of energy creation, if I am wrong about that I guess I will have to apologize to my grand children for electricity not being the cheapest it could be or perhaps that our economy is not quite as healthy as it could have been. I am intellectually honest enough with myself to admit that I could be wrong but are you 100% sure that your theory of a world wide conspiracy between the worlds scientific organisations is true?

As an atheist I don't have faith in Darwin's theory of evolution but I do accept it's status as a well established theory (that is theory in the scientific sense). I accept the weight of evidence including paleontological, geological, genetic etc but if tomorrow new evidence came along that could falsify the theory I would be more than happy to accept a new theory that can explain the the evidence. This is the difference between Scientific method and faith is that

"Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.

Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved."

Gnarly I would assume that you accept germ theory? does this qualify for being a religion?

saying atheism is a faith is like saying not going skiing is a hobby, I have never been skiing, not skiing is my biggest hobby, I literally do it all the time.

Even though I lived in a solar powered house for 20 years, I would be the first to admit that we can not just simply replace our thermal power stations with solar photovoltaic generation. The key ingredient in our thermal power stations is heat, there are many ways to make steam., perhaps using solar power to generate hydrogen http://sciencealert.com.au/news/20141209-26169.html

When discussing photovoltaics the doubters usually only seem to talk about drawing power direct from the solar plant without considering the hydrogen option or thermal solar whereby enough heat is store overnight and in cloudy periods to continue to supply enough heat. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_thermal_energy#Heat_storage_to_stabilize_solar-electric_power_generation

Other methods of power generation include tidal, wind, hydro and geothermal, all this methods have pros and cons as does the burning of fossil fuels.

As a country that exports coal of course we naturally worry about our economy if the world moves away form coal fired power stations, this is understandable but none the less is likely and we have to deal with it. I haven't checked the facts in this story yet but it may be already happening http://www.smh.com.au/business/risky-business-china-dumps-our-dirty-coal-20140916-3fvpf.html

I don't think we can just afford to sit back and relax because we have plenty of coal. Humans success on this planet has been the ability to adapt to change, no doubt stone age humans were suspicious of bronze

Although reducing power consumption is a good way to reduce emissions (and also has economic benefits) it is not the only solution. Much work is being done on carbon capture and sequestration, although there are still problems with these processes they are still developing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_capture_and_storage

 

Perhaps a better solution will be burning something cleaner for example hydrogen http://sciencealert.com.au/news/20141209-26169.html

So that puts the Yanks in debt $536 for every man woman and child, but us "innovators" here in Australia only owe $326.5 billion, which puts us in debt $13,838 for every man woman and child............Nope, it seems if I use a calculator that shows enough zeroes, that number for the yanks goes out to approximately $53600

not sure about those figures

http://www.bloomberg.com/visual-data/best-and-worst/most-government-debt-per-person-countries

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Gday Geoff

That's a long document, especially if you follow each link. The first thing I do when reading a document is to determine who it is written by and what thier expertise is. This is not about attacking the man but it is important to do this with any assertions made on either side of the debate. We do need to know what the Galileo movement is.

Just picking one item - the so called climategate -

Just generally I think the problem is that anthropomorphic climate change is involves many areas, firstly it is a scientific issue and then a political/social issue. Accepting the scientific consensus does not mean an automatic acceptance of any particular policy such as a carbon tax. Personally I think the world will have to move away from fossil fuels at some point in time, the countries that develop the new technologies will do very well.

My acceptance of the science is not political or philosophical merely confidence in the scientific method, that does not mean it is the right answer that is not how science works but I accept that it produces the best answer with a given set of data at a particular time. This is not to say that scientists are somehow free of biases and other human frailties, this is where peer review comes in. Peer review is often misunderstood, it is not a brotherhood scientists patting each other n the back and saying "we are right aren't we" it is scientists trying to disprove each others work. Imagine what funding and fame would come from overturning climate change science. Just read a scientific journal e.g. new scientist, scientist

challenge each other all the time

Clearly I am not a scientist, just an avid reader, my thoughts on this are shaped not by the popular media or any political group. I have no personal knowledge of whether childhood vaccination causes autism so I rely on the peer reviewed evidence that it does not, I accept this as being the best answer with the available data at this time.

There seems to be 2 different approaches from the doubters, the first is the NASA, CSIRO and almost any reputable organisation you can name are scientifically incompetent the second one is that it is some kind of hoax or conspiracy. If it is shoddy science what other findings should ignore? As for a hoax or conspiracy I would thought in these days of Edward Snowden and Wikileaks that there would be more incontrovertible evidence.

As a recreational pilot my natural interests would be better served by dismissing the evidence and if the theory is scientifically debunked I will be the first dancing for joy in the street.

Anyway I don't really see much point in sending each other links, for me to change my mind would require a large volume of quality peer review evidence and I am not sure what would be required to change your view. Personally I hope in 10 years history will show that you are right.

Throughout this discussion I have tried to put my view in polite and respectful manner so I am hoping that I have not offended anyone.

Regards

octave

data changers? can you be specific about this claim?