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---- Nous avons besoin d'un traduction français!
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And FOX doesn't do the same thing? They gave a million dollars to the republican party( a few days ago) and during the healthcare debate would only show citizens who were against it, not very fair and balanced if you ask me. I'm not defending the other media outlets but FOX news is just as bad if not worse. It can hardly be considered news.
I saw plenty of coverage on Fox that looked at both sides of the health care debate. They always have at least one or two token liberals on each show. As for the donation it is hardly surprising. They weren't likely to give it to the democrats.
I like Glenn Beck. I liked him on CNN and I like him on Fox. CNN has tanked since they got rid of Beck. Hannity has some credibility problems and seems to be a bit more partisan than Beck and O'Reilly for that matter. I think Beck plays well to middle America, especially right of centre believers which I suspect make up a majority of the American public.
I don't watch either of those shows. I didn't find them all that funny. The daily show can have its moments but not enough to justify the waste of time.
I was watching Bill Maher's show recently and he actually defended O'reilly so maybe he isn't as bad as I think. Hannity talks about how America is the greatest country ever given by God on this whole wide planet(when it ranked 11th recently, Canada was 7th overall, world's best countries ) a bit too much. You should go see Glenn Beck's 'I have a scheme' speech on August 28th, he actually pretended like he didn't realize it was on the same day as Martin Luther King's speech and at the same place(He actually might not have known, but I'm trying to give him some credit here), his justification: "I will stand several stairs down from where Martin Luther King gave his speech". I'm sure his speech is going to magical(as well as all the other speakers, I know Sarah Palin is on the list).
Last edited by Adam Cormier; Friday, 27th August, 2010, 12:07 PM.
As for the donation it is hardly surprising. They weren't likely to give it to the democrats.
But they are "fair and balanced"! Sure, and one of it's largest investors doesn't come from the same country as the people who carried out the 9-11 massacre either.
Maher also believes in a lot of pseudo-scientific woo.
Yeah his opinions on the pharmacy companies conspiring to make everyone sick is far-fetched to say the least. He has some problems with medicine and doctors too. Hey everyone has their flaws, at least Maher has a lot of intelligent opinions to go against his irrational ones.
Yeah, my problem with religion/God is not the 'faith' thing(although i'd go with facts and evidence over blind faith and belief any day), it is the stupidity of it all.
Adam, I encourage you to read Sylvia Browne's teachings to get an entirely different take on God. You are correct to point out the "stupidity of it all" from the reference point of the teachings of the Bible, taken literally. Sylvia was raised a Catholic, and now distances herself almost completely from Catholic teachings. Read not only her teachings, but her life story. She is not perfect, as a psychic she has made some wrong predictions. But she doesn't claim to be perfect either, and she knows why she has imperfections.
There's so much much more I could tell you, but it's really up to you to do the legwork as I've described above. You have the inquiring mind.
I read this, and have to agree that totally literal interpretations of the Bible lead to paradoxes. But the Bible should not be taken literally, that is the lesson. As for impossibility, well, I have to bring up the classic example of the Flatlanders. The Flatlanders live in 2 dimensional space. They also only see in 2 dimensions. Therefore anything that is in the 3rd dimension, i.e. above or below their Flatland, is impossible to them. The whole concept is unimaginable to their 2-dimensional minds.
It is increasingly clear that there are more than 3 dimensions (4 if you include time) to overall reality (which might include spiritual world(s) we can't sense). To say that something like a "cubic sphere" is impossible is to say that it is impossible in our 3 (or 4) dimensions. Perhaps a new dimension, which we cannot comprehend, makes a cubic sphere possible.
Only the rushing is heard...
Onward flies the bird.
Adam, I encourage you to read Sylvia Browne's teachings to get an entirely different take on God. You are correct to point out the "stupidity of it all" from the reference point of the teachings of the Bible, taken literally. Sylvia was raised a Catholic, and now distances herself almost completely from Catholic teachings. Read not only her teachings, but her life story. She is not perfect, as a psychic she has made some wrong predictions. But she doesn't claim to be perfect either, and she knows why she has imperfections.
There's so much much more I could tell you, but it's really up to you to do the legwork as I've described above. You have the inquiring mind.
I read this, and have to agree that totally literal interpretations of the Bible lead to paradoxes. But the Bible should not be taken literally, that is the lesson. As for impossibility, well, I have to bring up the classic example of the Flatlanders. The Flatlanders live in 2 dimensional space. They also only see in 2 dimensions. Therefore anything that is in the 3rd dimension, i.e. above or below their Flatland, is impossible to them. The whole concept is unimaginable to their 2-dimensional minds.
It is increasingly clear that there are more than 3 dimensions (4 if you include time) to overall reality (which might include spiritual world(s) we can't sense). To say that something like a "cubic sphere" is impossible is to say that it is impossible in our 3 (or 4) dimensions. Perhaps a new dimension, which we cannot comprehend, makes a cubic sphere possible.
You are correct about her being far from perfect, she's a convicted felon. I actually do know a bit about her already, there was a research article in Skeptical Inquirer(A fantastic magazine, I have a few issues) about her, because she said something like she gets 80% of cases correct, but their conclusion was, "Browne has not even been mostly correct in a single case."
But enough about her supposed physic abilities(hot and cold reading techniques basically), onto the spirituality part of Sylvia Browne.
The book you told Paul Beckwith about, "Life on the other side", about her near-death experience is all fantastically poetic, but your brain is quickly dying when you flat line, and we don't know what you experience when you are in between death and life(or after death for that matter), different people have had all sorts of different near-death experiences, but really these experiences could just be the last thoughts(basically dreams) of a dying brain(and could be influenced by that person's way of thought up to that point of their life).
Her retelling of her near-death experience to me at least sounds like a dream, that she spiced up with some adjectives(how would she know that this white light in front of her had sacred brilliance and infinite intelligence). Her religious beliefs seem to mix and mash a bunch of religions together, reincarnation, purgatory, a white light, etc...
Her idea of the afterlife is all well and good, and it sounds like a very nice place(and it even uses the proper criteria for determining good and bad, deeds not belief) but I don't believe in it for several reasons. Plus I don't have to believe it according to her I just have to accept God when I get there to go to heaven. I'm perfectly capable of living a normal life without God, and then if when i die I meet God obviously I'd accept him, I'd have all the logical proof I needed(I don't think that is going to happen though)
Reasons:
- I have problems with nearly all of her 7 stages of advancements they aren't logical to me.
- She is so specific, don't this offensively but I'm reminded of Scientology by her beliefs.
- This whole religious ideal came out of a near-death experience, which like I said before is like a dream, fantastical ideas and creations can come out of dreams but it doesn't mean they are correct
etc...
On to your next point on impossibility, that statement is interesting, I feel no reason to believe that there are any other dimensions besides our own and I don't know why'd we care if there were these dimensions seeing as they are impossible to reach therefore it is a pointless line of thought(unless we could somehow reach them), but science is delving into something similar to this, the multiverse( a whole bunch of universes side by side) theory for example in physics(but we are supposed to be able to go into other universes, therefore not making it useless, I don't know how that works exactly).
Also if this other dimension is something we can't comprehend why bother? That means the best position would be agnostic on that particular issue, because since we can't comprehend it we can't feel positive or negative feelings on the subject. Dawkins makes a point like that on God(s), if God(s) can't be comprehended how do all these people(every religion basically) know exactly what he/they want(s)? If he can be comprehended then he can be scientifically tested and proved either to be real or delusion.
Just my 2 cents...
Last edited by Adam Cormier; Friday, 27th August, 2010, 02:53 PM.
Reason: added a point again
Getting back onto the subject of Climate change/global warming, I was reading an article today that talked about the difference between The Western and Eastern takes on global warming, while the Western World(America, Canada) is still debating the causes of global warming(man-made or not) in Europe they have already come to the conclusion that AGW is real and are debating the appropriate actions/responses to take to fix this problem.
Great renderings! Egidijus, do you have an image of a chessboard mapped onto a sphere?
My question about the cubes shown on this sphere: is the surface area of each cube face exactly equal to the area of the perfect cube face BEFORE it was applied to the sphere. Conceptually, this can be seen as a perfect cube that is "inflated" into a sphere. But by the act of inflating, we seem to be increasing the surface area of each face.
Another aspect that has changed: part of the definition of a cube may be that each face is that a vector drawn between any two points on the face will have the same direction (angle) as any other vector on the same face. That's obviously not true for the cubic sphere, therefore a true cubic sphere (i.e. an object that has identical properties of a perfect sphere AND of a perfect cube) cannot exist in our 3 (4) dimensional realm of existence.
Only the rushing is heard...
Onward flies the bird.
You are correct about her being far from perfect, she's a convicted felon. I actually do know a bit about her already, there was a research article in Skeptical Inquirer(A fantastic magazine, I have a few issues) about her, because she said something like she gets 80% of cases correct, but their conclusion was, "Browne has not even been mostly correct in a single case."
But enough about her supposed physic abilities(hot and cold reading techniques basically), onto the spirituality part of Sylvia Browne.
The book you told Paul Beckwith about, "Life on the other side", about her near-death experience is all fantastically poetic, but your brain is quickly dying when you flat line, and we don't know what you experience when you are in between death and life(or after death for that matter), different people have had all sorts of different near-death experiences, but really these experiences could just be the last thoughts(basically dreams) of a dying brain(and could be influenced by that person's way of thought up to that point of their life).
Her retelling of her near-death experience to me at least sounds like a dream, that she spiced up with some adjectives(how would she know that this white light in front of her had sacred brilliance and infinite intelligence). Her religious beliefs seem to mix and mash a bunch of religions together, reincarnation, purgatory, a white light, etc...
Her idea of the afterlife is all well and good, and it sounds like a very nice place(and it even uses the proper criteria for determining good and bad, deeds not belief) but I don't believe in it for several reasons. Plus I don't have to believe it according to her I just have to accept God when I get there to go to heaven. I'm perfectly capable of living a normal life without God, and then if when i die I meet God obviously I'd accept him, I'd have all the logical proof I needed(I don't think that is going to happen though)
Reasons:
- I have problems with nearly all of her 7 stages of advancements they aren't logical to me.
- She is so specific, don't this offensively but I'm reminded of Scientology by her beliefs.
- This whole religious ideal came out of a near-death experience, which like I said before is like a dream, fantastical ideas and creations can come out of dreams but it doesn't mean they are correct
etc...
On to your next point on impossibility, that statement is interesting, I feel no reason to believe that there are any other dimensions besides our own and I don't know why'd we care if there were these dimensions seeing as they are impossible to reach therefore it is a pointless line of thought(unless we could somehow reach them), but science is delving into something similar to this, the multiverse( a whole bunch of universes side by side) theory for example in physics(but we are supposed to be able to go into other universes, therefore not making it useless, I don't know how that works exactly).
Also if this other dimension is something we can't comprehend why bother? That means the best position would be agnostic on that particular issue, because since we can't comprehend it we can't feel positive or negative feelings on the subject. Dawkins makes a point like that on God(s), if God(s) can't be comprehended how do all these people(every religion basically) know exactly what he/they want(s)? If he can be comprehended then he can be scientifically tested and proved either to be real or delusion.
Just my 2 cents...
I don't know all the details, but Sylvia Browne's ex-husband is a convicted felon, and implicated her. Even if the court decided that she was involved, it could be that her ex was very meticulous and devious in getting her involved.
Whenever someone is making a living by claiming to be a psychic, there are going to be attackers who will bring up any and all wrong predictions to try and prove otherwise. What Sylvia says about this is that when she gets asked a question, the answer (if one comes at all) comes to her as something she has to interpret, and it is her interpretation that can be wrong. For each anti-Sylvia naysayer, there are literally thousands of people who she has helped, how else could she have such success and make a living? I've been to one of her events, and talked with attendees, and heard firsthand how Sylvia's visions and predictions have helped them. Are they all daft? Well, if you want to think so, that is fine, I think otherwise.
Adam, I also provided a web link when I mentioned Sylvia's book. You are free to think what you will about her vision of the afterlife, but have you visited that link and read any of the hundreds and hundreds of accounts (of near death experience) there? If so, you will know that the most common statement from the person giving the account is that they know what vivid dreams are like, and the experience was more profound by orders of magnitude than their most vivid dream. Well, yes, we could explain this away as some kind of dying brain chemical reaction. Perhaps we will all have this as we die, and ultimately it will end and we will become nothing. Or perhaps we just don't WANT to believe that something better than this life could possibly await us all.
That is what I meant when I wrote that a degree of faith is still required. I'm getting the distinct impression that you just aren't willing to have any degree of faith. You don't want to believe scientists who say that string theory points to there being 11 dimensions to reality. In either case, no one is dragging you to water and forcing you to drink. The water is there if you decide you are thirsty.
I know you are fairly young, and like all searchers, I'm confident that you will undergo profound changes as you age.
Let me leave you with this, and you can search it out for yourself: one of the tenets of Sylvia's teachings (and many major religions as well) is reincarnation. To give any credence to Sylvia at all, you must believe in reincarnation. There are documented cases of people being put into trance, taken into a past life, and mentioning names and events from those past lives -- names and events that were so trivial, the person under hypnosis could not possibly have had knowledge of them. These names and events have been subsequently verified by independant researchers. With your focus on scientific facts and evidence, this should serve to at least get you believing in reincarnation. Or maybe it won't. It's hard to know just how much hard evidence you must have before you accept something.
Only the rushing is heard...
Onward flies the bird.
You folks can dismiss Fox News all you want. Voters in the U.S. take it seriously. I suspect they will contribute to the Democrats losing one of both of the House and Senate in the mid term elections. Obama, unless he can improve his performance, will likely lose next election.
Let's not forget Clinton got lucky in winning his first term. The right wing vote was split between "one term" Bush and Ross Perot. So you had a popular vote of Clinton 42%, Bush 37%, and Perot 19%. Not the kind of split we normally see in U.S. politics. Bush had been a strong favourite to win a second term before Perot started cutting into his right wing votes.
Canada's left wing model is broken. Take a province like B.C. They have bascially a resource ecoomy and many are closing and leaving. The forestry industry is hard hit and mills are closing or laying off. Taxation and wages are too high to compete with other countries.
I got a laugh out of the free trade settlement between Abitibi and Canada over the expropriation in Newfoundland. The Canadian govenrment could have dragged that one out for years. Instead they settle for $130 million under the free trade act.
What happens here is that settlement should allow the company to emerge from bankruptcy protection and keep and make jobs in central Canada. I think simply giving them that money outside of the settlement would have been considered a subsidy under the Free Trade Agreement. So, Canada used the agreement to their advantage.
Now to see if they can find a way to stimulate the forestry industry in B.C.
Obama, unless he can improve his performance, will likely lose next election.
And that is what disgusts me...the current version of republican party(a.k.a. the party of NO) is just appalling it is so far on the right, it's ridiculous. This isn't the party of the famous republican presidents of the past. this is a sick, twisted and perverted variation.
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