101. Ken Ham in Leicester April 2008

Comment #114895 by TonyA on January 23, 2008 at 6:19 am

Please tell me RD is in the country and popping along for a chat?

I hope not. Ham doesn't deserve the oxygen it would give him. His thoughts aren't credible enough to deserve the interest of any serious scientists (or people, for that matter).

On the other hand, if RD had a nearby talk at the same time, Mr. Ham might find himself talking to an empty room.

102. Top 10 Reasons to Believe Logic Over Religion

Comment #114892 by TonyA on January 23, 2008 at 6:05 am

http://www.ronpaul2008.com/articles/239/religious-liberty-thwarted-by-the-supreme-court/

Dr. Paul is clearly wrong here:

Moreover, there is ample evidence that most of our Founders were deeply religious men who never imagined a rigid separation between religious beliefs and governance. Indeed, our national documents, symbols, currency, and buildings are replete with religious symbolism. Our national motto, "In God We Trust," is an obvious example. These symbols are entirely inconsistent with the religion-free government supposedly mandated by the First amendment.

The motto, "In God We Trust" became the official U.S. national motto in 1956. That's hardly a good way to begin the argument that the founding fathers wanted such symbolism.

I prefer "E pluribus unum" which outclasses the more recently adopted religious motto.

103. Islam in Europe

Comment #114878 by TonyA on January 23, 2008 at 5:25 am

Here the article: http://www.pr-inside.com/afghan-journalist-sentenced-to-death-for-r398795.htm

Such lunacy!

"... sentenced to death under Article 130 of the Afghan constitution. That article says that if no law exists regarding an issue, a court's decision should be in accord with Hanafi jurisprudence. Hanafi is an orthodox school of Sunni Muslim jurisprudence followed in southern and central Asia."

I can already envision dozens of laws being stricken from the books so that they can fall under the control of this stupid provision. Why write new laws when getting rid of laws furthers your aims even better?

104. Ken Ham in Leicester April 2008

Comment #114867 by TonyA on January 23, 2008 at 4:34 am

Einstein's ideas about gravity are unfalsifiable "because what falls down, falls down".

You're not going to convince me that gravity is more than just a theory with logic like that!

... seem to underestimate Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis as some sort of joke. He is a total menace.

Perhaps it's important to remember that their ideas should not be taken seriously, even if their evil intentions should be.

105. Ken Ham in Leicester April 2008

Comment #114865 by TonyA on January 23, 2008 at 4:27 am

Is that the one with the outrageously funny cartoon drawings? I distinctly remember a picture with two castles, one on the side of evil (evolution) and one on the creationist side.

I'm not sure which is funnier.

This one

http://emethhesed.com/pics/misc/2006-06-28-christian-unity-cartoon.jpg

or this one

http://thescroogereport.files.wordpress.com/2007/05/450_ap_creation_070528.jpg

106. Stop revisionist Christian nation House Resolution 888

Comment #114855 by TonyA on January 23, 2008 at 3:59 am

al rawandi,

Regarding all the quotes. First, there is no doubt that the decision wasn't made lightly or without considerations on both sides being expressed and considered.

Dwight D. Eisenhower - " ...no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives."

It was never mandatory, but it was considered, by many reasonable people, to be a good decision. It's easier to express regrets than to defend tough choices. That's clear.

Admiral Chester Nimitz - "The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace. The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military point of view, in the defeat of Japan."

I'm not sure where the "sued for peace" comes from, not from the military or the government of Japan. But more importantly, as I've already shown, while the atomic bombs carried a high amount of destruction, per bomb, they, in pure military terms, contributed only a small fraction of the total destruction levied against Japan. Their bigger effect was political and psychological. Nimitz does not say otherwise.

US SBS:
"... it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated."

These things are harder to come by (and to trust) while the war still rages on. The allied war machine was running and running pretty good. Stopping them during a time of strategic military superiority based on theories of a possible surrender months ahead certainly didn't fit any existing methodology of warfare.

Harry Truman: "The only language they seem to understand is the one we have been using to bombard them. When you have to deal with a beast you have to treat him like a beast. It is most regrettable but nevertheless true"

I can't say what was in his mind, but these weren't unusual thoughts in those days. It's reasonable to think he was referring to the fact that they were behaving like beasts instead of assuming he would still consider them beasts had they not been trying to kill us.

107. Stop revisionist Christian nation House Resolution 888

Comment #114847 by TonyA on January 23, 2008 at 3:14 am

I didn't really want a point-by-point, off-topic debate here. After all, we're probably not that far apart on most issues, given enough discussion, but I do think non-temporal morality assessments are rich for error. My main point was to suggest that those on the other side of this issue had reasoned positions too. Lest you mistake my intent, I won't argue that the atomic bombings were necessary, only that they weren't then clearly recognized as criminal acts, as some now believe.

There were also geographical issues whilst selecting Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Agreed. I gave some reasons and there are others still. An important problem at the time was finding a significant target that wasn't already highly damaged. Some of the a-bomb target city candidates were spared conventional bombings so that the effects of the a-bomb would be more quantifiable.

I understand people wanted the war over yesterday, but other concerns count for me.

I think you significantly overestimate the actual military strength of these early weapons. It was hoped that they would bring an immediate end to the war, but that was far from certain. On March 9, in a single offensive, the "conventional" firebombing of Tokyo killed approximately 100,000 civilians (perhaps 130,000). This was more than the number of people killed by the a-bomb detonated over Nagasaki and comparable to the losses at Hiroshima. About 250 Americans were lost in the attack. While other raids weren't as big, others were still quite big and even bigger ones were being planned. I think when one considers the numbers, the atomic attacks can be put into better perspective. Over 30 million dead were killed by the Japanese. The Japanese losses were under 2.5 million, including the ones lost to atomic bombs. Four days after Nagasaki was bombed, on the 13th, both the Japanese Supreme War Council "Big 6" and the Japanese Cabinet met to vote on the surrender. Both bodies failed to vote for surrender! The emperor had to use his deity status to end it.

Would I have done it? I don't know, not as an option that high on the list, I would have chosen to drop the bomb on an uninhabited area.

That might not have worked. Some argued to do as you say, but others disagreed. General Marshall thought that an invasion of Japan would still be necessary even after both bombs were dropped. The fact that this issue is still debated effectively on both sides suggests to me that this situation was far from obvious at the time. The decision to use nuclear bombs was a pivotal event to be sure, certain to create controversy, debate and second-guessing regardless of which path was chosen. What if the decision to use them had been averted? Would we now be mourning one, two or more other cities? There is an argument from human nature, as abhorrent as it is, that we would have undoubtedly made use of them by now, not having had the example of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to dissuade us. Might that subsequent use have been even less justifiable? What if it had happened after a nuclear retaliation was possible?

If we retrospectively condone the use of mass killing to achieve political ends, then we have little currency when it comes to criticising others who merely differ in their ends.

I think it stopped being just a political battle when they joined in as major aggressors in a holy world war. What was WW II but for mass killing? Mass killing was the definition of war until the later 20th century. Hundreds of millions died. Find a way to complain about that instead.

20/20 hindsight is not invaluable as some seem to be hinting. It can help form better moral insight for future decisions. Simply saying "It was the best choice, end of story" dooms us to settle for limited "best options" and allows us to avoid serious moral decision making.

I think this sounds right to me. Just realize that idealistic moral philosophizing during an actively fought world war isn't likely to yield optimal answers.

The committee deciding on the targets stated as a reason that they wanted the weapons to have high international visibility (which goes to strengthen my point). If it was about the Japanese, this would not have been a factor.

Well, the targeting committee thought first that it was about the Japanese. (*1)

7. Psychological Factors in Target Selection

A. It was agreed that psychological factors in
the target selection were of great importance. Two
aspects of this are (1) obtaining the greatest
psychological effect against Japan

secondly,

and (2) making the initial use sufficiently spectacular
for the importance of the weapon to be internationally
recognized when publicity on it is released.

This desire for internationally visible results makes sense on all levels. In which way would it have helped to be less visible? It played a significant part in preventing later use of nuclear bombs and it was the clear beginning of nuclear deterrence.

Hiroshima was chosen due to the hilly environs which would focus the intensity and destruction of the blast.

Yes, among various other reasons. A military commander is not selected based on his ability to minimize the effectiveness of his weapons. The whole point of the bomb was to make it as powerful as possible. Of course they would use it where it worked best. This is a non-argument.

The committee also made it an absolute condition that the weapon not be used on a military target but instead on an urban area.

This isn't true at all. This is commonly misunderstood because of the way the minutes of the meeting were taken. All of the targets had some military value, some more than others.

The point being made by the committee was that they did not want to select military target that were either small or in out-of-the-way places. They wanted to select military targets in large, industrialized area such that the bomb would still be effective even if off target. Here is the relevant quote: (*1)

8. Use Against "Military" Objectives

A. It was agreed that for the initial use of the
weapon any small and strictly military objective
should be located in a much larger area subject to
blast damage in order to avoid undue risks of the
weapon being lost due to bad placing of the bomb.

How people misread this as somehow suggesting they were "against military" targets thoroughly escapes me. Sure, some of the same words are there, but grammar matters. In a later meeting, they decided to target the city center itself, to make sure a second bomb drop would not be needed in any targeted city. Note that they didn't change the reasons for choosing a city, just the ground zero location within the city.

Kyoto was initially proposed because it had a highly intellectual population which be able to "appreciate the significance" of the bombings.

That is not true as written. No matter what cities had been selected, they would have discussed the various strengths and weaknesses of the selection. Yes, that psychological "added feature" was attached to Kyoto and it was a point of consideration, but it was a candidate in the first place for other reasons(*1):

(1) Kyoto - This target is an urban industrial
area with a population of 1,000,000. It is the former
capital of Japan and many people and industries are
now being moved there as other areas are being
destroyed. From the psychological point of view there
is the advantage that Kyoto is an intellectual center
for Japan and the people there are more apt to
appreciate the significance of such a weapon as the
gadget. (Classified as an AA Target)

In summary:

1)The bomb was to have high international visibility.
2) The bomb absolutely had to be dropped on an urban center.

I am sorry, if you object to these characterizations please provide some evidence.

I fully agree with #1, but I claim it totally fails to argue for your case, even if it's compatible with it.

I partially agree with #2, with reservations. They would have preferred an enormous, city sized, sprawling industrial military factory, had they been able to find one not thoroughly integrated within the civilian population and not already heavily damaged by previous (and near future) attacks. There wasn't one. The targets hit were not non-military civilian utopias. They were industrial cities with all the kinds of things that cities have, including houses, schools, religious buildings, industrial factories and military organizations. Also see General Arnold's thoughts, as written by Sec. Stimson in his diary, below.

Although I think Henry Stimson and the target committee at Los Alamos were pretty clear in what they desired.

I agree, but you seem to understand it wrong. All of my quotes above came from the minutes to the second meeting of that committee.(*1)

Stimson, for example, took Kyoto off the target list.

Stimson's June 1, 1945 Diary Entry brings up two points.

[referring to a discussion with General Arnold] He told me that the Air Force was up against the
difficult situation arising out of the fact that Japan, unlike Germany, had not concentrated her
industries and that on the contrary they were scattered out and were small and closely connected in
site with the houses of their employees; that thus it was practically impossible to destroy the war output
of Japan without doing more damage to civilians connected with the output than in Europe. He told me,
however, that they were trying to keep it down as far as possible. I told him there was one city that they
must not bomb without my permission and that was Kyoto.

Stimson also hoped to void the nuclear bombings by arguing to end the war, well prior to the use of the atomic bombs. He argued that a recommendation to accept Japan's request to keep their emperor and monarchy was reasonable and would end hostilities before the a-bombs were used. In the end, we allowed them to keep the emperor anyway. Certainly a big point of negotiation was missed here, though I'm sure they're now better off having received a new constitution instead of a continued monarchy.

(*1) http://www.dannen.com/decision/targets.html

108. Islam in Europe

Comment #114698 by TonyA on January 22, 2008 at 3:15 pm

The solution is as clear as crystalline water, REFORM ISLAM, take out the parts which support islamic supremacy, those parts are as dangerous and bad as nazi supremacy belief. Let women have EQUAL rights as man, let them TAKE out that hijab, burqa and other stupidity that makes women INFERIOR and SUBMISSIVE; STOP with child sex and marriage! Teach what Mohammed was, a blood-thirsty crazy paedophile that on EXTREMELY rare occasions had the decency to say something good or write it in the quran. Teach them that islam is a political system, and that in a free world sharia law is not welcome in any way.

While it is a brilliant and desireable goal, this leaves almost nothing that the average insecure Muslim male needs from his religion.

109. Ken Ham in Leicester April 2008

Comment #114681 by TonyA on January 22, 2008 at 2:40 pm

Forgive me, but who he?

He is a young-Earth creationist, and a moronic nut-sack, whose ministry has said it "believes that evolution is the 'source' of many kinds of evil, and that rejection of God's Word as absolute authority and acceptance of evolutionary ideas will affect the way people think and act—and fuel social ills."

He is famous for his young-on-the-Earth, childish belief that dinosaurs co-existed with modern humans.

He has a book called "The Lie: Evolution" in which he shoots a huge chunk of hypocrisy out of his own ass.

110. Stop revisionist Christian nation House Resolution 888

Comment #114660 by TonyA on January 22, 2008 at 2:23 pm

The willingness to destroy a whole urban center.

A few dozen other city centers had already been nearly destroyed by then. The a-bombs just did it more thoroughly, or uniformly. They didn't generate more total damage or more total deaths.

Way less than 1% of WW II deaths were from a-bombs.

While hitting civilians was both regrettable and commonplace in all areas of WWII, it would be an unreasonable rewriting of history to claim that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not military targets.

Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were both important cities in Japan's war effort. The army command for all of Southern Japan (the next battle) was in Hiroshima and Nagasaki housed significant war production factories. Of course, choosing those cities was a complex task involving many kinds of things. For example, they wanted to hit a city that was nearly intact, for better damage assessment, and one without POW camps. Nagasaki was a 'plan-b' target that day. They missed the drop target by two miles, which spared many lives and probably brought more destruction to the Mitsubishi shipyards.

I don't want to sound like an apologist for WMDs. I am not. I just realize it's hard to look back on such events without imposing our retrospective wisdom. In those days, the a-bombs were successes of technology and widely seen as welcome. They were not seen (except perhaps by a few) as WMDs. There wasn't yet a doctrine of mutually-assured-destruction from which to spend a decade contemplating what it all meant. Everybody wanted the war over "yesterday." Nobody relished a mainland invasion.

111. Stop revisionist Christian nation House Resolution 888

Comment #114635 by TonyA on January 22, 2008 at 1:43 pm

The use of the bomb would have been better had it been dropped on an unpopulated region in Japan.

For years the Japanese leaders knew they were losing the war. Simply demonstrating that they were going to lose the war due to a different kind of bomb would tell them nothing they didn't already know. Few believed that a demonstration would have convinced them. The atomic attacks forced them to recognize that not only would they lose, but that their country faced a ruthless enemy bent on their total destruction.

In Hirohito's own words:

Moreover, the enemy now possesses a new and terrible weapon with the power to destroy many innocent lives and do incalculable damage. Should we continue to fight, not only would it result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization.

Such being the case, how are We to save the millions of Our subjects, or to atone Ourselves before the hallowed spirits of Our Imperial Ancestors? This is the reason why We have ordered the acceptance of the provisions of the Joint Declaration of the Powers.

The US military didn't particularly expect the immediate surrender that followed. The allies had already nearly destroyed dozens of cities using conventional bombs. Given the slow production rate of the a-bombs, we only had two, the Americans weren't convinced the a-bomb would do the trick right away, even when used on cities. There was a real expectation that many more a-bombs would be needed.

You can dismiss my comments, of course. All I know comes from the historians of the victors, and letters from my grandfather (which were short on specifics and long on allusions) who was a commander in the Pacific theater at the time. He was indeed steeped in the "my country right or wrong" crowd. A crowd, by the way, that was especially popular in those days. The Japanese military hadn't made many friends. The Germans get most of the modern day ink, probably because we more closely identify with them and their victims, and thus it's more unsettling to us, but it's very hard to say the Germans were worse than the Japanese on any level.

The constitution to use the weapon is another demonstration that would have been impressive to the Soviets.

And to the Japanese. As you know, just because a decision yields certain beneficial results doesn't mean you've found the reason for the decision.

Or if other methods had been tried in cajolling the Japanese into surrender.

There was very little sympathy for the Japanese while the war still raged. They didn't have many friends in a position to argue for leniency. Sure, it all totally sucks. I hate to think about the suffering of so many, but try to imagine the situation without 20-20 hindsight. The Japanese, the aggressors, had already killed over 30 million people. The atomic bombs killed perhaps 225,000, a fraction of Japan's total losses due to conventional allied bombings at the close of the war. While the losses caused by the a-bombs were large, they weren't large compared to what came before and they weren't large compared to what was expected if they weren't used.

112. The New Theology

Comment #113514 by TonyA on January 19, 2008 at 9:17 pm

But I found, even from a very early age, that science was telling me stories that were so stirring and awe-inspiring that I just could not get enough of them.

That post, -->> right here. <<-- really resonates with me and my life. Anyway, I think it's a wonderful post.

113. The New Theology

Comment #113267 by TonyA on January 19, 2008 at 6:57 am

If you believed in a Creator you would surely have no trouble believing that the laws he instituted could be suspended!

If you could believe in a Creator, then you could believe in anything at all, regardless of the absurdity. It is an inevitable result of yielding your critical thinking skills to perceived authority figures that almost certainly know less than you think they do.

Is the holy trinity anything more than a square with three corners?

114. The Group Delusion

Comment #112464 by TonyA on January 17, 2008 at 7:17 am

Dear Mr. wooter,

Every time you post, an angel dies, a theist becomes an agnostic, an agnostic becomes an atheist and your God weeps in the sorrow of your squandered potential.

Sincerely,

Tony

115. 'Letter to a Christian Nation' now available in paperback

Comment #111499 by TonyA on January 14, 2008 at 8:10 pm

Comment #111326 by al-rawandi

As a rocket surgeon, I object to the criticism of the 2nd law of Thermodynamics which says evolution doesn't exist. Evolution doesn't exist because monkeys don't live to be 1,000,000. Duh.

Can't you stupid atheists read :-)

Duh? As a famous scientist and scholar of all things holy, I say with complete truthiness thoose munkees wooden had a ground to stood on top of and woodof fallen down the bottom of outer space, until Jesus created the earth for to stand up and wooden starve to death either with no food, OR EVEN ANY AIR!, for 94,000 years (1 million - 6,000 years old earth), even animals need AIR TO BREATH!!!! Iggnorant athiests!

116. George Scales, War Hero and Generous Friend of RDFRS

Comment #111486 by TonyA on January 14, 2008 at 6:52 pm

Dear George,

Thank you for your important contributions to peace and freedom. Your continuing efforts to promote reason, secularism and science are helping to make the world a better place. Our cause is gaining steam and we are lucky to have you on our side.

With admiration,

Tony

117. Six Reasons to be an Atheist

Comment #110351 by TonyA on January 11, 2008 at 3:00 am

Can anybody tell me how theists came to the realization that their deity operates from a domain that is entirely outside our universe? I don't think that any of the theist's original texts make this claim. Therefore, I suspect it is a rationalized retreat; looking for the cover of shadows, fleeing from the light of reason.

118. Richard Dawkins on The Late Edition with Marcus Brigstocke

Comment #109817 by TonyA on January 9, 2008 at 8:13 pm

"Of course there's no god! Don't be so silly."

I liked it.

119. Sam Harris debate with Rabbi David Wolpe

Comment #109245 by TonyA on January 8, 2008 at 4:26 pm

361. Comment #109066 by al-rawandi

The author is Lee Harris. Not Sam Harris. Several people have made the mistake.

Wrong thread?

120. Debate between Michael Shermer and Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #109238 by TonyA on January 8, 2008 at 4:07 pm

It's bizarre. It seems that asking for proof is some kind of an insult. I guess they know that their proof isn't real. Their proof is in their faith. So, "show me proof" sounds to them like "your faith isn't real."

What a mess irrationality brings to the world.

121. Sam Harris debate with Rabbi David Wolpe

Comment #108047 by TonyA on January 5, 2008 at 10:47 pm

Beware the seventeen-headed Dexter!!!!

122. The OUT Campaign has its own Flea!

Comment #107623 by TonyA on January 4, 2008 at 8:52 pm

Bob,

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Poe's+Law

"Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that SOMEONE won't mistake for the real thing."

In other words, No matter how bizzare, outrageous, or just plain idiotic a parody of a Fundamentalist may seem, there will always be someone who cannot tell that it is a parody, having seen similar REAL ideas from real religious/political Fundamentalists.

123. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #107338 by TonyA on January 4, 2008 at 12:04 pm

No. We can't predict the probability from a single event. All we know is that IF abiogenesis is correct, then the probability is not more than 1 on an earth-like planet over a couple of billion years.

Self-contradiction fallacy. It is also absurd. The odds could be greatly below 1 or greatly above 1.

Indeed. We have still not advanced from multiplying small numbers by big numbers.

My point was the opposite. Even if the numbers are small, that in no way make us less likely. Postulating small numbers does seduce god seekers, but there is no good reason for that.

124. THE FOUR HORSEMEN - Available Now on DVD!

Comment #107018 by TonyA on January 3, 2008 at 10:27 pm

On a side note, how do you quote other posts? I know some forums have a button, but I am not able to find that here...

There is a link, just above the box you type the post into. Click on [Comment Posting Guidelines] to get the help you seek.

125. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #107012 by TonyA on January 3, 2008 at 9:59 pm

Yes. Your partial quote changes the meaning somewhat, but yes, I feel that abiogenesis could be rare enough that it might not happen very often. But, even if it only happens on one in a 100 suitable planets, that's still a lot. I just think those kinds of odds makes it unlikely to have two different abiogenesis events on the same planet. However, I am deliberately giving much ground because I don't think it weakens the case for abiogenesis. I also believe it could be much more likely, just that it isn't necessary to be so likely.

In short, just because we don't see evidence of two different types doesn't mean anything is wrong with the idea of spontaneous abiogenesis.

126. Moderates Storm The Religious Battlefield

Comment #106449 by TonyA on January 3, 2008 at 1:26 am

What kind of seekers and skeptics fill up 5,000 member mega-churches?

Tony
-Ruthlessly wacky hyperrationalist

127. THE FOUR HORSEMEN - Available Now on DVD!

Comment #106442 by TonyA on January 3, 2008 at 12:44 am

I really dislike the attitudes that are expressed here. I am trying to make a lot of points in a little space.

I really dislike having to do your research. Since you claim to only be after the truth, why don't you do some of your own research? If you are unable, as it seems, to understand the research, then why are you so sure about it?

You ignorantly asserted that the towers fell at free-fall speeds. You obviously didn't give a damn about wasting our time with that. You could have saved plenty of time if you had simply looked on youtube and found this:

http://www.youtube.com/v/omzWzMLOfUI

or this:

http://www.youtube.com/v/qLShZOvxVe4

Do you really want to be in the intellectual company of Rosie O'Donnell?

I know you probably won't trust this, but you should at least consider the information here:

http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/factsheets/

128. The Pagan Christ

Comment #106435 by TonyA on January 3, 2008 at 12:05 am

Downunder,

The 'life force,' or spirit, is the last imaginary fairy tale to dispense with. Some of us simply reuse the terminology such that it refers to our 'inner self,' or the 'program' running in our minds (the data, not the wires). "I have a spirit, but it dies when my body dies." I have never believed in eternal spirits, so I'm not sure I can properly understand the emotional difficulty in giving up that idea.

Life itself is simply a term of description for the observed, coordinated behavior that we so readily recognize as life. It is easy to recognize life because it is 'in our dimensions." If it were not, we wouldn't be able to see it, detect it or feel it.

You want to make a simple idea complicated, perhaps because you are worried about your life becoming a meaningless confluence of chance and matter. You needed worry like that. First, isn't the truth worth knowing, even if we don't like it? Second, what's not to like about it anyway? You are the result/descendant of millions of years of successful breeding pairs. Think of the challenges, risks and dangers faced and conquered by every single one of your ancestors.

We happen to be among the very luckiest beings that have ever existed. We have great abilities, an amazing and growing awareness of our universe and we have our diverse and interesting cultures. We can marvel at our world and appreciate beauty all around us. We can also abhor the injustices and strive to improve them wherever we can. We obviously have influence on others, and that matters a great deal because other people have feelings like we do. We can and do make meaningful differences to other people and that also makes us important. While we might be eclipsed by more advanced life somewhere else in the universe, we seem to be the top dog in our neighborhood.

In conclusion, don't mourn the loss of something you never had. We don't miss God because there is no God. We don't miss our eternal life forces because they don't exist.

After shedding all of the superstition and irrational thought systems, we are left with something that is quite marvelous in its own way.

Most people find that unencumbered reality is far more interesting and rewarding than the fairy tales.

129. THE FOUR HORSEMEN - Available Now on DVD!

Comment #106427 by TonyA on January 2, 2008 at 10:52 pm

I just do not believe I am wrong...

Nobody ever does, but we can use our brains to sort it out.

I thought this was a place where people actually respected one another and did not resort to terms like "tool" or "whackjob" when someone expressed a theory that was different from theirs.

I'm sorry, but this phenomenon of conspiracy theories is not a new development. This kind of thing happens so much it gets frustrating and tiring. I remember the words of a professor, "I've taught this same class for twenty years and my new students are still just as dumb as they were the first year." So please forgive me for dumping years of accumulated frustrations onto you. You are clearly new to this. I trust that some day soon, if you continue your investigations and learn how to evaluate data, study the source's credibility, etc. you will also come to the realization that the inside job theory is false.

I would like to keep this civil if possible...

Okay.

1: How do you explain the reports that the lobby was destroyed before the towers fell. This is evidenced by videos and testimony. Also the sub basement garages were destroyed again before the towers came down which was also part of the eyewitness accounts. Explosions were heard and felt on the lower floors again before they fell. The jets hit 70+ floors above this area.

Here, I have to take issue with the term 'destroyed.' Surely, there was some smoke and some broken windows, for which good explanations exist. I've seen plenty (probably all) of the videos from inside the lobby, which showed no evidence of being "destroyed." How can you show that anything was destroyed when the video evidence shows it wasn't?

It is widely believed that the express elevators did fall to the bottom when each plane struck. I've been in those elevators. They were big, probably enough room for 20 to 25 people each. I suspect they made quite a bang when they hit the ground.

130. The Pagan Christ

Comment #106419 by TonyA on January 2, 2008 at 9:48 pm

Radesq,

I don't know. I'll guess.

As a group, our evolution is probably more rapidly adaptable if we don't mix the older generation's DNA into too many successive generations. I don't know if that means we've got time-bombs in our DNA or if we simply didn't select for the necessary DNA repair mechanisms that might have kept us alive longer. Given the sufficient quantity of young breeders, there probably was no selection advantage for keeping older people around. In the past, since we had much shorter lifespans anyway, we didn't have many breeding capable, old people around being placed under selective pressure.

131. The Pagan Christ

Comment #106410 by TonyA on January 2, 2008 at 9:15 pm

Downunder:

have they got 'life' themselves, are they able to exist outside their host, or are they using the 'life' of their host? Host dead= sperm/egg dead.

Yes, sperm and eggs have life themselves, until they die. Take them out of a survivable environment and they die. This is exactly like taking an ordinary fish out of the water. It soon dies. The "host," in your terms, is just the environment in which the life lives.

Our individual cells are also alive. New ones are made and old ones die in a continuous process. Our bodies are extremely large communities of (mostly) cooperative, interdependent living cells.

If you agree that you can observe that 'life' is evident, how can you just dismiss the presence of it? It is just kidding yourself, it is illogical to label 'life' as 'nothing' when you have just observed its presence as a fact.

Just because something is evident does not mean it is a thing itself. For example, a traffic jam is evident. It's big, noisy, stinks, etc., but when the cars finally all drive away, the traffic jam ceases to exist, but it doesn't go to heaven.

Consider the way that sounds can become a recognizable voice. When I hear a voice, the sound seems real and full of life but then, at the end of the last word, it's over. Where did it go? Has the message really gone to another dimension?

Life is observable as a condition or property of some kinds of organized matter, but it is not an independent entity. You cannot say that a living creature contains an evident thing called life. You can say that a living creature is in a condition called alive. If the condition changes to dead, then it's just dead. The life didn't go anywhere, it just isn't in that condition any longer.

I think our belief in a 'life force' stems from our brain's "agency modeling" which animates other living objects. When something isn't alive, our brain treats it in a fundamentally different way.

132. The Pagan Christ

Comment #106007 by TonyA on January 2, 2008 at 9:19 am

If sperm are alive, are you committing murder by not constantly attempting to procreate?

Not murder, really, but yes, life is dying, but that happens even when procreation does occur. It's a cruel world. I don't view such life to be particularly worth fighting for, given their abundance and size. Nature ensures that nearly all sperm die unfulfilled.

133. The Pagan Christ

Comment #105960 by TonyA on January 2, 2008 at 8:10 am

Downunder,

I realize you have invested much thought into the discussion of 'life,' but let me suggest that you probably won't find an answer that satisfies you along these lines.

I think of life as an observation of the evidence rather than an ingredient in its own right. Surely, for example, eggs and sperm are both alive before they come together during fertilization, or even if they don't.

In short, life is what we call it when we see matter behaving in a way that seems to have community and least some self interest.

I'm not able to phrase this well, and perhaps I've done it wrong, but try to think about life as a description instead of a component.

134. Debate between Michael Shermer and Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #105820 by TonyA on January 1, 2008 at 9:44 pm

urin4it

I don't believe it is a man made religion, so how can I put myself in that scenario. There is not a single doubt in my mind that it isn't true.sorry

Another life down the drain... So sad.

135. THE FOUR HORSEMEN - Available Now on DVD!

Comment #105716 by TonyA on January 1, 2008 at 4:18 pm

I'm gonna need a hacksaw.

136. What have you changed your mind about? Why?

Comment #105671 by TonyA on January 1, 2008 at 1:49 pm

Cheers to you, WithGoodReason! For one, I wouldn't be bored to learn more about how this process happened.

137. THE FOUR HORSEMEN - Available Now on DVD!

Comment #105665 by TonyA on January 1, 2008 at 1:24 pm

To the relief of nearly everyone here, this will be my last comprehensive rebuttal post to evilgenius. If evilgenius can focus on one thing at a time, I'll be happy to keep it up the good fight, but I must put a stop the exponential feature creep.

Sorry TonyA, but the facts are facts and several scientists have proven them. The fact that you would stoop to calling someone a tool is funny and insulting and proves what little you actually know.

Facts are facts, but facts can still be misread by lazy thinkers. You can think whatever you like, especially if the truth means little to you. I'm not sure what causes your blind spots, but scientific ability isn't one of your problems.

I think that you have been sold a lie yourself.

This is a fair accusation, but it proves to be false in the end. I've look at your sources. I've read their papers. They are wrong. I would happily tell them so directly.

If you can look at the videos and see the debris shooting up and out of the buildings and ignore the eyewitness accounts then that is up to you.

I don't have to ignore anything except ignorant conclusions. The debris, eyewitness and video testimony are consistent with the theory that jumbo jets brought down the towers. WTC 7 is a slightly less obvious case, but it has been shown that only one column needed to fail to cause that collapse. Perhaps you believe the I-35 bridge collapsed due to demolition because it happens to look like it did.

There is no reason for me to argue anymore.

I fully agree. You should seek other areas where you might have some competency. In a skateboard duel, you might be a formidable opponent, but in this area you bring nothing of note.

I suggest maybe reading the words of several prominent scientists that have all stated these facts.

I have read many of them. I found numerous baseless claims and much evidence of "emotional engineering."

The evidence of controlled demolition far outweighs anything that the planes and the fires they produced would have done. Open your eyes and read!

As I said, I have read. They make insane conclusions. What am I supposed to do about that? Should I take the words of these crackpots over my own scientific and engineering skills?

David Griscom:
http://www.journalof911studies.com/letters/e/hand-waving-the%20physics-of-911-by-david-griscom.pdf

David Ray Griffin:

http://911review.com/articles/griffin/nyc1.html#multipleevidence

Sadly, both of these experts have made quite a few errors in the cited papers. If you would like to defend these sources, then you should learn how to understand what they say.

These are well respected scientist that you will have a lot more fun trying to refute than me. Please go and refute them as well. Go tell these guys they are tools too!!

I don't have an opinion on the scientific respect they've earned elsewhere. Perhaps this is their worst work yet. Is that my fault? Should I respect bogus conclusions anyway? I'm not looking forward to dealing with more crackpot theories. However, I can certainly say I am not intimidated by their 'proof by intimidation' or their hand waving tactics. The fact that, in only a few minutes, I can find significant errors in their papers should reduce your uncritical admiration of their work.

And maybe you can show them how a falling building will cut steel into a perfect straight and angled line exactly like the cuts created by controlled demolition.

Do you admit that the airplanes' aluminum wings cut the steel structural support columns in perfect and angled lines? It is clear from the photos, unless you suspect they used demolition charges to make an airplane shaped hole which the pilots skillfully flew into just as the charges went off. Of course that is silly. The unassailable fact is that metals cut other metals. Aluminum can cut steel. Steel cuts steel even better.

First, here is just one of many idiotic statements made by expert #2, theologist!? David Ray Griffin:

If the 110-story Twin Towers had fallen over, they would have caused an enormous amount of damage to buildings covering many city blocks. But the towers came straight down.

Tall buildings don't fall like trees. There were insufficient available sideways forces to cause such an absurd result. Who thinks like this?
Next, he contradicts his own bogus conclusion that the buildings should have toppled to the side.

In the case of the Twin Towers, photos and videos reveal that "[h]eavy pieces of steel were ejected in all directions for distances up to 500 feet, while aluminum cladding was blown up to 700 feet away from the towers" (Paul and Hoffman, 2004, p. 7). But gravitational energy is, of course, vertical, so it cannot even begin to explain these horizontal ejections.

Second, on page 4 of the other cited document, Dr. David Griscom skillfully skewers his own bogus strawman:

Dr. Garcia asserts without proof or argument that "[each] Impact [of pancaking] is a very brief process whose duration is dt = 1/100 [second]." ... Well, to have such a small value of dt would require that the bottom of the falling "upper block" meet the floor below without the slightest tilt. ... So did the "upper blocks" of WTC1&2 fall without tilting? Well, according to NIST's final report (Section 6.14.4, p. 146): "Failure of the south wall in WTC 1 and east wall in WTC2 caused the portion of the building above to tilt in the direction of the failed wall." And in films, the "upper block" of WTC2 is seen to tilt as much as 23 degrees!

Dr. Griscom erroneously concludes that only flat pancaking can occur quickly enough to reach near free fall speeds. When nonparallel planar "tilted" objects collide with deformation, there is a line-shaped collision located at the intersection of the two planes. At any one point of collision, each happening at slightly different times, the collision will be brief. Dr. Griscom merely shows that the point of time of first contact and the point of time of the last contact are separated in time. This does not change the impulse function's time (t) for any given point of collision. His argument is similar to a claim that you can't break a row of eggs with a bat unless the bat hits all the eggs at the same time. Imagine each floor is a matrix of eggs glued together such that each egg is broken loose when it experiences a collision. As one tilted matrix hits another, the individual eggs hit at different times, but each hit will be much briefer than the total time consumed by the entire set of collisions.

Dr. Griscom suggests that the falling should have been substantially slowed by air resistance, while theologian David Ray Griffin suggests there was no available energy to throw debris or dust clouds sideways. It should be obvious that once you claim that air resistance slowed the fall of the buildings, you have to concede that the air had extremely high levels of energy available for tossing debris, pushing dust clouds, etc. You can't have it both ways.

138. THE FOUR HORSEMEN - Available Now on DVD!

Comment #105635 by TonyA on January 1, 2008 at 10:52 am

evilgenius

The biggest problem here is that a building that falls by pancaking does not pulverize concrete and office contents to dust and eject them several hundred feet from the building.

Why do you make such idiotic claims? Oh, that's right, you lied about being an engineer and it has come back to bite you.

There were steel beams ejected with such force and can be seen in your pictures that would never have been ejected by pancaking.

You are seriously deranged. I've been inside the WTC towers. I've seen the beams up close, they were in plain sight.

The simple fact is that the official pancake theory has more holes and is more outrageous than controlled demolition.

Not to my educated, skeptical mind. If I could find evidence that suggests this, I would jump all over it. It just isn't true. I'm sorry you can't think so clearly, but that's your problem, not mine.

139. Richard Dawkins on 'Have Your Say'

Comment #105542 by TonyA on December 31, 2007 at 11:30 pm

Need answers to tough questions? Let Christ-inanity answer them with our handy book of 2000 year old riddles.

140. Happy Newton Day!

Comment #105536 by TonyA on December 31, 2007 at 10:48 pm

BJohn

I hope you'll be open to the idea that the layers of reality detectable by natural science may not be all there is.

You could be right, but why not look for those layers instead of simply creating a mountain of imaginary beliefs? Do you truly believe that a made-up answer is better than having a good question with an unknown answer?

141. Happy Newton Day!

Comment #105524 by TonyA on December 31, 2007 at 9:41 pm

epeeist

It is a long time since I was a Catholic, but what is involved in the process of beatification and canonisation? Don't these involve the demonstration of some miracle purportedly by the person to be canonised?

I am not sure. In the case of miracles, I don't think a demonstration is required. I think the event needs to be helpful to the dogma, believed by witnesses, believable to those who hear of it later, and non-falsifiable by witness reversal or scientific inquiry. In other words, anything goes as long as people like it, people can't disprove it and people think it's true. Obviously, proof that it is true is not necessary, or the list of miracles would be empty.

142. THE FOUR HORSEMEN - Available Now on DVD!

Comment #105523 by TonyA on December 31, 2007 at 9:26 pm

evilgenius

The fact that a building collapsing would not cut metal at linear angle cuts is a big clue.

You are a tool. The falling building had far more energy than the moving plane, yet the moving plane, which was made of flimsy aluminum, clearly cut right through the steel outer support columns at right angles. We saw it in slow motion from many angles. Yet, you claim that with much more energy and with much harder steel, the falling beams would not be able to do this!

Well, you probably aren't evil either.

143. THE FOUR HORSEMEN - Available Now on DVD!

Comment #105522 by TonyA on December 31, 2007 at 9:15 pm

evilgenius

If you want to disagree, then that is fine.

I strongly disagree with your conclusions. I've looked at your arguments and your references. They are utterly worthless. The facts simply don't support you. They more directly point to much simpler and more reasonable conclusions. Your conclusions are not even reasonable when giving the facts an unduly generous uncertainty variance. Please spend some time reading a couple of the debunking sites. If your faith is strong, you should have no fear.

Please understand, I want you to be an ally in the good fight against evil and irrationality of all kinds, particularly the insidious plague of religion. However, in this case, you have found yourself on the wrong side of the evidence.

I personally find these scientific arguments to be absurd. It would be best to make sure your arguments pass the stink test before you advance them.

I am sorry tony, but you can not tell me that the floors would not resist something landing on them or pancaking down at free fall speeds. This has been proven.

This is a lie. Nothing of the sort has been proven. I never claimed there would be no resistance, only that the resistance would not lead to a constant, per-floor delay of the fall. Please seek independent advice about this if it confuses you. The buildings clearly fell fast, but they fell slower than free fall, as can be observed by (at least any of) the debris which falls faster than the building top does. The link is to one picture among many that shows the free-fall theory to be completely wrong.

Please note the falling debris -> http://www.debunking911.com/pulledin.jpg
How do you suppose these things managed to fall faster than free fall?

There are demolition experts that have stated emphatically and without bias that these events were a controlled demolition.

I could find only one video of an expert "testifying" to your assertion. He did not even know what building he was watching the video of. He didn't know it was on 9/11 or that it was a building next to the WTC towers. Please be aware that experts have often been ambushed and have made knee-jerk statements that have haunted them ever since. In every case I can find, the experts who briefly suggested it fell as though it were demolished have later said they were describing that there was an appearance of demolition, they were not explaining that demolition was the root cause.

Of course a falling building looks demolished. Demolitions are about the only times we've ever seen buildings fall. Your problem is that you cannot show it should have fallen in some other way.

The evidence of controlled demolition is too obvious and apparent and you refuse to see it.

No. You continue to show the same lack of basic critical thinking skills that religiously deluded believers tend to show. Clearly, the most striking evidence of the demolition of a building is that it falls to the ground in a heap. But a building that falls to the ground in a heap for some other reason will still fall down and it will still look essentially the same. After all, the bit about everything falling is the most noticeable part of the show, and that happens regardless of the cause of the falling.

There was no evidence of stacked pancaked floors at the bottom. Concrete was turned to dust. The dust clouds are moving out from the buildings and are hurling tons of steel several feet from the buildings.

Okay, so what? What about this supports your inane theories?

I don't know what to make of your repeated claims to be an engineer, as you are either being dishonest or your engineering education thoroughly failed to register in your mind. Either way, it is going to be an uphill struggle to help you think more clearly about this.

Here is an example of where your thinking is hurting you:
You say:

[Of a building destroyed by fire] Asymmetrical collapse which follows the path of least resistance (laws of conservation of momentum would cause a falling, to the side most damaged by the fires)

Here again, you clearly demonstrate your lack of ability to understand such things. Tall buildings do not fall like trees. The top part of the building was very heavy. As it began to fall, the 'asymmetric collapse' merely caused the top section to slightly rotate around its center of mass as it fell down. To fall anywhere other than straight down would require that very considerable forces be applied laterally to the falling portion. Buildings are built to be strong against gravity, but there is nowhere for the falling portion to obtain sufficient forces, acting orthogonal to gravity, to cause the building to fall to the side.

I'm really fed up with the technical idiocy of this absurd theory. Why do so many lay-people suddenly think themselves experts in such matters?

Tony, it would take a lot of time to get through what I think you are doing.

The only thing I am doing is trying to help people who have deluded themselves to the point of irrationality. I came to this site to do my part to save people from religion, but you've approached this 9/11 thing in the same way that religious folks approach their religion. For that reason alone, I found it interesting enough to reply to your claims.

If any bit of evidence suggested you were onto something, I'd be right there with you.

Again, I applaud your efforts to find and expose injustice, but you're wasting your time coming to a site filled with rational people and making specious claims about evidence which refutes your own conclusions.

144. A War On Science

Comment #105493 by TonyA on December 31, 2007 at 6:15 pm

I'll bet I'm not the only one who skips the parts where the ID'ers talk because I can't stand to listen to obvious lies they are spewing.

Sadly, it seems that the other side must be doing the same thing and skipping the obvious truths.

145. THE FOUR HORSEMEN - Available Now on DVD!

Comment #105433 by TonyA on December 31, 2007 at 2:35 pm

evilgenius says:

I am not an idiot and I am certainly capable of understanding physics.

But he first said:

If you assume even a .5 second delay per floor, it would have taken a lot longer than 10 seconds for the buildings to collapse.

I'm sorry, evilgenius, you can't have it both ways.

146. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #105038 by TonyA on December 30, 2007 at 12:41 pm

However you must consider that we can achieve concentrations a billion times greater in a flask,"

But then you're not performing the same experiment.

Ferinstance the original replicator didn't have legs to walk to the next puddle. How did it then 'eat up' all the other replicators?

Maybe it waited until it could walk over, and then it ate it. Maybe the other replicators managed to cause their own early extinction. Nobody says life isn't on the knife edge, in specific cases.

As you may remember, my personal opinion is that there probably weren't other puddles with different kinds of replicators. I feel, without evidence, I admit, that the likelihood of one abiogenesis is small enough to not expect two different results in the same neighborhood.

Note that one difference between science and religion is that science is still searching for the answer, while the religions never looked for it.

147. THE FOUR HORSEMEN - Available Now on DVD!

Comment #105035 by TonyA on December 30, 2007 at 12:25 pm

First, let me say that I truly enjoyed this video. I'm looking forward to more. I'm sure most of us wish we could have been sitting in the fifth chair adding our own elements to this conversation.

evilgenius,

The first thing that occurs to me is that you are relatively new to the world of skepticism. I think many of us experienced a similar, shall I say, overreaction to the awakening feeling of skepticism. So while I encourage your continued efforts, I still have to take your post at face value.

Sorry TonyA but I have to disagree and yes I do understand the difference between kinetic and potential energies.

If you do, then you haven't tried to utilize what you understand. Even Bin Laden says he expected the top floors to fall. Once that happened, by whatever means, the result was unavoidable. The physics are quite simple, the effect is quite obvious and we all saw it happen.

I just find it so strange that people miss the fact that the buildings were designed the way they were to not fall due to fire. You guys seem to be missing the idea that the internal support structures fell and if the pancake theory was even remotely plausible, these internal columns would have remained standing as the the floors came down as well.

The idea that internal support structures would remain standing is absurd. If you know anything about engineering, you know that all design decisions are compromises between various factors such as cost, schedule and objective. In every case, every feature falls short of the ideal, but instead attempts to hit the compromise. Firemen's suits are designed to keep a fireman from burning to death, yet it still happens. The issue isn't just temperature, it's a complicated function of temperature, time and degradation of the protection. Certainly, the central vertical columns were not designed to be able to remain free standing while an enormous building fell on top of it.

As I have never stated emphatically that it was all government that did this, I can only give you an opinion as to why they would have helped. As I said,I personally feel that we would not have been a willing audience to go after Bin Laden without that event. Then you do not really need to prove Iraq had WMD to go there because you already had the mindset that everyone was out to get us and we needed to take action. Do I believe that the government as a whole orchestrated 9/11, I would have to say no.

This is weak. When things happen, other things are affected. Regardless of the cause of 9/11, this claim stands with equal weight. Thus it isn't informative.

However, there was more to the buildings collapse than the fire and there are many scientists who would agree to that.

Who doesn't agree to this? There were obvious structural damages, not just to a facade, but to the external, supporting structure of the buildings, and probably some damage to the magical internal columns.

Bin Laden would of course claim responsibility for the attacks as it helps a lot of causes for him and it was interesting that several members of his family were in the US at the time.

Again, things happen. You cannot deduce causation based on who benefits from it. You can arouse your suspicions, if you like, but ultimately it's evidence that makes the case. Is every insurance beneficiary a crook in your eyes?

But please do not assume that I am an idiot on science. I am a nuclear engineer and have studied physics for many years, and no building would collapse straight down like that at free fall speeds without help.

It's hard to respond to the obvious conflict resulting from these claims. I'll simply suggest that there are engineers who aren't able to use their skills effectively in certain situations.

I guess you are trying to say that the floors that were attached to the central support columns gave no resistance to falling and immediately gave way all the way down. I say that will not happen. If you assume even a .5 second delay per floor, it would have taken a lot longer than 10 seconds for the buildings to collapse.

Okay, I call total BS on your claims to have any reasonable abilities in dynamics. Constant delay per floor!?? Wow! Dynamic systems do not work like this. Did you see the tail of the airplane delay itself as the forward parts of the airplane were crushed into the building? The kinetic energy, caused by the falling of the top part of the building, very greatly exceeded the energy required to crush the floor below. It couldn't have paused. It's true that the velocity was slightly decreased as the kinetic energy was slightly consumed by crushing each floor, but the reduction of kinetic energy was dwarfed by the additional conversion of potential energy to kinetic energy that occurred by falling down another floor.

Why do you all also forget the testimony of those that heard the explosions? The evidence is overwhelming and yet no one wants to hear it because one or 2 people try to tell you it happened a certain way or that the government would never do that. I think that is a backward view.

I didn't forget anything. It's not surprising to me that high pressure acoustic effects were occurring as the towers fell.

This 9/11 conspiracy effort falls short of convincing because it reminds me of the common traits I see with theism in general:
- The appeal to obviousness, credulity.
- The assertion that we don't understand the points being made.
- The carefully weaved, yet weak motivational narrative.
- The emotional commitment.
- The exaggerated claims of agreement by a minority of experts.
- The exaggerated claims of precise or specific knowledge.

Let's see what the response is. Perhaps more parallels will surface.

148. Happy Newton Day!

Comment #105016 by TonyA on December 30, 2007 at 10:43 am

I thought we already covered this.

Sorry, I missed it.

I'd be willing to believe that the Sun hadn't "really moved around in the sky," ... it was probably some sort of an illusion (that's my guess).

So you admit that this miracle might have occurred only within the minds of the observers, for whatever reason. That's hardly an impressive act for an omnipotent being, even if it were true.

All, however, walked away convicted of their veracity.

Even here in Texas, I have to be mindful of the crowd I'm in before I boldly call BS on my god-toxicated neighbors and claim that I'm the only one who didn't see the miracle, lest they think I'm the devil. No believer wants to admit that God isn't talking to them. How many miracles have you actually seen? How many times have you had a rational conversation with God? None, probably, yet you still claim you know who God is and what he wants.

Why can't one God be behind all miracles?

Why can't one Giant Phallus be behind all miracles?

If you want to build belief systems on such flimsy foundation as "Why can't this ..." or "Why can't that ...", then you've taken away the guidance of reality and you have volunteered to credulously go wherever you wish to, evidence be damned. This is close to the state of the religious world as I see it. It is filled with mystics, seers, charlatans, hucksters and devout faithheads who have all willfully decided to go where no logical thought has gone before.

... the Church gives credence to very few such claims.

They shouldn't give credence to any such claims.

Part of the problem is the undue reverence of the church's supposed wisdom. Why accept the words of fully human and fully fallible people so willfully and uncritically? Those people have such an absurdly high commitment to telling a corroborating story that you should have a higher than normal skepticism. They are known to have bent the facts to fit the story since, and perhaps before, the inception of their religion itself. Please, please view your religion as critically as you view all else in the world, especially other religions.

Does your God want you to be credulous and ignorant? Why can't you imagine a creator that has never interfered in any way? I can. A deist god cannot be ruled out and it fits all known evidence very much better than your theist god does. I can imagine a deist god who cries in anguish when he sees the evil done in the name of the bogus religions, yours included.

...You see a car in the driveway, the mail's been picked up and there is a light shining out of a second story window... Someone's probably home.

Well, here is one of the problems. If this is all the evidence you need, you're always going to find enough to suit you! My home fits this description nearly always, whether anybody is home or not. My lights even turn off and on by themselves, without ghostly influence!

149. Happy Newton Day!

Comment #104878 by TonyA on December 29, 2007 at 9:35 pm

... are reasoned ... after one accepts the premises of Christianity in faith.

So if I suspend my critical thinking skills, my innate morality, and my belief in reality, then I can accept that God does reasonable things?

Isn't this just the tired appeal of, 'God works in mysterious ways?'

150. Happy Newton Day!

Comment #104876 by TonyA on December 29, 2007 at 9:29 pm

I look at Fatima as God's display of power; and ensuring 70,000 people of his presence, giving them awe and joy.

Of course you see it that way. You are living in dreamy-land.

So you have 70,000 people, who happened to be standing around waiting for a miracle. While waiting in the rain, the clouds cleared and they began staring at the Sun and claimed it began dancing and changing colors. How can you seriously believe the Sun really moved around in the sky? Do you understand how absurd it is that people can think this way in modern times? Are you absurdly credulous about other things in your life, besides reports of miracles from wishful, self-proclaimed supernaturalists? What happened to all the other people on that half of the planet? Nobody else saw this? Did they have their own Sun in Portugal?