StrangeSox

15 square inches is slightly larger than a 4x3 notecard. Gotta assume they mean 15"x15"x4" but that's still tiny. My conspiracy-theory-addicted brother is convinced the whole NATO summit is a fraud and that they're using these measures as an excuse to arrest thousands of people speaking out against the government/illuminati.

This is what happened to two women who applied for a marriage license in NC:

Balta, I am sure you will be shocked to learn that Vogtle's schedule is slipping and costs are rising.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 11, 2012 -> 01:09 PM) Between things like the soup kitchens, the orphanages, the shelters, the Church puts billions into communities. They don't release any records, and they aren't recognized in the same category as say a Red Cross/Crescent type of group. I remember reading it before, but of course I have no idea when. I've heard that before and don't see a good reason to doubt it. They're a gigantic global institution in every country in the world. The Red Cross is huge but it's not really comparable to the Roman Catholic Church and its countless subsidiary organizations.

There are a whole bunch of different Catholic charities out there and the Church itself probably doesn't release global financial statements, so it'd be hard to check.

Catholic Bishops are attacking the Girl Scouts for their association with nefarious groups like Doctors Without Borders, the Sierra Club and Oxfam. This is the same sort of culture war crap that the article I linked to was lamenting.

I tend to steer clear of bro-heavy areas

QUOTE (RockRaines @ May 11, 2012 -> 12:21 PM) Yes, another older family man who probably doesnt remember his 20's. Good perspective I'm in my mid-20's and think Kane is a tool.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 11, 2012 -> 12:18 PM) This is exactly how I feel. http://www.chicagonow.com/red-light-distri...ane-to-grow-up/ Not everyone is a complete douchebag in their early 20's as Kane appears to be.

QUOTE (CanOfCorn @ May 11, 2012 -> 11:41 AM) I also have an Orthodox friend who goes 6 hours between dairy and meat. His now-wife, pre-marriage, was a 1 hour between. He never asked her to go to his position, but he did say, if you do, you can't go back. Now, I have travelled with this guy more than once and he goes out of his way to make sure he isn't in everyone else's way. He'll tape the light switches so we can't turn it off, he'll cook everything on tin foil or separate a couple of pots and pans, just for him. This is the way I think religion should be. It's personal, but if you want to truly be involved in his life, i.e. his wife, it's her choice, but she has to know there's no going back. I respect the hell out of him and his beliefs and he's a great friend. Anyway, back to the original thread... We recently remodeled our kitchen and I was unaware of all of the kosher kitchen options.

There's a lot of people who are still culturally religious while being atheist or agnostic, myself included. e.g. putting up a Christmas tree or celebrating Passover because they represent important cultural traditions.

I had no idea you had Jewish lineage until these threads.

QUOTE (CrimsonWeltall @ May 11, 2012 -> 10:59 AM) This is true for the "what happened in the first second of the universe?" question, but there are numerous other questions about the universe that ARE provable (or disprovable). If someone believes that all life on Earth was made 6,000 years ago and another person thinks that's totally wrong, that's not a "oh well, who knows who might be right?" stalemate. The first dude is wrong. There's a handful of YEC's who accept that all of the evidence points to an old earth, common ancestor etc. but nevertheless reject that in favor of their faith. If there's a god and it is some Loki-type trickster, Last Thursdayism could be true!

Droid X2

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ May 11, 2012 -> 10:50 AM) You must have skipped root 101 where you're told to NEVER accept an update when you're rooted. They typically have a rooted version of the update within a day. Well I bricked my phone the first time I tried so I can't say I'm good at it! I need to SBF back to the previous build and go from there. What ROM do you recommend? I was still running the stock gingerbread 2.3.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 11, 2012 -> 10:46 AM) JPM is incredibly stupid for letting their position get out, and then not unwinding it once it did. That was the takeaway I read at another blog, can't remember which one though. Any huge position like that that becomes public will get hammered. Is there a pretty short and succinct summary of what sort of societal benefit we get from allowing these types of trades?

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ May 11, 2012 -> 10:38 AM) There are a lot of people who believe in God and also believe in the Big Bang and everything that comes after that. Most people on this board apparently think that's a ridiculous thing to believe. No, this specific line of discussion started after Crimson criticized Young Earth Creationism. That is a ridiculous thing to believe, but I know I've linked to Ken Miller's book multiple times on here before. He's a Catholic biologist and one of the key witnesses at the Dover trial.

Liberal blogs are all over this because Dimon, JP Morgan's CEO, has been severely critical of the Volcker rule as it is, let alone a strengthened version that would stop this kind of Wall Street Casino.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ May 11, 2012 -> 10:09 AM) I've never contended it was a good argument in support of religion. I've always maintained that in that basic sense you're still relying on an unprovable belief, and in that sense, both sides are doing the same thing. But only on that one specific issue of "how did it all start" i.e. pre-Big Bang. Your error is then expanding that to anything else. Once you take "the universe exists" as a given assumption, you don't have to worry about that.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ May 11, 2012 -> 09:40 AM) Edit: Whether you believe the magical man in the sky created the universe or some other dimension created energy or whatever the hell that theory is - that comes down to belief that cannot be proven or disproven. That statement doesn't say a thing about the Big Bang or evolution or cosmology or anything else. It's a philosophical question once you get beyond a certain point in the past, at least for now. but you do see why "how can you believe something came from nothing?" isn't a convincing pro-religion argument, right?

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ May 11, 2012 -> 09:40 AM) I'm not suggesting they are the same thing but they are on the same chain of events that must have happened for you and I to be here talking through the internet. You're ignoring my point -- there is no explanation for the beginning of something from nothing which eventually led to the evolution of life. Break it down and distinguish as many of the variables as you want in that chain, but that's the basic point i'm making. It's a 100% belief and theory of "x" which started the big bang and evolution. Whether those exist independently isn't my point. But not knowing "what came before the big bang" doesn't mean every other theory Big Bang and after is now up for question, or that the default position to take to a question without a currently known answer is "god did it." This is another example of the sort of privilege that I was talking about that majority groups get afforded in society. There's an awful lot of evidence for the Big Bang (a theory that a Catholic priest came up with, btw!). There's an awful lot of evidence for the universe being roughly 13.6 Billion years old and the earth being something like 6 billion years old. There's an awful lot of evidence that all life on the planet descended from a common ancestor that originated a couple of billion years ago. There's no evidence for a young earth and a whole lot against it. There's no evidence for special creation of man in his current state and a whole lot against it. Accepting mainstream scientific theories for cosmology and biology doesn't require rejection of Christianity, but it does require rejecting some of the silly claims more fundamentalist strains preach.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ May 9, 2012 -> 02:54 PM) Well i'm sorry, you have no facts, so creationism and evolutionary thought are apparently on equal footing. No facts = no belief. Right Soxbadger? I missed this the first time around. You've made this convolution before. Cosmology (big bang) and biology (evolution) are not the same thing. Even the start of life (abiogenesis) isn't the same thing as evolution. So, no, not on equal footing. We have good evidence for the Big Bang, essentially indisputable evidence for evolution and some good working theories on abiogenesis. None of those things categorically declares "there is no god" or makes a claim on any sort of prime-mover or what came before the Big Bang. Young Earth Creationism is a silly belief that was discarded by Christian scientists who actually were curious about this stuff about two centuries ago (Lyell and Darwin). YEC makes certain predictions that can be tested, and it fails every single time. The same thing happens to actual scientific ideas like the aether theory of EM propagation.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ May 9, 2012 -> 02:12 PM) For example, Many people believe that women are subservient to men due to religion. If you are going to try and argue for a woman's equality, you cant just pull out a chapter from the New Testament to support you. Thus if they keep relying on it, you just have to attack the New Testament. I don't think this is correct. In my view, people interpret their religion through their own moral system more than the other way around, though there's obviously some interaction. The Bible was used to justify slavery and abolition, segregation and civil rights and just about any other social issue you can imagine (including feminism). People pick and choose which parts of religious holy books to follow based on external morals and then use religion to justify their moral claims, both good and bad. I was raised in a religious family, but we were never taught messages of intolerance that you may hear in fundamentalist churches. Both sides would probably argue that the other's interpretation of the religion is wrong, but it highlights the subjective nature of the whole thing.

Ok, I guess I'll just say one last time that the article I linked is not anti-Christian at all unless you believe that being anti-gay is essential to Christianity (which I don't think you do)! It's actually pro-Christianity and laments church leaders' culture wars driving youth away from Christianity! edit: I'm also struggling to recall "unbridled hate" in the other thread but that could just be selective memory (happened in the Trayvon thread and when I read back over it saw what I believe you were alluding to). Except my unbridled hatred of PZ-type New Atheism. edit2: yeah, there's some posts in there that are pretty antagonistic, but they started in response to asking why people who don't believe in God don't go on raping sprees so...

Stupid OTA Droid update to 1.3.418 broke root access.