Jacob-B

I am hard-pressed to imagine something that is 'beyond the mind' As for our senses, they are continually amplified by scientific instrumentation.

For me, a cult is characterized by having a leader who ruled his follower by an iron fist and demand a total dedication to 'cause. ,and brain washing ...

There. the former chasm of difference between the Wiccans and the Nazis. The former do not have the murderous ideology and the genocidal history.

I suppose it all comes down to belief in the existence Divine=GOD. I think that the strongest argument for Hos existence is our inability to prove his...

Intriguing stuff, but what has it to do with the subject?

Given sufficient time (much longer than the age of the universe) the egg could unscramble itself 'naturally..however. There are instances of man-made ...

As DingiJones pointed out science and the supernatural are by definition mutually exclusive, so non of the events you mention would change the mind of...

Your conclusion is the same as mine albeit better expressed. However. I wonder what would happen faced with a phenomenon that can not be explained in ...

I am familiar but its relevance depends on what A Clarke meant by 'Magi'. is it the magic = supernatural; or the magic used when we try to describe so...

The intelligence and curiosity of chimpanzees should not be underestimated. Whatmore, opportunity plays a crucial role in evolution. The fire' was nor...

If each domino is, say 50% taller than the preceding one but has the base side the metastability will increase and the energy amplified. I guess it al...

I am not sure that the definition of chain reaction implies amplification. However, you can get amplification if you have a row of dominoes of increas...

Back to physics! I might have missed it, but what is 'present' has not been defined in the course of the long debate. Presentism can make sense only i...

My understanding of comtabilisim is that under certain circumstances you can make your own free will choice which is not deterministic. It is a bit li...

I would not describe as a blueprint as that would smack of a 'design'. what I am saying is that that if one believes on determinism, one has to conclu...

If you are able to choose you than by implication you are already not a blank page, you already have a personality with some sort of bias. Also, rando...

The emotional appeal of Life after death seemed to derail your rationality. What is wrong with Tim's healthy scepticism about your belief?

In the tapestry of time and space, Bill lives forever. His existence cannot be wiped off. The universe would be different without the causal effects o...

To csalisbury. You must be an optimist in hoping that answer which eluded humankind for thousands of year will found in the discourse of the Forum. Ne...

The causal criteria referred to is that of David Humes who lived 150 before the birth of modern physics. I think that according to Relativity even the...

Look at the treatment given by Muslim countries to their minorities: the Copts, Yazidis., Armenians... Over the century the Christian population of th...

Not what I meant. of course, Jews fleeing from Arab countries 1948-1950 were received in Israel by open arms. Their descendants form by now the majori...

The I/ The Palestinian refugee problem was created 72 years ago. When you consider the wealth of the oil kingdoms and their need for manpower you real...

That is is not going to happen/ Unlike the Jews of Europe, the Muslim minorities have powerful backers in the Muslim majority countries where they cou...

There is a Chinese imperialism for you. I started in Tibet in 1950 with the occupation and destruction of Tibetan culture and population the province ...

The Jewish court which sentenced Jesus had no temporal powers. The Romans were the ones who crucified Jesus, probably because they considered him as a...

Nowdays, the "This, to me hides an important distinction. There is collateral damage and there is intentional targeting of civilian populations, like ...

I think that metaphysical identity deals with physical identity. But even aking your example, reading the same thing at 3 am would evoke a different i...

But not all is lost! We still have the handfull of the righteous (the LibDem) And, I would not count. on five years. History os in an overdrive.

The situation in Afghanistan has been deteriorating for the last 10 years. I think that what we view as 'deterioration' is, unfortunately, the norm fo...

I think that trainability provides some measure of an animal's intelligence. It is a facet of adaptability to changing circumstances which essentially...

The debate seems to me to be sterile since so far none of the participants define the meaning of Truth.

Quite an interesting episode. Apparently, genetically dingos are not different from the domestic dog and can be trained if starting from puppyhood. Co...

OK. Taking the analogy of body parts with various functions. What are the demarcation lines between the three entities? Does the Holy Spirit deal with...

Where is the evidence?

You got a point, but I still think that the belief in Miracle Cures is a good example of Divine Nepotism. You might be the best person in the world bu...

I am a non-believer. I should point out that belief in cures by holy men and holy places exist also among Jews a Moslems but. unlike in Catholicism, t...

Amazing program? Haven't you heard about entropy, chaos, and randomness? And incidentally, there cosmic constants and ratios, most of which are part o...

So, it took the ultra-fine balancing of fifty or so constants and ratios to create life on one planet in an insignificant solar system in an unremarka...

Actually, all I had in mind in starting the debate is to imply that that the world as it is does not point to having an element of 'Design' as defined...

Perhaps I should have stressed the behavioural aspect of my question. I found Possibilty’s reply quite instructive in pointing out how small factor in...

I wonder if the same applied to natural organization e.g snowflakes, crystals... Does their creation result in an increase in entropy? I suppose they ...

Since proponents of 'Intelligent Design' never suggested some physical mechanism of how it works, there is no 'usual' way of looking at it. So my conc...

In the sense that both share inevitability and pre-destination

Chaos is caused and in this sense it deterministic but its getting 'life' of its own and sensitivity to initial conditions makes one wonder.

No serious scientist ever claims that everything can be analyzed and described. It just that science found better answers to some fundamental question...

Mel Brooks (who is Jewish) was asked that question about the Holocaust. He replied on the affirmative. Yes, there are funny joked about the Holocaust ...

Two more elements of most religion are: Monopoly on truth, and by implication, contempt or hostility towards other religion and alternative world view...

Definitely not on the purely ethical ground. But, it might be one of the rare instances where the end justified the means, say the survival of humanki...

Isn't most of the everyday logic essentially an inductive one. The Goldbach conjecture is an inductive one but while waiting for a deductive proof, it...