Star Trek Armada II: Fleet Operations

Here's another gem from Russellsteapot.com:

http://russellsteapot.com/comics/2007/dra-til-helvete.html (http://russellsteapot.com/comics/2007/dra-til-helvete.html)

It's just a light-hearted cartoon, but it makes a serious point, one that's been verified by statisticians around the globe. There are many places where you can find data which verifies this correlation. Although we must guard against thinking that correlation is causation, it is possible to identify a strong statistical significance in this regard which simply won't go away. The best example is the US, an anomaly in the western world in that it is predominantly religious. Unfortunately for our american cousins and for their peace of mind, this has not resulted in moral behaviour and social cohesion. In fact, not only does religion have no monopoly on such things, but frequently it has the opposite effect.

Russell's teapot makes many other points but be warned that the webmaster sometimes uses bad language (but not in this link), and on this one I agree with the religious folk: I don't like it and never will. However this does not negate the points the webmaster is making.

I can't say much more than... how (relatively) true, and how sad  :crybaby:

Darn it, today the world absolutely eats  :ermm:

For a moment I wished I lived in Norway, except for the fact that I can't speak the local language. Shame...

I wont to move to canida A?

But in I think the US upcoming elections will be a referendum on the coming ideas that have bean destroying my country and the people be hind the destruction which are mostly propelled in to power from the Crichton right.

Well true separation of church and state would be a good start. I'd also like to see the religious empires taxed like any corporation so that they can't spend their ill gotten gains on gag orders to silence abuse victims. And those "intelligent design" advocates should stop poking their noses in to amercian kids' education until they can prove they understand the second law of thermodynamics, which none of them do. And this, and that, and another thing, and all the rest.

NOT disputing anything yur saying, ok? I'm just purely asking, what do u mean by TRUE separation of church and state? What point do u see it at right now?
(Not trying to get into a debate here, just asking, ok?)

I'm not much of an expert, but to my way of thinking that would involve religion staying out of politics and vice versa. Actually I would prefer it if religion would stay out of people's brains, but in the real world people are free to worship as they please. Unfortunately many worshippers over step the mark, just as Bush overstepped the mark when he intimated that it was God's will for him to invade Iraq. This effectively puts a big bullseye on every american citizen's head for jihadists to target, ot others who want to reignite the fires of the crusades. Even worse, a significant proportion of the people in the so-called US democracy are unreligious and/or pacificists. So it is that the state imposes religion upon them. And when a court of law creates a precedent for teaching of ID, that is also an imposition, a violation of free will that the religious folk claim to cherish. Sorry about my wishy washy reply but I'm hardy a politics expert. So I don't know what point it's at, and I'm frankly more concerned about the idea of religion itself being eliminated.

Having said all that, I do recall something about religion and state being properly "separated" (however that is defined) in the original US constitution. Evidently the original spirit of it has been lost.

You're a cautiously inquisitive dude auxilio, but if you feel strongly about your beliefs then by all means say it. The best way to exercise the old neurons is to use them, and let me be blunt, I'm certain I can convince you that religion is outdated, harmful and even logically absurd. The fact that you don't dispute anything I'm saying is interesting because that should mean alarm bells are ringing. Did not Jesus say that you would recognise the righteous "by their fruits?". This is just common sense really (Jesus said nothing ingenious or that was not obvious, and even some divisive and provocative things). My point is, the fruits of religion are bad. The good that people do is in spite of their religion, not a result of it, and the stats bear testimony to this fact, and the prior fact. In fact the most kind and self-sacrificing people I've ever known are atheists or agnostics, and I was a Christian for 20 years. It seems that there's little to suggest to me that religion should be part of life, never mind politics.

ok, I truly was actually wondering WHAT yur viewpoint was! It had NOTHING do do with disputing you, ok? And I'm not disputing you, because I'm kind of tired of doing this, ok? It's NOT because I'm being convinced that God isn't real or anything.

Actually as far as politics is concerned, I have no viewpoint. This does not mean I'm mentally lazy or anything, far from it, it simply means I despise terms such as "left", "right", "liberal", "conservative" etc etc. I'll never be pigeonholed into such a division. I'm most interested in how the world works, so although my principal area of study is science, it also extends to economics and to some extent geopolitics, but not much else.

On the other hand, I never tire of "doing this" (as you may have noticed). So to continue, why are you convinced that God is real? If you make a statement, then back it up. I've noticed that most (all?) Christians grossly oversimplify our choice into:

Choice A: No God exists, the bible is uninspired, we've been given no real revelation.

Choice B: The Abrahamic, Judeo-Christian God exists and the bible is his message to us.

This is a classic (i.e. it appears in critical thinking textbooks) logical fallacy, and I won't fall for it. Yes, our origins have not been explained, but did you consider that:

A: God may not be omnipotent? (this would explain a lot)
B: God may not be entirely benevolent? (this would explain a lot)
C: God may be non-personal
D: God may be disinterested (linked to B:)
E: God may not be omniscient
F: God may be far away (similar to E)
G: Some of the above are true
H: All of the above are true!

(Have a look at my signature for an interesting quote).

A thinking person will consider all of these things and much, much more. If you say to me, "well, I know God exists so that's good enough for me", then I'm hardly going to be convinced. I'd love to know why. and if you (somehow) manage to convince me that the Abrahamic God exists, you must also then do two things:

1) Explain to me why the bible contains sanctioned violence and genocide as well as vulgarity
2) Explain to me why suffering, in any form, has EVER been allowed to exist.

As regards 2), be aware that I will not fall for the classic Fall From Grace argument about free will. I was exposed to a very sophisticated version of this referred to as the "Issue of Sovereignty" when I was a Christian. I dismantled it quickly once I learned how to reason.

You may be tired of this, and you may not wish to dispute me. However, try to understand my reaction when you say empty stuff like "It's NOT because I'm being convinced God isn't real or anything". That's a statement from a closed mind behind a closed door. It seems you're afraid to engage in a real debate just incase what I'm saying is reasonable. And believe me, it's more than reasonable. If you give me ear I can change your life, and for the better too (shock horror - not what you religious pals will tell you!).

...hmmm, this is completely off topic, but as I was reading this, my screen flashed and now I apparently have 10 less posts... and my post per day count thingy is down a few tenths of a decimal thingy... very strange! Maybe I have gone insane... or have had amnesia or something.. :ermm:

No you're right there Dom, I remember you saying a few days ago that you had 667 posts and I saw that 667 was being displayed. Perhaps some unexplained phenomenon in the space-time continuum goosed up your post count. If it wasn't that, I don't know what it was...   :whistling:

Oh well... double jeapordy for being EVILLLLLLL!!! muhaha. and a half.  B)
Maybe I'm being given a second chance. Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate...

Well, next time you pass by Hell, tell the Devil that there's gonna be an awful lot of atheists comin' his way in the coming decades. God ordered that they be burned eternally, the reason for their punishment being that the atheist folk told everyone that God wants atheists to be burned eternally. If you catch my drift. Come on work with me on this one...  :ermm:

I think I understand you... but my mind is now concentrating on how to formulate this creative writing assingnment on the Flying Spaghetti Monster  :D
Plus, I much prefer to meet Cereberus ;)

...so atheists are only relegated to the outer ring of hell? I guess the center, freezing one must be reserved for those who_________ (this message not fit to be aired, we apologize for the inconvenience)

Dom your head is filled with amazing stuff  :lol:

In the creative writing assignment you must give due honour to His great noodly appendages. Apart from that I have no further recommendations, you're very much on your own.

I think what I am going for is ... well disproving religion by disproving the noodly creature as well. It is an unfortunate twist--and not truly good writing--but it should fit my purpose I think.  :blush:

If anyone can do it you can! Actually, as we all well know, disproving His noodliness is going to be difficult if not damned impossible, after all, we can only apply the falsifiability test to something that's testable. His Unknowableness is unknowable and unsearchable. Therefore, we should all become Pastafarians  :thumbsup:

I'm going to a Pastafarian service on Sunday if you want to come along. We must eat of His body and partake of His tomato sauce if we wish to enter into Holy matrimony with Him. You want parmesan with that?  :ermm:

Thank you! I wrote it in mockery of Christine de Pisan's the Book of the City of the Ladies... if you've ever heard of it. My professor actually thought it was written well, yeah! (we'll see what kind of grade it gets though :shifty:)
Sure I'll come, name the date, location, and I'll just teleport  :whistling:
ewwww.... cannibalism. What religion would ever condone that... hmmm. nudge. :rolleyes:

Incidently, I think the number of pirates is soon to go negative... in direct correlation with certain weather events.  :crybaby:

On another note, I have become fully evil again. I am Boiling Water: I will cook my arch nemesis the FSM in his own sauce!

About the pirate thing, yes that's deeply troubling. Is correlation causation in this case? It certainly looks like it...  :(

We should all now pray for a positive outcome. As we all well know, prayer enhances the chance of success sometimes. Outside the realms of statistical significance. But we'll ignore that bit. May the religious folk continue their great work in trying to disprove 100 years of statistics research and finally, finally remove the bell-shaped gaussian distribution as a staple of american scientific education.

RAmen
 :whistling:

Hey, how about that, this week's comic exposes the absurdity of God's prayer method. If anyone has ever been told by someone, "I'll pray for you" you'll know how insulting and patronising it really is. And as regards those people who try to say that there are documented cases of prayer working, go take a statistics course and talk to me then. Concentrate particularly on things like chi-squared significance, correlation, and gaussian randomness, and within minutes you'll know why knowledge is power. That stuff even has "power" over the laws of physics, which obey probability distributions rather than the other way around. It's good to understand how things work.

http://russellsteapot.com/comics/2007/omni-impotence.html (http://russellsteapot.com/comics/2007/omni-impotence.html)

Yes... it makes me very angry  >:(
To no one in particular... Come on, if this deity is soooo benevolent, why would prayer affect an outcome anyway? Does it mean that you are only important if you pray or are prayed for? Such illogical nature is not becoming of an omnipotent being. Similarly, if this deity loves everyone equally, then why would the "prayed-for" group benefit more than the non- "prayed-for" group? Aaaargh! I could go on much longer, but alas, I grow tired and don't want to discuss something so horrifyingly irritating before sleeping  ^-^.
Great cartoon by the way :thumbsup:
-dom

I've also noticed that Christians will pray over trivial matters such as what colour they want their next car to be, and then when this (curiously) comes true, they praise God. Trust me this happens all the time. So, why would God answer your prayer about getting good grades or finding your ideal partner, but leaves 1 billion of the poorest people on the planet to basically eat dirt? Does God have a preference over certain ethnic groups? (I should not have asked that as there are certain sick groups of people who actually believe this based on certain scriptures).

Why would God reward those who have things with even more things? If this is the case then God makes the rich richer. Anyone that tries to claim that they are blessed because they have a big house and their daughter can play the violin, and also claims that the starving children in Darfur are therefore not blessed, is a sick, sick person. God is either uncaring, apathetic, or absent. Anyone who tries to argue otherwise is in  the worst kind of denial.

Yes... well we all know the old adage, God helps those who help themselves (a convenient way of skirting the whole "does this deity exist" argument). May I point out that it is easy... too easy... to say that one is blessed, when in fact one has everything that one could desire? (I hate that sentence...) Would I really choose to say I am blessed if I had nothing? My family has a nice old tradition of reciting at the occasional meal, "We thank the lord for what we have, if we had more we would be glad, but since there's no more to be had, damn it roll on teatime!"
We could also add to clarify absent... this deity has tired of us and has moved on (uh oh, a new favored planet!)

If that's true, I can't say I blame him...  :ermm: