Search results

Every living thing has the same drivers: 1) Sustenance of the self 2) Sustenance of the species 3) Expansion of the group 4) Defense against threats to any of the above Sustenance of the self is helped by religion by allowing the individual to feel superior to others, and therefore to have more...

Re: Absolute zero = 0 Kelvin. Absolute maximum temperature = Appreciated *courteous bow* My interpretation of OP's question was that it pertained to the maximum temperature of ordinary matter. Can we agree that 10^9 K is (approximately) the maximum temperature for ordinary matter, 10^30 K (the...

Re: Absolute zero = 0 Kelvin. Absolute maximum temperature = You could not think of a more constructive word to start a counter-argument with? At the time of the quark gluon plasma the unified field was still folded, so our concepts of space and energy had no meaning. That given, the concept...

Re: Absolute zero = 0 Kelvin. Absolute maximum temperature = Perhaps I understand your paraphrasing incorrectly, but I don't think that is what I meant. Allow me to rephrase what I described earlier: The moment when matter started to form is the first moment when one could speak of temperature...

Re: Absolute zero = 0 Kelvin. Absolute maximum temperature = The models on the origin of the universe provide a decent answer to your question. Theoretically there is no limit to the amount of energy with which a universe emerges. However, it has to expand and cool down sufficiently for even...

Re: Is banning the Bhurka the same as arresting suntanned wo I don't think anybody in Iraq voted for that war, so I can't respect that. As for the aggressor... the US stopped being a democracy long ago, when the banks were allowed to cause the 1930's recession and as a reward were given even...

Re: Is banning the Bhurka the same as arresting suntanned wo I tend to agree. However, I also have a respect for any law that is established through democratic means, even if I don't agree with it. Personally, I am more bothered by the UN decision to criminalize anything that any religious...

Re: Is banning the Bhurka the same as arresting suntanned wo These are just facts, not apologies. Opinions evidently differ on that matter. IMO the default should be that the right to privacy prevails, though in some (exceptional) cases security may trump privacy. Reality unfortunately is...

Re: Is banning the Bhurka the same as arresting suntanned wo Let's make this simple (hopefully). The only places where a ban on the burka exists are in muslim countries. No country in the western hemisphere is trying to ban the burka. What is happening is that some countries are drafting or...

Let's start with Me vs. Us. Look at hive communities such as bees, wasps or ants. They have no internal discord, no privacy, even hardly indivduality. Most of human conflicts, even between spouses ("My wife doesn't understand me"), are caused by the schism between Me and Us: the fact that we can...

Well, let's see. We take a healthy young male child, and we amputate a part of his body that was carefully evolved in the species by nature for very good reasons. OF COURSE IT IS MUTILATION!! The fact that in the US abusing your baby this way is common practice doesn't make it right, any more...

Nice one! Start a poll with in big letters above it "IS CIRCUMCISION GENITAL MUTILATION?" and then in half that font size below that the question: "Is circumcision ethical?" How reliable do you think the responses are going to be? :roll:

The circumstance in which we are delimit our options. If our choice is made based on existing neural pathways and the electrochemical balances therein at the moment that we make our choice, how free can this choice be? "As soon as questions of will or decision or reason or choice of action...

Following the theory of evolution, each of us is the product of what came before us, with only a small mutation. Following most common streams of psychology, our logic and emotional response are formed at least from birth. Both sciences say that instinct is handed over genetically. Given those...

All schisms in human thought are merely symptomatic. The fundament beneath all of them is our separation of our perception in three categories: me, us, them.

Blasphemy Wanted! The Center For Inquiry has launched a Campaign For Free Expression, in response to the globally increasing legislation making any public statement that may be offensive to any religion illegal. Their first initiative is a contest of blasphemic statements, closure date...

Re: About Knowledge Hi Criss, I'm a great admirer of your work on the internet. Here's my thoughts on what you wrote here, and on your message in general. People in general appear to have a need for a belief system. This can be explained physiologically and neurologically in the way that our...