Quote from ElectrocutionCreeper
As a christian that likes to keep an open mind, I thought it would be fun to create a discussion topic regarding this "explosive" topic. As I stated, I like to discuss this topic, not fight about it, that is why I am going to set some discussion ground rules regarding this, I expect moderators to fully enforce these common rules.
Your posts would be easier to dissect if you didn't have all this formatting markup inside of it. I am presently untangling this so that I may respond to you without having the site complain to me about mismatched tags. Some tags will have to be discarded in the interest of expediency.
Top 3 discussion rules.
1: Assume that everyone, like you, is seeking truth.
I can try, but based on my experiences I have found that some people have already found their truth and will cling to it come hell or high water.
Listen in a spirit of humility so you can learn from others, painful though that process may be.
I will not submit to others by default. I try to begin by assuming we are equals.
One technique to try is to honestly ask yourself "what if what I believe about this really is wrong, and his/her perspective really is right?" Keep this question in mind to help you non-defensively consider others' ideas.
An excellent suggestion.
2: Every person is treated with respect.
Respect is earned.
Ask clarifying questions rather than making judgments about people.
Judging the actions of others occurs subconsciously to me.
3: Listen carefully to each other – if you are thinking about how you're going to respond, you are probably not listening.
Surely this is a typo. I would think that you would want people to think about how they are going to respond, lest they make fatuous responses.
Ten Common Fallacies
1: Argument to the person (ad hominem): Attacking the person instead of focusing on the issues involved.
2: Circular reasoning: Restating instead of proving a claim.
3: Hasty generalization: Drawing conclusions from scanty evidence.
4: False cause: presuming that if B follows A, A caused B.
5: Either/or: Suggesting that only two choices are possible when in fact there may be several.
6: Red herring: bringing in an irrelevant issue to defect[sic] attention from the main point.
7: Slippery slope: assuming that one event will set off an unstoppable chain reaction.
8: False analogy: making a comparison between things that are too dissimilar for the comparison to be useful.
9: Non sequitur: Drawing a conclusion from irrelevant data.
10: Bandwagon: Claiming that widespread popularity makes an object or idea valuable.
"Either/or" (I have never heard of that name for it before) is also known as a "false dichotomy".
"False cause" is also known as "post hoc, ergo propter hoc".
You forgot my favourite class of fallacy: arguments from ignorance (and all of it's offspring), which tend to go something like this: "we don't know X, therefore we know Y". For example, "we don't know how the curtain moved, therefore it must have been ghosts!"
If you cannot follow these rules, please ignore this topic and leave.
They are necessary for this sort of discussion.
I already disagree with some of your rules and a proper discussion does not require respecting another person's views and opinions. I may respect your right to hold them, but that does not mean they are exempt from thorough criticism.
Here are several important definitions:
Science CANNOT prove ANYTHING:
This is should not be surprising because science does not rely on proofs nor does it operate in a vacuum. If you want proofs, go to mathematics or more rigorous branches of science, like computer science. In both science and mathematics you are required to be able to repeatedly demonstrate how and why you came to a conclusion; personal anecdotes and other hearsay are worthless unless they can be consistently duplicated.
Hypothesis:
A supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation.
A proposition made as a basis for reasoning, without any assumption of its truth
The most important thing about a hypothesis is never stated here. Hypotheses are designed to be falsifiable so that you can differentiate between various hypotheses and eliminate those that are most likely to be incorrect given the current observations; if there is no objective and verifiable way to demonstrate when one is wrong then it is worthless.
Thesis:
A statement or theory that is put forward as a premise to be maintained: "can you support your thesis?"
I fail to see the relevance...
Scientific Law:
1: A scientific law states a repeated observation about a thesis.
A scientific law generally describes an apparently invariant (and usually mathematical) relationship between two or more observations.
Creationism:
The belief that the universe and living organisms originate from divine creation, as in the biblical account.
There are different varieties of creationism and it is no simple task to distill them into one sentence. Some forms of creationism have the universe being created by the divine, like deism for example. Others are much more intricate having the divine interfering after the universe was already in motion (the idea that the earth and/or the creatures on it were specially created by the divine, for example). Creationism does not necessitate that Christianity (or some specific interpretation thereof) be true. There are creationist Muslims, Hindus, etc.
Evolution:
The belief that there is a process by which different kinds of living organisms are thought to have developed and diversified from earlier forms.
Not quite. The scientific theory of evolution is, as its name suggests, a scientific theory. Since you failed to mention "Scientific theory" in your definitions I will attempt to do it for you. A "theory" in scientific contexts is the name for a set of scientific hypotheses, scientific laws, and scientific facts, which build upon each other in such a way that when taken together not only provide a reasoned explanation of observed phenomena (backed by relevant data) but allow for the prediction of other related phenomena. Gravity is a fact (objects with mass tend to move towards each other), a law (we can calculate and quantify the tendency of masses to move towards each other), and a theory (we can extrapolate laws and predict the motion of gravitationally bound bodies (even artificial ones, like satellites). Futher developments lead to it being discovered that matter and energy are not only interchangeable, but that space-time itself deforms in their presence. This allows us to accurately place satellites into orbit and if it wasn't accounted for, would cause serious issues with things like the Global Positioning System.).
There is the fact of evolution: the frequencies of alleles in a population change over time. There is the theory of evolution: why and how these allele frequencies occur and the mountains of evidence showing that they have, they do, and they will continue to change.
Now that that is out of the way...
Topic number one:
What do we know about genetic mutations? Who does it support?
What do you mean, "who"?
We know much about genetic mutations. They naturally occur. DNA repair and replication is imperfect. This provides the fuel for diversification.
My response: Please read this article (It explains it better then I ever could.): http://www.creationw...add_information
Please summarize it in your own words. I'm not having a discussion with some website. I'm having a discussion with you.
Creationism is not a scientific theory. Creationism is not a scientific hypothesis. Creationism is not scientific in any sense of the word.
Treating it as having the same amount of support as science, and thus being worthy of the respect science has earned is a lazy shortcut. Once creationism undergoes the same rigorous gauntlet of scrutiny that all scientific ideas must go through (peer-review and publication in a well-respected scientific journal, plus being used as a source for other peer-reviewed publications, etc (the more the merrier)), only then will it have my respect and until then it is useless.
That people are trying to use the law to forcibly bypass the scientific method tells me that the people supporting creationism know they're selling a defective product; they know it cannot withstand brutal dissection by the scientific community. Look up the "Kitzmiller versus Dover" trial for one prominent example of this.
Truth has nothing to fear from investigation.
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One of those things is not like the other. The Americans executed in Omega's example were not shooting at anybody when a bomb was dropped on their head. The hypothetical shooter in your example represents an immediate threat to the officer and others around him. If the suspect (and according to US law, everyone is a suspect until proven guilty) is not currently engaged in a lethal act, it is unreasonable to take leathal action against them. We don't go and shoot murder suspects just because they are assumed to have commited a murder. A citizen's rights are not suspended because they leave the country or commit a crime.
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Also this:
Source.
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Presumably one that isn't scary.
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Nobody's going to listen to you, you're too reasonable. I've tried going down the whole 'forget the tool and focus on the motive' road many times. People would much rather blame an inanimate object that try to discover and correct the underlying causes of these events.
What happens when you take away guns? Murderers kill with knives. Like this guy who slashed 22 kids at a school in China. That's okay though, we can ignore it because knives are tools unlike those guns. Knives were designed to help people, while guns are only meant to kill. See, it's all about what the object was designed for, how it was used is irrelevant. No wait, that's backwards.
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Based on what you have said, I can say you clearly have no idea what I'm imagining, or expect. Still the fact remains that the police CAN and DO spy on citizens for no good reason and get away with it. It would be wise to stay vigilant, and call out affronts to our liberties as we see them. No country went from a free society to an oppressive one over night. They take small steps, then when the population gets used to that, they take more steps. I didn't say we have no rights at all, but our rights are clearly being limited in many areas. It would be naive to think that the US is immune to a decent into fascism.
As far as stockpiling ammo, amongst other things, it's still a good idea. Some take it way too far, but take a look at Katrina, or Sandy. Don't you think people in those disasters would have been much better off if they had a couple weeks worth of food and other supplies ready to go?
And just as a general rule, don't be so quick to judge people.
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Freedom of speech
Still alive, but look at what happens when people protest. They get met with riot police, pepper spray, rubber bullets and tear gas.
Freedom to buy and sell what we wish
Except for the things we can't. Things that are prohibited for no good reasons.
Freedom to visit where we wish
Freedom to move freely
Car travel is still fine, but if you get on a plane, prepare to be microwaved or strip searched. Also try to visit Mexico without a passport. You used to be able to to that, no problem.
Freedom to vote
Voting is nice, but it doesn't accomplish much when both sides are owned by the same people.
The US is quickly becoming a police state. The police can pretty much spy on you whenever they want. They can sit and monitor your house, scan it with infrared devices. They can grab your text and e-mail messages without a warrant. They have drones flying overhead, and cameras everywhere. The military can arrest anyone and detain them indefinitely on only a suspicion. This is not what a free country looks like. Not to me anyway.
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Depends on the individual's tolerance and dosage. Also, nicotine is definitely psychoactive.
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2) Cannabis is not completely harmless. Smoking cannabis is linked to pulmonary diseases. It does not cause cancer however. The harms of smoking cannabis can be greatly reduced by vaporization and nullified by ingestion.
3) No deaths have been directly linked to the consumption of cannabis. That means that you can't overdose and die from it. That does not mean nobody ever got too high to drive safely and ended up killing themselves or others.
4) Cannabis may be an effective cancer treatment. Early research shows it can inhibit a tumor's ability to metastasize. It is also effective in the treatment of many other ailments.
Sorry I didn't look up any sources, I'm being kinda lazy right now.
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The ban on large beverages I'm indifferent to. I don't need to consume cups of sugar in a single sitting, much less the caffeine. Here's a thought, try water.