glenstein

Private message doesn't seem to be working, so I'll ask here. A pair of posts, one Watermonkey's and one my own were removed from a subject in the Theories, Innovation forum. I'm guessing this was an admin and it was done because an admin felt it was uncivil? Or perhaps know the reasoning behind it. I must have spent several hours just making sure I had the right info to even post what I did.

Interesting. But efficiency has a different meaning for different energies. Most of the time efficiency implies that something is going to waste by being less efficient. With gas, efficiency is huge because of pollution and the very small supply of energy. But with renewable energy, like nuclear and solar, efficiency has a very different meaning. Renewable = infinite energy, how important is efficiency when converting an infinite source? Well with nuclear power more efficiency means less waste. Means you get to sell more energy while spending the same amount maintaining a power plant. Efficiency can also mean how much energy we get for X dollars. So even though wind power might let a ton of energy slip through its... uh.. blades, for the small amount it actually converts, it's apples and oranges because wind "efficiency" doesn't have the same consequences as nuclear efficiency. Hell, if some new energy were developed that had 0.0000000000000001% "efficiency" in converting from its source but still unleashed a massive amount of power, it wouldn't matter. You wouldn't be able to compare this new super-energy to, say, nuclear power and say "well nuclear power is more efficient" because that wouldn't make sense.

First, to Watermonkey: thanks for the thoughtful and interesting reply. Definitely the best response so far and maybe this can get the thread going somewhere. That said, I definitely see an element of one-upmanship and "I know more than you" in your post, which is fine, but a little distracting. I'll answer what I can.. Peak Oil is more properly known as Hubbert's Curve and there is no myth about it. People debate how widespread the effect will be, or when it will actually come, but Hubbert's Curve anything but a myth. On a country by country basis, around the world many countries have already passed their peak production! It's just that on the whole, all countries together, we haven't yet hit peak oil. Marion King Hubbert used his model to predict that the U.S. as a country would hit their peak in production in 1970, and then start declining. He was right about this. The U.S. has been producing steadily less oil within its own borers since 1970. For your viewing pleasure, here is a chart on this.. Believe me I'm not making this up. Peak Oil is real and has been proven true in our own country. The facts are around and a while back I had them all neatly organized in a binder, though it's been less organized since. I'll edit and add to this post in a moment. Um... I don't understand what you are talking about here., That's a strategic reserve to power our country in case of emergency, which would last us about 57 days. If and when that emergency happens those reserves may keep prices lower than they otherwise would have been, but prices will still be through the roof. I guess I don't see why you think that will stop the price of oil from shooting into the stratosphere. Sure it will help... for 57 days. But it won't stop prices from shooting high once global peak oil comes. Corn growers actually very strongly disagree with this, and to an extent they are right. From one such site defending ethanol: Prices of corn could just as likely be driven down by the fact that so much more is being purchased, which I don't know for a fact but strikes me as equally plausible. But corn prices do fluctuate and when they do, that (combined with changes gas prices) are said to be the biggest two factors impacting income for ethanol companies and thus, the viability of ethanol as an energy. Believe me, I spent plenty of time back when I was debating trying to find every flaw in biodiesel, so I'm aware. But many years away? There are solutions to that right now. Yes, it is true that it can gel, but like many kinks with many energies, these are being responded to. There are additives that have been developed that people can use to significantly improve biodiesel resistance to cold (bringing the pour point well below 0 degrees fahrenheit). Also, battery powered heat pads to heat up the car's fuel in the winter are being marketed for about $100. You can pour hot tap water over the fuel injectors, fuel pump and fuel filter which often gets rid of clogs to let the car start and would likely become a trick of the trade for the people who would run into the gelling problem. And some people see getting a second fuel tank with a more standard diesel fuel as a solution to get the car to start, which sounds sensible enough. All in all, there are many, many tricks one can use that already solve this issue. It's points like these where you are "correcting" me about something that I explicitly acknowledged in my post that is a bit confusing. Let's start with "electric cars consume massive amounts of fossil fuels". Didn't you read like the final paragraph of my post? I know you did, but you probably just went paragraph by paragraph with your response. It is true, the electricity has to come from somewhere. I said it should be produced by wind power, as well as solar and geothermal. So, it looks like you are correcting me about something I set aside time, in the same post, to answer and write about. And "fail to realize"? Come on. I know what fuel cells are and I know what batteries are. In fact I explicitly distinguished between the two with this sentence: "Then there is the straight up pure electric car. Not a fuel cell car, but just a battery powered car." Both of those will be a reality, and acknowledging that we will have battery powered cars does not mean I have to forgo any and all of my knowledge about fuel cell cars. They are essentially both electric, but fuel cells bring a whole new collection of issues to the table that battery powered electric cars don't have to face. So they should be separated. I talk about fuel cell cars (meaning hydrogen powered and based on a hydrogen economy) a lot in my first post. They have major issues keeping them from permeating the energy market (check my first post for more on that), thus battery powered cars are, it seems to me, be more widespread more quickly. And then you confidently assess my stance, like a mother overviewing the thought process of an ill-informed child... Tempered and civil, but I don't think I fact of mine was "off" in any fundamental way. Then after helping poor old ill informed me, you trot out this amazing piece of fiction: I've heard this claim before but it is outrageous and really, really, requires a source. It would revolutionize everything we know about fossil fuels. But simply put, it's false. So its a really bad position to criticize me from. I encourage you to do the research and tear every fact of mine down, I won't mind, it would be an important learning experience for me and I'd walk away more informed. I'm up for it. But if your info is anything like that above, maybe I'm not the one who needs to do more research. Also, if I had "picked a side" in the debate I probably wouldn't have mentioned several things, including: - The nuclear power rumor that every plant is on the verge of exploding. A flagrant exaggeration. Which I mentioned. - That biodiesel is not the savior people claim it will be - That the hydrogen economy has major issues Anyone on my "side" probably wouldn't say those things. It was kind of eye opening to me when I researched all this, to look back at the political crowd I had trusted so much who made those arguments. The green party, for instance, I find much less credible on the issue of nuclear power because they keep arguing how unsafe it is. I didn't pick sides. I learned. A lot of times accusations fly around that someone "picked a side" on an issue, when they merely were using better judgment than one of the said "sides". Global warming and evolution are other examples where, rather than one side being part of some equal and opposite dispute where everything is equal and each side has their flaws and their strengths, it turns out rather than being politicized that one side is simply, objectively right. All my jibes are in the spirit of debate and becoming more informed... g.

First I should note that ethanol only produces slightly less CO2 than natural gas, and involves hazardous chemicals which get into the surrounding environment besides. So there is an argument to be made that ethanol's environmental impact is equal to or worse than that of natural gas. Ethanol is only even talked about because it, uniquely enough, has a lobbying industry and a bit of a too-intimate relationship with all those dirty things we associate with the political underworld. The largest ethanol producer (whose name escapes me EDIT:Name is ADM) gets more than 33% of its income from government grants/purchases/other money. Also, ethanol is very natural gas intensive to make. Natural gas is used to heat the mashed corn used to make ethanol and to dry the distillers grains co product. Rising gas costs have been shown to have a huge impact on ethanol profitability. And, perhaps most importantly of all, some studies are claiming that ethanol, on the whole, even if profitable does not yield a net gain in energy. That is, supposing ethanol fuel were used to power every part of the ethanol production, you would actually lose more ethanol than you would produce! There are serious questions around it and the talk in newspapers and politics seems to have more to do with an ethanol/corn lobbying presence than it's legitimacy. Lastly, an ethanol supply has the same issues biodiesel has- we would not have nearly enough farmland to use it viably. If every acre of corn in this country were used solely for ethanol, at best we could produce 12% of our nations fuel. I'll actually leave a link for this: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ There were other reasons relating to efficiency (apparently people notice MPG drops on their cars when they use ethanol) but there was a web of reasons for why I left ethanol out. I had some notes on ethanol.. if I can find them I'll post a bit more. Edit: Here is an actual source on the ethanol lobbying industry: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ Edit: Another article that more fully explains the lobbying and government relations of Archer Daniels Midland, the largest ethanol company: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ The whole industry is corrupt and politicized, so I didn't touch it in my original post.

I'm no expert on energy issues. What basic knowledge I have stems from my doing tons upon tons of research just to ensure that I beat someone else in a school debate on the subject. But that planted enough of a foundation for me to stay interested and read further and to sound reasonably informed about this issue. So I will be throwing my hat into the ring that has been started here about "what will happen", and hopefully I have one of the more interesting takes on it. First, the major pressure from this issue is going to be within our lifetime and depending on different predictions, perhaps even within the decade. The problems with oil shortages are real and really frightening, and for some of the doomsday scenarios, you should google the term "peak oil". Peak Oil is not when oil runs out. It's when oil production begins to slow down. Every economy in the world is based on growth. More population, more companies, more cars, more oil. We are still pumping out more oil and pumping it out faster to accommodate all these expansions. But, we will hit a peak in oil production, called "peak oil". Some say this will happen around 2030, some say 2008, some say it is already here, but most seem to agree it is at least a few decades off. But the problems don't start when we run out of oil. They start when we reach Peak Oil. As the economy continues to expand, more power is needed and more cars hit the road. But suddenly, there is less oil available to meet rising demands. You know the rules of supply and demand, so it should be easy to see that after peak oil, the price of gas, oil, gas-based electricity, etc. will skyrocket. Because oil touches virtually every facet of our economy, all sectors and all goods will have much higher prices and everything is going to get much harder economically. Most every product has a transportation cost factored into its price and all those prices will go way up, our economy will slow and things will get awful. Unless, that is, our American politicians invoke some drastic changes to the way our economy (our cars and our power plants) generate power-- revolutionary and within the next 6 ... days. Honestly it would have to happen immediately or else it's already very late. But I doubt we are actually going to invoke any major changes until we've actually directly felt the effects. But when that happens, we will be compelled to invoke changes and they will. With cars, there wont be one simple answer. There will actually be a combination of different types of fuel that cars will be running on that will all take up their own percentage of the cars on the road. Some will be biodiesel. But we could never power all cars on biodiesel because there simply isn't enough farmland. That which exists is needed for food and depending on the crop we use to get the oil (probably various but most likely soy), we probably wouldn't have enough acerage in the entire united states of america to power our cars. I say "probably" because I tried to do this calculation myself, and there is a very good chance I was off. But still, even if we converted half to 80% of all of our country over to farming for biodiesel, there just wouldn't be enough. What's more, this would create problems around the world because if third world countries see a stronger market for their crops as fuel than as food they may be compelled to sell it instead of offer it to their own populace. Maybe. But those would probably be rare and isolated scenarios. So biodiesel will be developed but it will only produce a small fraction of our cars. Also, we are obviously going to still have to use oil in our next generation of cars, but mpg standards on regular cars will be way more strict and they will have to pollute much much less than they presently do. There will need to be laws requiring that only a certain amount can be sold that have low mileages and that as years go on less and less will be allowed. These, though much more expensive because of insane fuel costs, will still be one of the major cornerstones of the car fleet, even as it gets factored out of existence. There will also be hydrogen powered (fuel cell) cars. But there will be even less of these then biodiesel because they would be extremely inconvenient. Hydrogen atoms are small (small as they get!) and can leak straight through perfectly airtight containers. People fantasize about a hydrogen economy but realizing one would take a major major, major overhaul to our existing infrastructure. We can't put hydrogen in the old underground oil and gas pipelines stretching across our country without replacing tons of existing oil equipment. Presumably things like pressure gages, computer systems, and other materials used for oil would have to be replaced. Also, per unit volume, hydrogen packs less power than oil or gas. A hydrogen fuel tank on a car would be many many times larger than a gas tank for the same distance, unless you were keeping the hydrogen stored at several thousand psi or as liquid hydrogen, then (if I remember correctly) it's closer to 2x the size for a tank, but that is unrealistically expensive and insane. Paying to keep hydrogen at such high pressure or at such low temperatures is just that much more expensive. Per unit weight hydrogen is great. The same weight of gasoline holds much less punch than the same weight hydrogen. But our economy functions by volume. By gallons of gas, by barrels of oil. Practically, the size of our fuel tanks, transportation and management of a fuel all primarily revolve around the volume of it and not the weight of it. Adding to that, if we are to use giant fuel trucks to deliver hydrogen around the country like we do gas, we would need 20 times the amount of fuel trucks on the road to maintain everything. All hydrogen would have to be created (where would you harvest it? It's the most simple element there is so it always mixes with something else). Around the world today, most hydrogen is produced by breaking down a fossil fuel, a hydrocarbon with hydrogen inside it like coal, oil, etc. 96% percent of hydrogen is produced by fossil fuels in the present day, and so having hydrogen cars wouldn't help us get off of oil. At least, that is the talking point everyone like to use, but if we transitioned over to hydrogen obviously that would change. The most famous example is electrolysis, where you basically fry water with electricity and it breaks the water back into hydrogen and oxygen. Obviously, there would be new plants that would do this and separate out the hydrogen and then send it around our country. Unless it gets produced right at the station where people would fill up with hydrogen. Then the car would just do the opposite combine the hydrogen back with oxygen to make water + electricity, which allows the car to run. But for a while at least, these will be weak cars (can only go so far), and it will be inconvenient to get the fuel. And it would take a massive amount of electricity just to produce all this hydrogen (something on the level of doubling the amount of power plants in the country just for the hydrogen cars alone, if they were to power the car fleet). Where will this electricity come from? But still, the hydrogen fuel cell car will have to be a reality, but it will be a small portion of our cars. Probably the single largest contingent of cars are going to be hybrid cars, which will run mostly on electricity or biodiesel or hydrogen (still electric), but there will be gas when it is needed. If our consumers would stop being idiots and demand 300 horsepower cars, a lot less gas would be necessary and hybrid cars would have an easier time becoming widespread. They are already here today, they have the muscle when needed but will rely mostly on electricity and drastically reduce the need for oil. Even though they use gas they will be a major, major contingent of the nation's car fleet and will greatly help reduce demand and ease the pain of high costs of oil. Then there is the straight up pure electric car. Not a fuel cell car, but just a battery powered car. On many levels these will suck. They have weak engines and can only like 93 miles on one "load" of electricity. Not much but it's actually more than millions of people need to drive in a day. They will take hours to recharge so if you forgot to plug it in (yes, plug it in) overnight, you are out of luck the next morning. Batteries would have to be entirely replaced about every 20,000 miles and we would have to find creative ways to drive less. But they will not use fossil fuels and once the cars penetrate the market (which they will) they will become about the same price as any other car, but with a much, much, oh-so-much cheaper bill when it comes to fueling up. They will actually be a huge help though, much more than biodiesel. But the electricity has to come from somewhere, whether we just use it for electrolysis for fuel cells or for straight battery powered electric cars. Nuclear power will have to be phased out entirely. If you factored government subsidies, waste management, plant maintenance back into the cost of nuclear power it would actually be very high. Nuclear power is not our future, no inexpensive solution for removing waste exists (but the fears that the plant will blow up are an exaggeration, they are very safe despite what people will tell you). Also for political reasons, if we are smart, we aren't going to use nuclear power. Nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons are brother and sister, and from one technology, the other technology can and will be accessed. Also, for the towering destruction of pollution caused by Coal Plants (also a fossil fuel which we will run out of in 200 years, a long time but shorter than we think), Coal will be out. So no coal, no oil and no nuclear for our power plants. What, then? Natural renewable sources. The strongest of these will likely be wind which is abundant and already penetrating the electricity market present day and expanding at a ridiculous pace (the industry grows by an insane 33% a year). Wind is going to catch up on its own accord, even without the urgent intervention that will be needed, so it should develop more quickly than solar power. But there will be plenty of each on a massive scale. Also, geothermal energy (drilling down in the earth for undergrount heat), on the western half of our country around California and Nevada and several over places, is already used as a viable power source, and there is tons of it. Hawaii, which already gets 25% of all its power from geothermal thanks to the volcanic activity could expand further. Geothermal, wind, and solar will all produce the new electricity which will be the backbone of the car industry. So, what saves us from the oil shortage? A combination of a few things happening at once. But the short answer would be: electricity. Thats my view, and if you look at sources to check me on my assertions, you should see that most every claim above is backed up by a source which you can find on the internet.

Interesting that a user with the name red flag posts right after I used the word. Or at least I thought so. One of those coincidences...

As we all know what atheism is, atheism, it is only by semantic wrangling and hair splitting over "personal" definitions that anyone can come out saying atheism is a religion. I looked at dictionary.com and wikipedia. And google has this wonderful tool that scours for definitions all over the internet. Check it out. What do you notice about every single definition of religion, virtually without exception? There is the element of supernatural, god, of a deity. Of worship or faith in some sort of metaphysical phenomena. What is the god of atheism? Can that question be answered without saying something subjective and disputable like "belief"or "truth" or "science"? Any of those answers would be deeply subjective and fundamentally different, throwing up red flags by the dozens for how different such a "god" would be from a religious god. There is no holy prophet, no founding book, no supernatural creator, of atheism and in those respects (the only ones that seem to matter) and perhaps a small collection of others, atheism is distinguished from anything you or I would recognize as an actual religion (i.e. Judaism, Buddhism, etc.). The definitions on the google link (which I strongly recommend anyone viewing takes a look at) represent what respected institutions have to say on this. Here is another resource for definitions from credible encyclopedias. Also, no actual atheist would agree with this (and their voice, of all voices, in this particular discussion ought to have a significant amount of weight). Only religious people want to call atheism a religion, for various reasons, mostly to be able to say atheism has the same faults it accuses religion of having or to throw some other jab at it, for the larger purpose of reinforcing some religious stance. Semantic disputes and personal, narrow interpretations only serve the purpose of evading the undeniable backdrop of common sense that tells us atheism is not a religion. If a belief is a religion global warming is a religion and trust in the earnestness of firefighters is a religion and the term religion loses any useful meaning. If you redefine religion to be simply a "belief", that is, anything at all that anyone in existence beliefs about anything, that is one of the most radical revolutionary departures from any accepted definition I've ever heard of, and it probably disagrees with the accepted definitions used by most atheists, scientists, linguists, and religious people alike. For me, the merits of atheism matter more than whether, in the context of a certain debate when you look at things a certain way it can be classified as a religion. And once you get into those merits, it is opposed to conventional religions on every possible subject. Which kind of implies that it ought to be distinguished from religion. Note: Calling religion a "set" of beliefs rather than a belief would run into the same issues raised above. There are many "sets" of beliefs (examples: How to define Southeast Asia, what it takes to be a better country singer etc. etc. etc.) and none of those are like religion either. If any set of beliefs is a religion, the term is so drastically expanded as to have no meaning, and if that umbrella happened to include atheism along with millions of other things, it wouldn't signify much.

I was probably being uncivil, but unfortunately there is not a ton of progress being made in this discussion so I'm bowing out now.

That is false in the completest possible sense. If you believe something is factually true, there is no choice about it. Truth has no equally valid alternative that you can just flippantly decide to replace it with. There is no choice about what you observe to be true. You can't "choose" that a color you see in front of you is red and you can't "choose" whether a god you observe and feel to be real exists. You can't "choose" to not be hungry and you can't "choose" not to be tired, even if when you eat and sleep are determined by you. There are facts of reality coming at you from every direction and you can't "choose" things into and out of existence. Thus, if someone actually truly believes based on their experience in the real world that there is a god, then god is there, you believe, and there is no "choice" about it. Even if, supposing hypothetically a belief were a choice, its fundamentally different in nature from just telling an atheist they should choose to "believe" just to be on the safe side (which was your point #1 in response to the atheist). There is no legitimacy in a non-believer believing in god, just in case. Thus, you have no argument when you hint that an atheist should switch over because "what if you are wrong"? Unfortunately, this misses the point. Insofar as a Christian thinks the argument is valid for believing in Christianity, they are wrong (and regardless of whether you are going to admit it, the Christian specific argument is unmistakably relevant and applicable because this point is argued by Christians, and everyone arguing it intends to prove their religion, most commonly Christianity, right). The same goes for any other religion."Just in case" doesn't help anyone know whether they should be believing christianity or judaism or perhaps believing in some as yet unknowable deity). Believing "just in case" is still a useless argument because there is no way to know what to believe in. You changed the subject. I will show you where you did this. Between those two "Here" tags is where you changed the subject. Religion can be a negative component of war. Religion can help make war happen. There could have been 1000 wars that weren't about religion but that were nonetheless facilitated by religious extremism. And Hitler, (which you denied but were proven wrong about) is a perfect example. As I said in my still unanswered quote: It doesn't have to be the central cause of the war itself. This is the point you are ignoring. It's a perfectly valid argument about the potential vices of religion. I could go on, but this is too obvious to have to explain, so I'll stop here for now.

1- or that. You phrased it better than me. No argument there! 3- Because it's not actually a religion?

Well said, and I disagree with none of this. But why this statement: Cannot fathom? My point was that I think people can indeed "fathom", in some sense of the word, an object standing outside of time (God). What exactly is it about our being created, that makes it impossible to fathom a creator? Why does one make the other impossible? I suspect the answer has much to do with what you meant by that word. Do you mean "fathom" as in some materialized itemization, some scientific observation? I was worried this side note might get incorporated. I was just further elaborating on the kind of "fathomable" things people can comprehend and why such immediate material comprehension is different from "fathoming" a God and that most people make that distinction. Pretty much related to the first point. I honestly had no intention of going into that watchmaker debate (i.e. everything implies a designer) when I mentioned this. Different subject. That distinction is not my hang-up, I'm afraid, as my point addresses the same issue whether its about something always existing or whether its about God being different from the "everything" he created. Why should it necessarily be any less clear to atheists? It sounds patronizing or at best, beside the point. Maybe some atheists are mistaken about this, maybe some aren't. Maybe some believers are also. Clear suggests enlightened, informed, knowledgeable and this is what your believers have but the atheists don't. All in good will, g

That's called Pascal's wager, which has been abundantly refuted by various thinkers throughout history. Wikipedia summarizes a few a these, and I'll share them. 1. It argues from the assumption that a belief is simply something you can choose, like choosing a stock you hope to get rich from. Related to this point, since you can not choose a belief, a "chosen" belief can't be a legitimate belief, and no all knowing creator is going to get duped by a believer who merely believes because he knows it would give him access to the riches of heaven. 2. It argues from the assumption that the creator is specifically Christian. Pascal's wager is still hopelessly unlikely, based on the sheer number of religions that exist (or the infinite different religions or ways a creator could exist that we simply don't know about). I have more responses for you, but those are a decent start. [hr=noshade] You should really read up on your history. Nazism and Hitler's ascension, and policies had everything to do with religious fanaticism, which was used to rally and propagandize the public into wholeheartedly supporting his horrifying war atrocities. Crosses were painted on their planes and Hitler constantly talked of his work being the creators work, etc. etc. There is just a staggering, overwhelming volume of literature that confirms this. You can start at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism_and_religion and then work from there. And that is probably the central reason that this was brought up, so your naming a few wars and saying those "weren't for religion reasons" misses the point. Religion facilitates extremism, opens up crowds to people and policies that try to align themselves with that religion and helps persuade people to do things they otherwise wouldn't do. Like support war. As far as British Colonies, one of their main objectives was to culture and christianize the lands they conquered. [/hr] [hr=noshade] I've been waiting to use this quote for a long time, here's my chance: Atheism is a stance toward religious questions, but it in no way is a religion or does things a religion does. If atheism were a religion, it wouldn't be atheism. And Thomas Jefferson never affiliated himself with any religion, but he was not an atheist. At the least, he was a deist.[/hr] Notice from truefusion: Merged.

Using doctrine to debate is a bit of a tightrope, but it looks reasonable enough here. I would have to disagree with part of your statement though. We have been created, but that doesn't mean we are so overwhelmingly helplessly subjective that we have to believe everything is like us, that it was created also. We don't think that of abstract thoughts like numbers, I don't believe we even think of atoms that way. It's more specific to certain kinds of identifiable objects like mountains, cars, cats, tomatoes, rivers. We need to believe there is a reasonable explanation for them being "created" and explain it via natural processes and the like. We need to explain things that way because it is reasonable, because we were "created" just the same by logical, predictable processes and everything that surrounds seems to also have been. It's just an obvious, self-evident question. As far as the universal fabric they are all a part of, the atoms/quarks etc., I don't think anyone really is looking for how they were created, at least not in the same way. A distinction should be made between the need for a commoner to explain the everyday materials objects and life forms they constantly encounter, and the need to explain the furthest reaching scientific mysteries, or other abstract things where the question doesn't apply. The will for the former is because the answer is there, obvious, ought to be right in front of us. With the latter we are abundantly capable of leaving the answer unsolved if it suits us or if we understand that it is impractical to ask for it. With one we know an explanation should be right in front of us, with the other, people are smart enough to think about it different. Just the same, I don't think anyone really "needs" to explain God just because they were created and everything around them was created. I think people are smarter than that. To your credit, you yourself are clearly able to avoid making this mistake. Also, it's patronizing to say it can only be "clear" to believers (and not to others) how something has always existed when the only difference is not of understanding, but in that they believe. What is so much more clear or enlightened about that? Where is the clarity, that renders non-believers confused fools? Is it that everything is solved, figured out? No stress of further unanswered questions?

So if we used more than 10% of our brain all would be well?

Off subject, but while true generally that is not always the case. There are more Linux servers than windows based ones, but the Windows ones get hacked more often. Just thought I'd throw that in there.

I read a book with documentation on alleged Republican abuse of power to disenfranchise Democratic voters around the state of Ohio in the 04 presidential elections by using needlessly meticulous and strict rules to void ballots, using malfunctioning machines and purging voter roles. They also set up a website at openelections.org that has the same contents as are found in the book. The book for free!It details startling and irrefutable evidence, of vote maniplulation. It's not some simple scheme that revolved around one event, a collection of heavy handed anti-voting rights initiatives at various levels whether it be purging voter rolls or deliberately giving out deceptive information or several other things. So far in the first chapter I'm reading, we have Republican Ken Blackwell, who was in charge of state voting operations and a few of the things he has done:- threatening to fire state officials under him who don't enforce a rule of his to totally discard votes of people who vote in the wrong precinct even if they voted in the right county. Even though in previous elections it was always ok for voters to vote in their county at any precinct.- Ken Blackwell ordered that new registrants had to submit their forms on a specific type of paper, even after many newpapers had printed and encouraged voting on a different kind of paper. It became a public controversy on which Blackwell eventually reversed his order, but not before severely discouraging and complicating the voting process.- Used little known laws to purge voter rolls in Democratic strongholds in OhioAll in all, certified election results showed near perfect 95% turnout in various Republican areas whilst adjacent Democratic locales only managed to turn out 50% of their population. Nothing even remotely similar happened anywhere else in the country.The more you look at it, the uglier it gets. But visit openelections.org, which is essentially the entire contents of the shiny new $19 book I just bought. Much of the documents offered are sworn testimony of witnesses to particular incidents, and results of hard-fought battles to even be allowed to view the damned election results and vital details relating to them. Read the contents of that site and tell me the 2004 election wasn't stolen.I call this venting with facts.

Woah! Quite the scholarly rodomontading going on in this thread, but I'm not sure how much of the ensuing discussion progressed or built on the original post that started this topic, though I can hardly fault anyone for that.. Could someone help me out on what the point of this first post is? It looks like a rebuttal to that infinite regression paradox that people have been bringing up and then perhaps something else afterward? God precedes time, is "unimaginable" in that he stands outside of beginnings and ends. Ok. But why not just discard beginnings and ends in this discussion then? Why do there have to be "unimaginable" beginnings and ends and what are those? Are you just being redundant and further explaining how they don't apply? Someone tell me I'm not the only one who thinks this is unclear and wordy for the sake of being wordy...

I think you hit the nail on the head with that one... just a very broad, too broad subject. Probably reaching further than the actual relevance between real conspiracies actually extends.

Seeing as there are millions of people in ridiculous poverty in this very country, (the many stories of East St. Louis is an example of extreme poverty) there are all kinds of people, especially in the present, sliding out of the middle class and into poor and from the poor into extreme poverty. America for all its wealth, is one of the most unequal and tough to live in countries in the first world which ought not to be. There is no excuse for any cover up of any kind so long as there remain thousands of homeless people and millions of families with no health coverage. There are plenty of people who are "having it tough", for example the blacks in New Orleans, whose circumstances are directly related to that which might fall under this umbrella of "conspiracy" and have everything to do with it. The last thing on their mind? The very fact that the "conspiracy" directly affecting them is the "last thing on their mind" is exactly why said conspiracy is a serious problem. The people hurt by them are so poor, in such dire situations, they need to focus on finding shelter and food and just making their own ways in life and have no chance at even trying to be upset with the source of their misery is exactly the problem with conspiracies in the first place. This conspiracies talk is kind of vague and focused on nothing, destined to go nowhere and lumping all hinted wrongdoing under a common theme that likely doesn't represent the situation. But it is sad and shameful to think we can willingly and even happily be ignorant if our very own government deliberately does us wrong. There is no margin of error or excuse for that, ever.

Here is a link on the fact about oil for food deals mostly happening within the U.S. It's Senators like Norm Coleman who have showy investigations on this, always having hearings on people in the U.N. and on war critics like George Galloway (who has twice been held at hearings over this, once with proven forgeries that were never investigated). Of course that is one of several examples and of course they were never investigated.

You have to admit that Gears of War has some awesome combat and insane graphics, as well as a "feel" and environment that's all it's own. It's very tactical and you can only keep your head up for few moments, which also adds to the rush of the game, and it's not something I think Lost Planet has.

Interesting. I will definitely be interested in that. Thanks for posting. It was quite a shock for me also, when the event happened, especially for how rare it was.I was kind of insulted to hear the PETA response about how he was abusing animals and this was bound to happen. The sting ray thing is one in a million and you can't just say that was bound to happen because he handled alligators, how does that make any sense? Anyway, glad you mentioned this and I'll have to make a note to stay tuned when it is aired.

Actually, I believe the answer to that one is that there is a rod going along the top of the flag to keep it extended. Careful about getting yourself swept up in these conspiracy theories. There are a lot of internet sites doubting the landing, but there are also sober and reasonable responses that set things back in order. It's fascinating if you are willing to believe in it, but a simple google to a reasonable source should expel those doubts.

It's very possible that the his own direct experience with outer space could inspire his abundantly capable mind on the path of even more spectacular ideas than he has already come up with. Much more than some trite personal bewonderment, a direct experience with the universe beyond earth could underscore or newly inspire beliefs of his, whether they are scientific, philosophical or elsewhere. And coming from a genius like him it's very possible that it could lead to new riches in the form of theories or renewed exploration on different subjects he simply hadn't thought of considering.

Hmmm, how about ending apartheid in South Africa. Or maybe their involvement in the end of the civil war in El Salvador? What about their involvement in overseeing democracy in Cambodia, Namibia, El Salvador, Eritrea, Mozambique, Nicaragua, South Africa, Kosovo and East Timor (copied from source). There is some actual democracy. What about their involvement in the resolution of the (just months ago) vicious Israel/Hezbollah conflict. More than any other institution it was the U.N. which levered pressure to attain an at least temporary peace and stop the bloodshed (which the U.S. for example, wasn't able to do). I will be sure to answer your other points in the future, but this is so amazingly false I don't know where to begin. I'm going to guess you haven't read the Human Security Report 2005, a study on global post-cold war violence. It's especially ironic that you call the U.N. a "relic of the Cold War", since after the Cold War (that is, outside of, detatched from, not connected to the Cold War) some of their most flourishing successes have taken place. The report notes that between 1991 and 2004, 43 conflicts around the world which the U.N. was involved in were contained or ended. International crises between 1981 and 2001 dropped 70%. The average amount of deaths per armed conflict (the bloodiness of war) is down 98% since 1950. It goes on and on and on, spreading over countless issues. But you don't hear it on Fox news because it's mostly quiet diplomacy, it's elections, it's giving people food, it's treaties that reduce nuclear proliferation, it's aversion of conflict. There is no organization spearheading these efforts like the U.N. is so spare us the nonsense about them "not achieving anything" (really... anything?) This is an institution tasked with overseeing virtually every geopolitical and environmental and humanitarian crisis that occurs anywhere in the world, and they operate under a budget that is merely a sliver of a fraction of what the U.S. spends on arms every year. The planet is a fairly big place and there is a lot going on. But most importantly, your tarring of the U.N. has nothing to do with the relevant issue, i.e. whether the U.S. gets to claim it was enforcing a decade old resolution that spoke to a fundamentally different situation whilst being consistently warned by the same body that it had no legal authorization to do so. And being able to tarnish the UN's reputation and call them ineffective, and trotting out all these overblown, out of context points (did you know that the U.S. received over 50% of Hussein's oil kickbacks and that those haven't been investigated?) are just distractions, distractions, distractions. The U.S.'s war was opposed by the U.N., period. Opposed by them. Saying the U.N. is no good for all these different reasons is short sighted, distracting, unfair, and totally irrelevant.