patrick.net

thunderlips11 says

Bristol has 20,000 people in the 13th Century, it's the second largest city in England.

In comparison, modern Augusta, Maine has 19,000. Rome has half a million around 100AD, but only 20-40,000 in the 13th Century.

20,000 people was a huge number for a town/city without aqueduct, simply due to sanitation problems rising with population density. Even London during Roman time only had about 35,000 people. Rome was the imperial capital of the entire western world during 100AD, but only a regional concern in the 13th century.

thunderlips11 says

In 100AD, Cologne (Colonia Augusta) is a frontier military city of the Roman Empire of 40,000 people. In the 13th Century, it's still the largest city in Germany, and only has 5000 more people. It's aqueducts and sewers still function, which probably explains it.

It may well have had much less people during some of the time in between. It would be a huge mistake to linearize history.

thunderlips11 says

The Parthenon and other Pagan or Roman/Greek Public Sites like the Collesseum or the Circus of Constantinople, all built before the Collapse (hell, Parthenon is from the BC era), are immense and dwarf any Dark Age building in Western Europe. .

Wrong. The Lincoln Cathedral in England (construction starting in the 11th century) was the tallest building in the world after taking over the title from the Great Pyramid of Giza, before losing the title to some other Cathedral in Europe.

BTW, if big tall building is your standard for civilization, can we then conclude that the Ancient Greek and Roman era was in the dark age between 2500BC Pyramid and the 11th century Lincoln Cathedral?

You are obviously oblivious to what is going on around you.
* The speed of light has been broken.
* A bubble of space where no parity exists has been created.

The laws of physics are constantly changing. The bigger question is, why aren't you?

Heraclitusstudent says

SoftShell says

Regarding the laws of physics, they are being violated all the time.

You are obviously not conscious of what you are saying.

Here is what I meant to say.

"The laws of physics as we understand them, are being violated all the time."

That's what happens when you type this shit on a cellphone...

Dan8267 says

SoftShell says

Regarding the laws of physics, they are being violated all the time.

The laws of nature, by definition, are not violated. That is precisely why we call them natural laws.

Human understanding of these laws are constantly being improved,

Reality says

Education by video produces morons

Yeah, that's a great reason to reject information from the Board of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate of the National Research Council, the Goddard Space Flight Center, Earth Systems Research Laboratory, the Goddard Institute of Space Studies, the Hadley Meteorological Center, the International Panel on Climate Change, the Japanese Meteorological Agency, the National Academy of Science, NASA, the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration, the National Climate Data Center, the National Hurricane Center, the National Research Council, and many other well respected scientific institutions.

They're no Wikipedia. How dare they use digital video and other 21st century technologies to inform the public. Anything not written on stone tablets is invalid.

You got some pretty fucked up criteria for acceptable information sources.

SoftShell says

The speed of light has been broken.

Nope!

http://torontostandard.com/industry/oops-scientists-did-not-break-the-speed-of-light-blame-bad-connection/

SoftShell says

A bubble of space where no parity exists has been created.

Maybe so or maybe they need to do a better job of cleaning their fiber optic cables.

SoftShell says

The laws of physics are constantly changing.

No the laws of physics are not changing. Not at all. What might be changing is our MODELS of how those laws work.

Or maybe we just need to do a better job of validating the results.

Ok.
Tell us how consciousness occurs.

Dan8267 says

SoftShell says

Energy cannot be destroyed. Your brain runs on energy. Obviously the cells contained in the physical body "die" as humans describe it, but the energy contained within is simply transformed.

Yes, but energy isn't consciousness.

Reality says

The video being discussed in that particular instance was on religion's link to terrorism, not AGW nonsense. I do critically evaluate evidence. I'm not gullible like you.

That man wasn't a terrorist. The video demonstrates the irrationality that religious beliefs impose on people. You should watch it and learn.

Sorry. Your material is dated.....
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/8901001/Speed-of-light-broken-again-as-scientists-test-neutrino-result.html

who you gonna believe? Our allies across the pond, or the frozen fucks up north who designed the ACA website??

New Renter says

SoftShell says

The speed of light has been broken.

Nope!

http://torontostandard.com/industry/oops-scientists-did-not-break-the-speed-of-light-blame-bad-connection/

Reality says

However, not having a counter-balancing force such as an independent church, the mass murdering governments did managed to proceed in their mass murdering ways much further without restraint.

Throughout history, religious hierarchies have been purveyors of violence including state-sponsored violence. The church did a great job of counter-balancing evil during the Dark and Middle Ages. </sarcasm>

already corrected my cell phone antics above...

New Renter says

SoftShell says

The laws of physics are constantly changing.

No the laws of physics are not changing. Not at all.

Here, I'll help you.
You can't.

SoftShell says

Ok.

Tell us how consciousness occurs.

Dan8267 says

SoftShell says

Energy cannot be destroyed. Your brain runs on energy. Obviously the cells contained in the physical body "die" as humans describe it, but the energy contained within is simply transformed.

Yes, but energy isn't consciousness.

Dan8267 says

Yeah, that's a great reason to reject information from the Board of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate of the National Research Council, the Goddard Space Flight Center, Earth Systems Research Laboratory, the Goddard Institute of Space Studies, the Hadley Meteorological Center, the International Panel on Climate Change, the Japanese Meteorological Agency, the National Academy of Science, NASA, the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration, the National Climate Data Center, the National Hurricane Center, the National Research Council, and many other well respected scientific institutions.

They're no Wikipedia. How dare they use digital video and other 21st century technologies to inform the public. Anything not written on stone tablets is invalid.

You got some pretty fucked up criteria for acceptable information sources.

I did end up watching it at the end of the evening when I had time. Just as I expected, it's full of crap put together by a bunch of bureaucrats and coding monkeys. I had to pause the video a few times to verify that the charts don't even confirm what the script reader was saying.

The conclusion of the video? "90% chance" Yeah, that would cover the asses of the propagandists while sending the coding monkeys off to make fools of themselves.

Dan8267 says

Reality says

The video being discussed in that particular instance was on religion's link to terrorism, not AGW nonsense. I do critically evaluate evidence. I'm not gullible like you.

That man wasn't a terrorist. The video demonstrates the irrationality that religious beliefs impose on people. You should watch it and learn.

I doesn't. Much of what the guy spouted has nothing to do with religion but traditional patriarchal society value. The funny thing is that, I used to be a believer in woman's ability to think independently and judiciously . . . however after witnessing what a pregnancy does to a woman's thought process first-hand recently, I'm not so sure anymore. It seems to me that fetuses are quite capable of doing to a woman what certain fungus does to an ant's brain . . . perhaps it's no different from what a pair of soft female breasts and a tight female body does to a man's thought process . . . making it utterly muddled!

bgamall4 says

Reality says

Christianity replacing the old Roman religion managed to extend the life span of East Roman Empire by about a thousand years!

Christ said his kingdom was not of this world. So how is Constantinianism and Augustinianism remotely understood to be Christianity?

Othodox Christianity became the state religion of what remained of the Roman Empire (Eastern Roman Empire) from the 3rd century to the 14th century.

Dan8267 says

Reality says

However, not having a counter-balancing force such as an independent church, the mass murdering governments did managed to proceed in their mass murdering ways much further without restraint.

Throughout history, religious hierarchies have been purveyors of violence including state-sponsored violence. The church did a great job of counter-balancing evil during the Dark and Middle Ages.

Throughout history, the state/government hierarchies have been purveyors of violence. In fact, monopoly on violence and threat of violence is what defines a state / government.

During the Dark Ages and Middle Ages, the church was a moderating influence, as evidenced by the less martial aspects of "Chivalry" that the church promoted.

Reality says

Dan8267 says

2. No one has ever argued that atheists are incapable of being evil. Atheists are free on one of the greatest causes of evil, religion, but that does not imply that they are free of all causes of evil. Thus your argument is a Straw Man.

Then your argument religion causes evil falls apart. If people can do great evil without religion then what's the point of blaming religion?

This is the type of shit logic that I expect from Marcus. Being ran over by a train can cause death. Therefore, being shot in the head cannot cause death because we know that death is caused by being run over by a train.

Do I really need to dumb this down further for you?

Reality says

The Atheism promoted by those mass murderers removed a usual counter-balancing force from the society that would normally present as the alternative moral voice

Bullshit. The Bible promotes slavery, rape, murder, torture. Even the "good" New Testament is pro-slavery.

Furthermore, it is utter bullshit that atheism in anyway detracts from morality. It's quite the opposite. Being good out of fear of being punished isn't being moral; it's covering one's ass. Atheists are good for the sake of being good, not for some selfish motive to get into heaven. Furthermore, the elimination of religion allows for adult and scientific discussion of morality and ethics which furthers the field of morality and allows us to deal with moral issues that we are not currently dealing with including, but not limited to, human cloning, the rights of other sentient beings (dolphins, whales, AIs, extra-terrestrials), the morality of complex systems like globalization of economics, the morality of environmental management, genetic engineering, domestic spying, and much more.

It is religion and superstition that keeps mankind's understanding of morality limited to a Bronze Age worldview. The rejection of superstition would be the greatest advancement of morality in human history. It is the atheistic scientist who studies the morality of non-human animals on Earth. Scientists like Richard Dawkins and Matt Ridley. You should read every book written by these two authors to dispel all the falsehoods you believe.

Reality says

It just so happens that the blackest name in religiously based persecution, the Spanish Inquisition, involved the murder of less than 2,000 people over 100 years, whereas the atheistic mass murderers managed to kill 50,000,000+ in a decade or so!

1. Attempting to minimize the vileness of the Spanish Inquisition is a pretty weak position.
2. Christianity is responsible for a multitude of genocides including the Holocaust and dozens of North American genocides.
3. There is no such thing as an "atheistic" mass murder in all of human history. Do I have to post more topless pictures of Tom Selleck? 'Cause I totally will.
4. You keep contradicting yourself. You just said
Reality says

Nope. I never said Atheism is an evil philosophy.

and now you are again stating that atheism advocates mass murder, which is totally bullshit, has no historical basis, and completely contradicts your previous statement.

Please try to get your lies straight. Contradicting sets of lies are easily dismissed.

Reality says

When Atheism is mainstream in a country, the morons and criminals are atheists too.

When literacy is mainstream, the morons and criminals are literate too. And that's a good thing as the morons are less moronic and the criminals are more easily rehabilitated. In any case, superstition being mainstream has never produced positive results that cannot be produced more reliably with intelligence and empathy.

Reality says

Dan8267 says

Neither you nor anyone else has even addressed the fact that if the Christian afterlife were real, then killing babies before they could sin is a moral imperative. The contradiction between accepting the premise and rejecting the necessary conclusion of the premise remains unchallenged.

That's a ridiculous deduction. Who gave you the authority to carry out pre-crime judge/jury/executioner duty? Most people's sins do not warrant death penalty. Even if you know someone will grow up to be a murderer apriori, it would still be morally questionable for you to kill him at birth.

Do you actually read posts before responding to them or do you just skim them while masturbating? You really need to pay more attention to the words and the sentences they form.

The argument is that if the Christian afterlife is not a lie, then it is a moral imperative to murder babies before they are old enough to sin and risk their immortal souls to an eternity of torture and the loss of an eternity in paradise. This is self-evident as a mere 100-year Earthly life infinitely pales in comparison to an eternity of either horrific suffering or unimaginable euphoria. To allow any child to be placed in harms way of going to hell or losing heaven is possibly the most immoral thing one could do whether through action or inaction.

Therefore, if the Christian afterlife is not a lie, then it is a moral imperative to kill babies and thus send them directly to heaven bypassing any chance they will suffer for all eternity in hell. The premise of the Christian afterlife necessitates the conclusion that we are morally obligated to kill babies. If you reject the conclusion, you must logically reject the premise that inevitably leads to that conclusion. Proof by contradiction.

1. This has nothing to do with me personally. The messenger is irrelevant.
2. This has nothing to do with pre-crime or judging a person or having authority.
3. This has nothing to do with the knowledge that a person will grow up to be evil. It is a moral duty to make sure the babies are not in jeopardy. Allowing any baby to live would be more immoral than locking the baby in a car on a freezing winter night because the risk and damages would be so much greater in the former scenario. Of course, that's based on the assumption that the Christian afterlife is not a lie.

Quite frankly, if you cannot understand this argument, then you're really dumb. It's not rocket science. It's simply following the logical conclusion of the afterlife premise to it's ridiculous and unacceptable end. Countless other people understand this argument, even if they hate the fact that it's right.

The multiple problems with this line of thought are:
1- The creation of consciousness, and how it functions cannot be explained to the acceptance of the majority.
2- The few who denied the earth was flat some centuries ago were eventually proven right as our knowledge advanced. Since the creation and function of consciousness is not understood, as was the earth's shape, it is not out of the question that future knowledge can impart a different definition of what consciousness really is.
3- We are nowhere near understanding the laws of nature in their entirety. We are trying to understand the novel with only one chapter in hand.

To submit definitive answers to questions that require more knowledge than we currently possess, is to ...well....demonstrate a common human trait.
A trait that fundamentalists and atheists alike possess in spades.

The need to 'know for sure'.

The fundamentalist uses religion, ancient books and god figures to sate this itch.

The atheist will spout facts from the known world to wrap thing up nice and tidy, while consciously ignoring the elephant in the room, that they are operating from an extremely limited knowledge base when compared to "all that therer is to know".

The open-minded intellectually honest amoung us have somehow developed the ability to state the obvious:
"I don't know".

Dan8267 says

This is the 21st century. At this point, anyone who denies that the brain is entirely responsible for our mind is like someone who denies that Earth is round and the sun is a star.

If this is your argument then you lose.
Christine doctrine states everyone is born with 'original sin'.
There are no innocent babies.

Dan8267 says

The argument is that if the Christian afterlife is not a lie, then it is a moral imperative to murder babies before they are old enough to sin and risk their immortal souls to an eternity of torture and the loss of an eternity in paradise.

Dan8267 says

This is the type of shit logic that I expect from Marcus. Being ran over by a train can cause death. Therefore, being shot in the head cannot cause death because we know that death is caused by being run over by a train.

Do I really need to dumb this down further for you?

Do tell us then do you suggest calling trains evil?

Dan8267 says

The Atheism promoted by those mass murderers removed a usual counter-balancing force from the society that would normally present as the alternative moral voice

Bullshit. The Bible promotes slavery, rape, murder, torture. Even the "good" New Testament is pro-slavery.

Yet, just like most other "good book" the Bible also has enough passages expressing the counter-point to be quoted by adherents of the opposite positions. The point of having a separate power center in the society is not so that they are saints, but rather avoiding concentration of power.

Dan8267 says

Furthermore, it is utter bullshit that atheism in anyway detracts from morality. It's quite the opposite. Being good out of fear of being punished isn't being moral; it's covering one's ass.

That's all you can ask of a certain percentage of the people. Let's say, 20% of the population are selfish twits who would rather kill your pet in order to have some meat for dinner that night; 80% of them can be convinced on some religious ground that it's a bad thing to do and they will suffer punishment from divinity even if the secular law enforcement can only catch 20% of all criminals. With religion, you are now dealing with 4% becoming criminal and 3% will be ale to do so with impunity; without religion, you have to deal with 20% becoming criminal and 16% will be able to do so with impunity. A society may be able to live with 3% of the population committing crimes with impunity, but at 16% it will fall apart.

Atheists are good for the sake of being good, not for some selfish motive to get into heaven.

It's not the good people that a functional society has to worry about.

Furthermore, the elimination of religion allows for adult and scientific discussion of morality and ethics which furthers the field of morality and allows us to deal with moral issues that we are not currently dealing with including, but not limited to, human cloning, the rights of other sentient beings (dolphins, whales, AIs, extra-terrestrials), the morality of complex systems like globalization of economics, the morality of environmental management, genetic engineering, domestic spying, and much more.

I don't see these topics having much to do with religion. The religious leaders making some noises on these issues is not a bad thing, as an alternative voice to the secular leaders setting agendas in the society.

marcus says

Dan8267 says

You're arguments that she's a secret atheist who killed herself to promote some global atheist agenda is stupid and has no foundation in reality.

This was an afterthought on one post and not serious, and you know that.

Oh, I think you were being quite serious, but are now backtracking since you realize how stupid of an argument it was. Now if only you could realize that your other arguments are just as stupid and largely for the same reasons.

marcus says

Project much ?

Conclusion based on a multitude of postings is not projection. You always turn an argument into "who said that" rather than "was what said justifiable". Search your posts. You know it to be true.

marcus says

I'll admit to be bothered by the person who so obviously continues to argue after they realize they are wrong.

1. I am not wrong. There is no reason to reach that conclusion based on this thread in which I specifically address every argument you made, but you dodge or drop every argument I made.

2. Even if I were wrong, I most certainly do not "realize I am wrong".

3. Because if I realized I was wrong, I would gladly and immediately change my position. As I've said repeatedly, I have no problem flip flopping on an issue if new evidence or understanding comes to being, and I'm willing to believe anything even that Carrot Top is god if and only if evidence and reasoning supports it.

In this way, I am far more open-minded than you could ever be. However, I insist on being convinced with evidence and sound reasoning. That is unlike you who cannot be convinced of something you do not already accept. Want me to believe in your god? Have him show up at my next tea party. I'm damn easy to convince of any truth no matter how absurd. I only require evidence or reasoning.

Finally, try to realize that repeating a lie ad nauseam like Fox News does not turn the lie into a truth. Your post history consists entirely of the pattern of
- make assertion
- ignore opposition to that assertion
- repeat assertion
- insult opposition
- ignore evidence disproving assertion
- repeat assertion

And yet you claim victory in the debate? Are you honestly that dumb? One cannot win a debate in which one ignores and avoids the opposition's arguments.

In contrast, I'll drive head first directly into the opposition thesis and show why it leads to conclusions that no one, even the thesis's proponents, are willing to accept. It's not a subtle tactic, but it works.

Instead of whining like a child at me, you should learn from me.

marcus says

That is I take issue with the person in this case, because I so can not relate to either the emotion, the ego, or perhaps it's the immaturity that goes with such behavior.

And I want to say, "C'mon Man ! You're better than this."

Talk about the pot calling the iPod black. And you realize that iPods are white. (Well, the original ones anyway.)

All I can say is that the atheistic view is the humblest. It removes man completely from the center of the universe and admits that our very existence is arbitrary and that we're damn lucky to be here. If the asteroid hadn't killed off the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, we wouldn't be here. If it wasn't for a multitude of events, we wouldn't be here. We're not special. We're just lucky.

In contrast, your views, Marcus, are quite arrogant. Man created in god's image. More like god created in man's image. Man the Stone Age tool maker thinks the universe had to be made by a tool maker just like him. That human-centric paradigm is far more arrogant than the Straw Man you call atheists. And that makes you, Marcus, a hypocrite.

Dan8267 says

When literacy is mainstream, the morons and criminals are literate too. And that's a good thing as the morons are less moronic and the criminals are more easily rehabilitated. In any case, superstition being mainstream has never produced positive results that cannot be produced more reliably with intelligence and empathy.

Intelligence and empathy do not result from converting someone from religious to atheistic. On the contrary, an unintelligent person is far more prone to fall for some personality cult or the government cult (like you may well have) in the absence of influence from traditional religion. A person lacking empathy to begin with may well become a criminal when not restrained by religion.

Reality says

Wrong. The Lincoln Cathedral in England (construction starting in the 11th century) was the tallest building in the world after taking over the title from the Great Pyramid of Giza, before losing the title to some other Cathedral in Germany.

I just threw out the Parthenon. I'll see your Lincoln Cathedral and raise you the Pantheon, the largest Dome in the World until the 1400s, the tail end of the Middle Ages and the dawn of the Renaissance, and was made with 5000 tons of concrete. Largest concrete dome in the world until, wait for it, 1881. It didn't take anything like 100-200 years to build, it took about a decade. It was made out of imported Egyptian Granite from thousands of miles away.

Lincoln Cathedral took centuries to complete, and made out of local stone. The Pantheon and Parthenon were built in a decade. Ba'albek is even more shocking, the Temple of Jupiter alone having columns 70+ feet straight up, 7 feet in diameter, weighing 60 tons each.

Where are all the straight Middle Age paved roads? Straight as arrows?

Where are the uniformed, regular armies with standardized equipment? The Steel Gladius is standard issue to a Roman Legionary But it's the mark of an unusually wealthy Viking or Frankish warlord. Almost all Dark Ages combatants make due with plain iron for weapons.

The tunnels bored through solid stone to pipe water as part of a multi-mile aqueduct system?

The standardized pottery of the Roman era, so common pieces of them are found in lowly soldier's quarters on Hadrian's Wall and even in the homes of slaves? Or the homemade low grade pottery that is actually worse in quality and more porous than pre-Roman Britain used in England by 500AD?

Where's the concrete forts, bridges, aqueducts? Where is the imported multi-ton imported stone, marble and granite, used to make grand edifices and plazas across medieval Europe?

Where is the regular import of liquids from across the sea, enough to make an artificial hill hundreds of feet high from the broken amphorae? Countless tons of grain imported from far across the sea on a regular basis, counted and distributed by a central authority?

Reality, the Romans supported a city of at least half a million importing Grain from Egypt, at the end of the Med! For centuries!

They built enormous pleasure boats, 70 meters long, with plumbing for the occupants! The English Galleons that fought against the Spanish Armada were only 24 meters in length!

How about Commerce? How much wine was shipped to Italy from Spain in the Middle Ages? Enough to build a hundred foot artificial hill just out of broken amphorae?

How about Coinage? Hundreds of Copper coins are all over Hadrian's Wall, along the Rhine, everywhere the Roman Writ Ruled. Used for petty purchases, a beer here and lodging there. Non-existent in the Dark Ages and most of the Middle Ages.

It's not just about the fact that there is little writing. There's also not much tech going on, either.

Horse Collar is an Ox Collar with one extra strap. Stirrup is from Asia. Three-field rotation was used in the Empire, just not in the Northern provinces as it was too cold (Medieval Warm Period allowed it to be used there later).

Those Dark Ages were Dark.

Reality says

They were all paid to do what they excelled at because the thriving market place allowed them to be freed from being a self-sufficient farmers working their ass off on their plots of family farms! Even more importantly, the society had to be advanced and sophisticated enough to have enough leisure people to enjoy and promote what they created!

So why didn't that happen during the dark ages since you are telling us the market place was thriving during this time. You defeated one of your own argument.

During the dark ages religious authorities were excommunicating people for heresy - when not just burning them - for researching independent ideas. And they were generally discouraging any beliefs that would even lead you to investigate ideas with a free mind.

Your consumerist, tea party type, view of the market + religion as the root of civilization just doesn't hold water.

Reality says

It's just like, haven't you wondered why there had never been great baseball players, great soccer players, great basketball players or great football players before the mid-19th to early 20th century? It's not because people couldn't run or jump before then, but because the market place had not developed enough to enable professional sports!

It's like saying an industry didn't developed until it developed. Nice argument.

New Renter says

SoftShell says

The speed of light has been broken.

Nope!

http://torontostandard.com/industry/oops-scientists-did-not-break-the-speed-of-light-blame-bad-connection/

Not to get off topic, but what the laws of physics says is an object with mass cannot accelerate up to or decelerate down to the speed of light because as an object approaches the speed of light from either direction it's relative mass and energy approaches infinity and there's not infinite energy to be had.

There is no known physical law that prevents

1. An object with zero rest mass from traveling at the speed of light. In fact, light has to travel at a constant speed (light speed) precisely because it's energy would be zero if it were traveling at any other speed.

2. An object with non-zero mass from traveling faster than the speed of light as long as it was never traveling slower than light. That said, the theoretical particle, the tachyon, is not generally thought to exist or to be plausible. It just isn't known to be prohibited by any laws.

3. Space, which has no mass, from traveling faster than light. In fact, the accepted Inflationary Hot Big Bang model has space traveling faster than light in the early history of the universe.

Finally, it's worth mentioning that if Superman attempted to save Louis Lane by traveling back in time by flying faster than light around the Earth, he would get longer as he approached the speed of light. In fact, as he approached light speed, Superman would get infinitely long.

This means that as he's speeding up to light speed, Superman's body would stretch around the Earth and Superman's head would rapidly approach his ass. Superman's head would have to go up his own ass, not just once, but in fact an infinite number of times as Superman hit light speed. So much for saving Lois Lane.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/TjgsnWtBQm0

Dan8267 says

The argument is that if the Christian afterlife is not a lie, then it is a moral imperative to murder babies before they are old enough to sin and risk their immortal souls to an eternity of torture and the loss of an eternity in paradise. This is self-evident as a mere 100-year Earthly life infinitely pales in comparison to an eternity of either horrific suffering or unimaginable euphoria. To allow any child to be placed in harms way of going to hell or losing heaven is possibly the most immoral thing one could do whether through action or inaction.

Like I said before, you are entirely out of depth when speaking on this subject. There are at least three problems with your presumptions here:

1. Who the heck are you to decide whether the child is to live or to die?

2. If you kill the baby, you may have just condemned yourself to eternal damnatino.

3. What makes you think the omniscient deity doesn't know ahead of time where that baby is headed? whether in life or in death, and why he puts the baby on the earth to begin with?

Dan8267 says

Therefore, if the Christian afterlife is not a lie, then it is a moral imperative to kill babies and thus send them directly to heaven bypassing any chance they will suffer for all eternity in hell. The premise of the Christian afterlife necessitates the conclusion that we are morally obligated to kill babies. If you reject the conclusion, you must logically reject the premise that inevitably leads to that conclusion. Proof by contradiction.

You are obviously not familiar with hundreds years, if not thousands of years, of religious debate on the original sin issue. Some branches of Christianity believes in Original Sin (i.e. a new born baby is headed to hell without baptism or good behavior in life to redeem him/herself); some branches believe good behavior doesn't matter, and predestination is set before the child is born, it's a matter for you decide to associate yourself with those who are among the heaven-bound, so to speak.

Dan8267 says

1. This has nothing to do with me personally. The messenger is irrelevant.

2. This has nothing to do with pre-crime or judging a person or having authority.

3. This has nothing to do with the knowledge that a person will grow up to be evil. It is a moral duty to make sure the babies are not in jeopardy. Allowing any baby to live would be more immoral than locking the baby in a car on a freezing winter night because the risk and damages would be so much greater in the former scenario.

hmm, how is murdering the baby in a 1st degree murder better than a 3rd degree negligence homicide? Apparently you are not only unfamiliar with religion, but also unfamiliar with secular laws.

Of course, that's based on the assumption that the Christian afterlife is not a lie.

Quite frankly, if you cannot understand this argument, then you're really dumb. It's not rocket science. It's simply following the logical conclusion of the afterlife premise to it's ridiculous and unacceptable end. Countless other people understand this argument, even if they hate the fact that it's right.

You are coming to your conclusion because you perceive yourself as the divine dispenser of death and life as you wish. Such hubris among the unintelligent and conceitful is precisely calls for religion as a cure/restraint.

SoftShell says

Ok.

Tell us how consciousness occurs.

Dan8267 says

SoftShell says

Energy cannot be destroyed. Your brain runs on energy. Obviously the cells contained in the physical body "die" as humans describe it, but the energy contained within is simply transformed.

Yes, but energy isn't consciousness.

The thing is, I don't have to understand anything about the implementation of consciousness in the human brain in order to know that it is the human brain that creates and maintains consciousness.

Think about it this way, you don't have to understand anything about system memory, arithmetic logic units, logic gates, direct memory access, machine language, or anything else about your computer to understand that the web browser you are using is being generated and maintained by that computer. If you turn off the computer, the web browser does not remain. You don't have to understand anything about how your computer runs that app in order to know that it is solely your computer that is responsible for running that app and not some mythical fairy living inside your computer.

It is also worth noting that the key to understanding how consciousness works is to abandon superstition and to study and implement neural networks. This also happens to be something you can do with a computer for free. If you like, I could get you started with some background knowledge. I have built brains back in graduate school. I built a robot with a neural network that responded to verbal commands. It was fun.

Reality says

Christianity replacing the old Roman religion managed to extend the life span of East Roman Empire by about a thousand years

The Roman empire was all but dead after the fall of the western part. The cultural, technological, and military superiority was all but gone.

Furthermore it has been argued that Christianity itself caused its decline , the same way it caused the dark ages: by promoting obscurantism.

Extending its life indeed.

SoftShell says

Here, I'll help you.

You can't.

Are you implying that I personally do not know the entirety of how consciousness works? Of course, I don't. But that doesn't matter. What I know and do not know is irrelevant to the issue of the afterlife being a lie. It is a fact that the brain is entirely responsible for self-awareness, regardless of how this occurs.

Are you implying that no one yet fully understands how consciousness works? Of course, no one does, yet. But that doesn't matter. Just because mankind doesn't know everything does not mean that mankind knows nothing and can know nothing.

Are you implying that no one can ever understand consciousness? If so, you are wrong. Everything in the universe is intelligible. It is just a matter of time, effort, and research to understand any mystery.

Reality says

Just as I expected, it's full of crap put together by a bunch of bureaucrats and coding monkeys.

And I'm sure the entire world will be convinced by the assertion you just pulled out of your ass instead of being convinced by the multitude of evidence collected and analyzed by people all over the world who independently reached the same conclusions.

After all, you have a much better reputation than, what did you call them, coding monkeys like

the Board of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate of the National Research Council, the Goddard Space Flight Center, Earth Systems Research Laboratory, the Goddard Institute of Space Studies, the Hadley Meteorological Center, the International Panel on Climate Change, the Japanese Meteorological Agency, the National Academy of Science, NASA, the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration, the National Climate Data Center, the National Hurricane Center, the National Research Council, and many other well respected scientific institutions.

All NASA did was get us to the moon. How can that compare to your enlightening PatNet posts?

Dan8267 says

Neither you nor anyone else has even addressed the fact that if the Christian afterlife were real, then killing babies before they could sin is a moral imperative.

Why should I address that. You've broadened the argument, which is fine, in part to respond to several others who wanted to discuss whether there is an afterlife of not.

The one and only thing I have argued with you in this thread is regarding the question of whether the girl provably killed herself because of religion and because she honestly knew as fact that she would be reunited with her father.

Yes, I have basically repeated an assertion that when a person kills them self it is because of a sick state of mind. Any other thoughts she expressed while in such a sick suicidal state are somewhat irrelevant, or at least not the primary cause of her action.

Dan8267 says

Finally, try to realize that repeating a lie ad nauseam like Fox News does not turn the lie into a truth. Your post history consists entirely of the pattern of

- make assertion

- ignore opposition to that assertion

- repeat assertion

- insult opposition

- ignore evidence disproving assertion

- repeat assertion

You have a rich fantasy life. Yes, I have repeated an assertion that you can not answer except with your own assertions, or diversions.

Actually I take it back you don't make this assertion anymore. You changed your thesis here. You write thousands of words of jibberish psuedo logic pertaining to I don't know what.

But you're proof that that one phrase that was preceded by "don't feel bad mom," is proof that the girl actually was certain she would be with her father in a literal way ? That can not be proven, and anyone with the slightest understanding of severe emotional problems knows that the real cause of suicide is more complex, and mostly about mental illness rather than about a small phrase spoken (or written) right before the final act.

I'm fairly certain that you're smart enough to understand this.

- ignore evidence disproving assertion

- repeat assertion

You're half right. I have repeated my only assertion and only argument I have with you here, several times. WAy back, I said it's all I have to say about this, and it is.

Sadly, I've repeated it many times because you either don't get it, or because you don't know how to just stop.

SoftShell says

The laws of physics are constantly changing. The bigger question is, why aren't you?

The laws were certainly not changed based on speculations on the results of 2 experiments, and most likely they will not be.

But like I said it generated headlines and presents an opportunity for physicists.

And obviously no observation about consciousness is generating headlines about how it violates the laws of physics. It doesn't.

thunderlips11 says

I just threw out the Parthenon. I'll see your Lincoln Cathedral and raise you . . .

Goes to show the pointlessness of your logic. Big monuments are often signs of concentration of power, not just economic prosperity alone. The soviet union had quite a few white elephants.

thunderlips11 says

Where are the uniformed, regular armies with standardized equipment? The Steel Gladius is standard issue to a Roman Legionary But it's the mark of an unusually wealthy Viking or Frankish warlord. Almost all Dark Ages combatants make due with plain iron for weapons.

They put their money on horses and armor instead. Middle ages military was about cost-effectiveness, as the Roman state-sponsored heavy infantry model had already been doomed in combat against far more mobile cavalry not to mention the cost of maintaining a large force of Roman heavy infantry eventually bankrupted the Roman state itself. That's why feudalism was invented: a small business and more dynamic model for the military, subcontractors on 1099 instead of full time employees with all sorts of benefits and retirement packages regardless domestically sourced or imported immigrants.

The new approach obviously was a resounding success: not only crushing WRE, defeating incursion by the Islamic Caliphate and carrying the fight to its heartland in Levant, but also laying waste to the ERE well equipped army in the 4th Crusade.

Cost-effectiveness, my friend. Not the list of gigantism.

Reality says

During the Dark Ages and Middle Ages, the church was a moderating influence, as evidenced by the less martial aspects of "Chivalry" that the church promoted.

Very Chivalrous

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SoftShell says

Here, I'll help you.

You can't.

SoftShell says

Ok.


Tell us how consciousness occurs.

I'll tell you what consciousness is not: it's not heat escaping your brain after you die.

SoftShell says

1- The creation of consciousness, and how it functions cannot be explained to the acceptance of the majority.

2- The few who denied the earth was flat some centuries ago were eventually proven right as our knowledge advanced. Since the creation and function of consciousness is not understood, as was the earth's shape, it is not out of the question that future knowledge can impart a different definition of what consciousness really is.

3- We are nowhere near understanding the laws of nature in their entirety. We are trying to understand the novel with only one chapter in hand.

Except of course there are numerous observations that can lead you to think the earth is not flat, but none - zero - that can lead you to believe there are unknown physical behaviors that are required to explain consciousness.

Except of course it's emotionally more satisfying to think you and loved ones will survive body death.

According to the same logic you could believe there is a pink unicorn living in NYC subway and bending the laws of physics to remain undetected - and be sure it will be proved one day.

Dan8267 says

Very Chivalrous

Exactly... but remember the bodies don't matter as long as you save the souls....

The kind of thinking that promotes morality on earth.