A Challenge to Richard Dawkins and the Atheists

[Arising_uk]

...
and you have galaxies older than the bang,!!!!!!!!

Do we understand the physics of a black-hole then? We know their rate of consumption and expansion? If so, since these black 'holes' where created a long-time back why could we not conclude there was a lot more material for them to convert at the time. Since we can only tell if there is a black-hole by the stars around it, might not the explanation in the chapter about older stars than the universe hold some ideas as how to resolve these concerns.

[attofishpi]

mmm...we dont know shit from a shitbang

[xenuwonder]

I would like to apologize and say "excuse me" on behalf of the person who started this thread.
Why? Because what we have people is someone having what is known as a "Brain Fart", and in my house as a child and as it is now, a fart is a very rude thing to do amongst company and any such action should always be followed by an apology.

To suggest "Athiests" have no morals/ethics/code of conduct, whatever you want to call it is just plain ridiculous.
We all have parents, we all have had an upbringing. That is something we all have in common. They teach us things as we grow up.
"Do not hit people, do not steal from people, do not swear, share with people" etc etc etc.. There are many more lessons we learnt from our parents. Whether these were inspired from any religious teachings matters not. Maybe so a long time ago but in this day an age, unless you live in the bible belt of America or have the unfortunate fate of having been brought up in a religious environment, these lessons are pretty common themes EVERYWHERE in the world.

News flash people....It's called "COMMON FUCKING SENSE"

These are not ethics/morals that only religious nutters and dickheads know, these are common sense ideas that are pretty much standard throughout the world.

The dickhead who started this thread mentioned that Athiests are as OK with war as they are with science and suggested the religious demographic are'nt. WTF?? I think it was a learned person who followed up on that comment saying that it was the USA who then went to war after 9/11 with all it's righteous might...Here is a very religious nation who has made a business out of going to war for the last 70 years..

I've travelled the world, been to 30+ countries, worked closely with a lot of different cultures, and even learnt several languages along the way.

When you peel back the layers you find people are the same. There are good people, there are bad people, there are dickheads, there are assholes and there are also religious nutters who think you need a book to give you guidelines and a framework in which to live your life by for you to then be deemed as having ethics and morals.

They also think that same very book is needed to determine what is good and bad.

There are also a lot of other "Big Peoples" fairytales in there as well but going in to them is beyond the scope of my little rant.

COMMON SENSE, is what it is people and it's very hard to come by these days..

Trying to convince religious people of all this of course is a waste of time because it's very hard to change an opinion thats been preprogrammed since childhood and an opinion in which they had no choice in forming at that time.

It's kind of like asking someone to change their sexual orientation..Just does'nt happen that easily.

Bireligious anyone???

Xenu.

[xenuwonder]

Double post.

[Godfree]

Double post.

Full marks Xenu , go to the top of the class ,
I see humanity still in it's infancy ,there are many children out there,
in order to embrace their adult , they might have to stop thinking there is a heavenly father looking down and judging them all , if there is a god then people don't need to take responsibility for their action s, god did it , it's god
fault , if the people in Sudan etc stopped waiting for god to send the rain and save them , they might get of their butts and own the problem ,
create an infrastructer ,irrigation , a modern society .
but instead they live in a dust bowl , and say , god willing , we will survive ,
So keep them coming Xenu , you are a breath of fresh air a sane voice in a world of madness ,I don't feel so all alone now , well done .

[Arising_uk]

...
if the people in Sudan etc stopped waiting for god to send the rain and save them , they might get of their butts and own the problem ,
create an infrastructer ,irrigation , a modern society . but instead they live in a dust bowl , and say , god willing , we will survive , ...

I think you're an idiot if you think this is whats causing Sudan's problems. What irrigation if it doesn't rain?

[chaz wyman]

Double post.

Full marks Xenu , go to the top of the class ,
I see humanity still in it's infancy ,there are many children out there,
in order to embrace their adult , they might have to stop thinking there is a heavenly father looking down and judging them all , if there is a god then people don't need to take responsibility for their action s, god did it , it's god
fault , if the people in Sudan etc stopped waiting for god to send the rain and save them , they might get of their butts and own the problem ,
create an infrastructer ,irrigation , a modern society .
but instead they live in a dust bowl , and say , god willing , we will survive ,
So keep them coming Xenu , you are a breath of fresh air a sane voice in a world of madness ,I don't feel so all alone now , well done .

I'm not sure if this is a moronic statement, or just a plain asinine one.

[keithprosser2]

create an infrastructer ,irrigation , a modern society . but instead they live in a dust bowl , and say , god willing , we will survive , ...

Once upon a time people could up sticks and move on. That was before we invented nation states and passports. The Sudanese already show remarkable resourcefulness in just being able to survive in the conditions they do. Drop an typical UK or US family in those conditions and they'd struggle, to say the least.

[Godfree]

create an infrastructer ,irrigation , a modern society . but instead they live in a dust bowl , and say , god willing , we will survive , ...

Once upon a time people could up sticks and move on. That was before we invented nation states and passports. The Sudanese already show remarkable resourcefulness in just being able to survive in the conditions they do. Drop an typical UK or US family in those conditions and they'd struggle, to say the least.

I wasn't trying to pick on the Sudanese , I could have used many other examples to make the point .
Faith healing ,
there are many examples of people taking children to a faith healer instead of a "real" doctor, and there has been deaths from this ,
I remember a case here in NZ a year or so ago ,
The point is , to rely on god to solve things in the real world ,
is no more likely to succeed than waiting for Superman Batman , or the Joker,
we live in the real world , not the land of myth legend and religion,
godfrees third law ,"If you want to solve things in the real world , you need real solutions",,,

[chaz wyman]

create an infrastructer ,irrigation , a modern society . but instead they live in a dust bowl , and say , god willing , we will survive , ...

Once upon a time people could up sticks and move on. That was before we invented nation states and passports. The Sudanese already show remarkable resourcefulness in just being able to survive in the conditions they do. Drop an typical UK or US family in those conditions and they'd struggle, to say the least.

Good point.
When the word was carved up by cartography some people ended up with the shit end of the stick - that does not mean that they are indolent, stupid or less evolved - it just means they live in places that are difficult to live in.
This has resulted in a range of strategies to cope, some sustainable others not. The Aborigines of Australia lived sustainably for 40 thousand years in much the same way. Modern Aussies might think themselves clever with guns and cars but we have yet to see how they can sustain their strategy once the oil runs out. I'd be willing to bet that the white man is going to look pretty fucking stupid in another couple of generations.

[Godfree]

not. The Aborigines of Australia lived sustainably for 40 thousand years in much the same way. Modern Aussies might think themselves clever with guns and cars but we have yet to see how they can sustain their strategy once the oil runs out. I'd be willing to bet that the white man is going to look pretty fucking stupid in another couple of generations.[/quote]
Chaz , the Aborigines burnt the native forests and destroyed the climate causing the huge inland lake to dry up devistating the natural habitat .
like most ancient cultures , slash and burn was a convenient and easy way to clear the land and chase out the game .
The middle east was forest , The Sudan would have been forest at one point , and it is mans use of wood for fires and building , not to mention the slash and burn that created the dust bowls we know today

[chaz wyman]

Chaz , the Aborigines burnt the native forests and destroyed the climate causing the huge inland lake to dry up devistating the natural habitat .
like most ancient cultures , slash and burn was a convenient and easy way to clear the land and chase out the game .
The middle east was forest , The Sudan would have been forest at one point , and it is mans use of wood for fires and building , not to mention the slash and burn that created the dust bowls we know today

You are as ignorant as you are stupid.

"Fire-stick Farming" (maybe you should look it up), as practiced in Australia before Cook, increases species diversity. It is the only farming method that can do this. Far from devastating the ecology it actually has enhanced it.
This is the only change to the Australian environment that the Aborigine has wrought.
For all his science western man has truly ruined millions of hectares of land reducing them to a single species on wheat, dependant on petro-chemical, fertilisers and energy hungry farming machines. The wheat plains of the USA are an ecological disaster.

As for much of North Africa, and the Levant where 'modern' farming was invented c 10,000 BP, has caused the ruin of the environment and the desertification of wide areas. The latest unsustainable methods are disasters waiting to happen.

[Arising_uk]

Agreed, take a goggle around at how much fertile land is being lost, and is projected to be lost, solely to the result of compaction of the soil due to our farming methods.

Always funny that we worry about CO2 warming when CH4 is as big a problem. Cows! Who'd have thought?

[chaz wyman]

Agreed, take a goggle around at how much fertile land is being lost, and is projected to be lost, solely to the result of compaction of the soil due to our farming methods.

Always funny that we worry about CO2 warming when CH4 is as big a problem. Cows! Who'd have thought?

CO2 is a sideshow to deforestation. Industrial scale ploughing is far more damaging that life-stock farming.
I live on the South Downs. In 1700 much of the Downs was forested, with very deep soil. In 1940 there was a depth of 6-8 inches of loess (wind blown soil). Down take alook after the autumn ploughing. The land is as white as snow because there is NO SOIL. Nothing would grow were it not for artificial fertilisers.
Some farmers are having to go back to sheep farming - this replaces soil and relies less on petro-chemicals.

[attofishpi]

Many years ago i watched a BBC documentary called 'Prisoners of the Sun' ...at least i think that was its name. Some time ago i tried hunting it down on the web for a friend that was commisioned to write an enviro book, but couldn't find it.

Anyway it makes it very clear how we humans, our population, is so out of sync with nature. Where all life, including us were once harmonious with nature, fossil fuels has allowed our population to explode. Millions and millions years worth of 'sun' energy is being exploited now and pretty soon a vacuum will be all that remains as the population realises it has no way to sustain itself without the use of fossil energy...

For me its time all nations put a price on carbon and every penny of that tax should be pumped into research on renewables and other technologies, such as n-fusion...