TJ

More accurately,  scientific discoveries can be presented agnotologically.

This typically results in incorrect interpretation of the data, for the express purpose of misrepresenting it.

The purpose of misrepresenting the data, is typically driven by no credible data being available to use instead.

So, finding that stars formed in better…[Read more]

The evidence is that “chaos” is present in all parts of the solar system,  including inner planetary etc…

…and, of course, what we observe,  is what is LEFT after everything that was less stable…is gone.

This is part of entropy…anything left to happen, happens, with the most likely to happen tending to happen before whatever is less l…[Read more]

Absolutely.

Keeping humans alive is hard enough under those conditions,  let alone happy, etc.

I do know that earth has an expiration date though, and that if we do not learn to colonize other planets,  eventually in other solar systems,  etc, we will go extinct,  and, perhaps the only known life in our galaxy,  etc.

Early colonies in Amer…[Read more]

It’s a good bet they’ll try to at least hang out longer-term than a visit, on the moon, before trying to set up a colony on Mars.

There’s just an awful lot of details to work out, and, that takes time.

I am all in favor of the Muskians leaving earth to colonize mars though, as soon as possible… and, preferably, not coming back.

If those are…[Read more]

I like movies that have a lot of lines that stick, and, some of my favorites in that category are Princess Bride, and, many of the Monty Python films.

That is because I like funny lines, and, while I appreciate the gold mine that the God Father, etc, provide, overall, I have a soft spot for well written comedy.

😀

I love your writing, it is really well done.

😀

I used to like cats, but, then the local Korean restaurant closed for some reason, and, well, I lost my preference for cats.

Other Korean restaurants opened, with different menus though.

Anyway, I prefer dogs now.

You know how it is, some people are cat people, and, some people are dog…[Read more]

Knowing how things work, includes knowing that they can work in random fashions, such as in the radiation example.

The universe did not spring from nothing, or nothingness, it simply always existed.

Matter and energy, as two forms of the same thing, cannot be created or destroyed.   We know it was in a hot dense state about 13.8 or so billion…[Read more]

Perhaps the focus upon the made up context of “free will” causes us to miss what we are actually valuing in our evaluations of reality.

For example, it seems we all have ideas about how things work, but when trying to find ways to tie that to the free will question, it becomes a tangled mess, because it is a made up concept… a construct.

That…[Read more]

Yeah, there’s no connection, and, the parties that every rational person would like to see drop their prejudices, never seem to equate their bigotry, with, well, bigotry in the first place….and, therefore, never seem to equate the way they treated blacks or other minorities (“If we let blacks and whites marry, what’s next, people and monkeys…[Read more]

The OP seems to say we are all evolved from the same sources, but some of us are predators, and some prey…but, also that the weaker sometimes ate the stronger….which is not supported as a premise, when you consider the involved scenarios.

Is a pack of hyenas “weaker” than a lion?

They tend to win in a fight at least, so, it would seem the…[Read more]

@What is God

God is the answer to what happens to where my lap goes when I stand up.

He is a mistake made by primates to help explain what they could not understand.

We are the force that created gods, a mistake.  Correction of that mistake eventually lead to understanding evolution, relativity, and the math involved in bill calculations at…[Read more]

Rarely have I had a visit BECAUSE of my atheism, TO convert me, per se, albeit, random visits by missionaries, fishers of men, etc, do occur.

Most purposeful conversations about religion in this context seem to involve someone finding out, casually, that I do not believe what they believe…and, their disbelief in my disbelief.

They then tend to…[Read more]

The affordable care act only changes the health care available to those who normally would not be able to afford it.  Those who were always able to afford it are not going to get much change in their level of care.

Its mostly about shifting the benefit to the insurance industries, towards the patients.

@ Simon

The premise though, that you postulate, implies that a religious god DOES provide morality.

This is simply not the case.

When HUMANS wrote down what they believed to be morals (How bad can you beat a slave before you are being unfair, etc), they simply ascribed what THEY felt to be moral, at the time they wrote it, to what god…[Read more]

I consider morality to simply being as fair as you can.

As for “an atheist morality”, that would be akin to a “stamp collector, or, a not a stamp collector’s”, morality, etc…in that there is no moral code required to not believe in gods.

That said, if you simply look at prison statistics, say, in the US for example, theists are over…[Read more]