ISIS bans *math* & evolution from schools

PHeller wrote: Educate me, seriously. Why isn't there an officially recognized Kurdistan? They seem to be relatively stable, democratic, with at least some secular rule of law. I guess I don't know enough about their history to know why or why not they have not been granted their own boundaries and sovereign state.

I know the current one is conveniently located on top of most of Iraq's oil. Seems like a recipe for problems down the road.

Edit: That is, problems for the rest of Iraq. It would be pretty sweet for the Kurds and the US.

Because their "territory" is in 3 or 4 different counties. And countries tend not to like to give up land. Buffer zone, taxes, natural resources etc.

Yes, you can split people up by their ethnic origins, but in many cases, the ethnicities are SO intertwined, you will NEVER develop un-disputed boarder (e.g. Israel). Also, in the case of the Arabs, they break down into tribes, of which there a crap ton of.

It's a bit of a no win situation really. You will never please everyone, and those that are not pleased, have no good jobs, get a "message" will start running around in pajamas and cutting things off other people...

As an example, here is an ethinic map of the Balkens... good luck breaking this up:

Here is one of the E36 M3box.. I mean, area we are discusssing:

4cylndrfury wrote: In reply to yamaha: yeah, I lol'd too when I read that, but I didnt post...the sound of concrete mixers being powered up scare me off when I walk into threads like this.

Yea, but if you let this continue without correction, it only gets worse. I had to retype my own response a few times to tone down the "You should probably learn history/geography" aspect so it wasn't a personal attack.

In reply to PHeller:

In many cases, they are divided but they aren't. If everyone could gain independence from autonomy in small little groups, most new nations would just be invaded and conquered over and over again. Autonomy in most cases is pretty much local rule no different than how our states are. They get to govern themselves for the most part, only answering to the parent nation occasionally, and are under the protection of the parent nation. Pretty much all of these you have mentioned currently enjoy this arrangement. I am more than happy to educate on this matter so long as the discussion remains civilized.

Edit:aircooled summed up the intertwined ethnicity better than I could have found. Its no different than here, just with different groups to begin with. I am somewhat amused that Iranians and Saudis are on the same page this time.

So are you guys against Scottish Independence?

I can't wait to see the new Scottish army, airforce and navy. I am sure they will be quite impressive.

Have they even thought about that? Contract the English? Go without? Strange situation.

Of course, they can go independent, then England can say, fine, we are invading you, we win, you have no military, ours is already there, back to normal.

aircooled wrote: Of course, they can go independent, then England can say, fine, we are invading you, we win, you have no military, ours is already there, back to normal.

That would be freaking hilarious, I want so much for that to happen

PHeller wrote: So are you guys against Scottish Independence?

Think of all the brave English men who fought to keep Scotland British.

aircooled wrote: I can't wait to see the new Scottish army, airforce and navy. I am sure they will be quite impressive. Have they even thought about that? Contract the English? Go without? Strange situation. Of course, they can go independent, then England can say, fine, we are invading you, we win, you have no military, ours is already there, back to normal.

It will be five drunk Scotsmen in kilts deflating kittens, I mean playing bagpipes and waving broadswords shouting freedom.

The UK government has said Scotland could end up as a third world country if they vote for independence. I don't know if things will improve to that extent but you never know.

What's big, Scottish and depressing?
Scotland

aircooled wrote: I can't wait to see the new Scottish army, airforce and navy. I am sure they will be quite impressive. Have they even thought about that? Contract the English? Go without? Strange situation. Of course, they can go independent, then England can say, fine, we are invading you, we win, you have no military, ours is already there, back to normal.

Because that made for such a pleasant relationship in Ireland...

PHeller wrote: So are you guys against Scottish Independence?

Couldn't care less, they receive far more in subsidies/welfare than Englanders do.

They will likely be barred from using the British Pound as currency, likely won't be able to join the EU for at least 5 years after the 18 month "break up" period if they are ever allowed to join.

How will they divide the North Sea oil profits (or if they think they automatically get them all, they are in for a rude awakening since those fields are depleting quickly).

It's a lose-lose situation for everyone involved.

In reply to z31maniac:

The better question is, will they do it just to screw the British? They're probably still upset over tea and crumpet time instead of bagpipes, booze, and gingers.....

Science and religion have long been at odds with one another, guess it is only natural to add terrorist tribes to the mix.

trigun7469 wrote: Science and religion have long been at odds with one another

Which is really unfortunate as neither are currently capable of offering satisfactory answers…kind of like arguing over whether Bud or Coors is more satisfying…um, they both leave much to be desired.

I’m far more in the science camp than the religious camp but I cringe whenever a “quasi scientist” smugly ridicules people of faith.

We clearly live in an anthropic universe (dozens of parameters such as the speed of light, the force of gravity, the mass of various particles, etc, etc, etc.) all must be exquisitely precisely set at the levels they are in order for the universe to allow for complex structures such as us. Take any one of them, say the strong force (interaction between protons and neutrons), and make it a fraction of a percent different than it is and immediately, it’d be absolute lights out.

The prevailing scientific explanation for this one in a google stroke of luck is the multiverse where there are infinite universes separated in time, space, or dimension and ours just happens to be one that allows for complexity which explains how we can be here talking about it.

Fantastic, but there’s no current way to test the multiverse theory so it isn’t so much as a smidgen more scientific than just having faith.

I ban reason, sobriety and pants from my house. Take that Isis.

93EXCivic wrote: It will be five drunk Scotsmen in kilts deflating kittens, I mean playing bagpipes and waving broadswords shouting freedom.

I had a deflating kitten once. Then we stopped feeding him Bil-Jac and he stopped farting constantly and everybody was happy.

RX Reven' wrote: We clearly live in an anthropic universe (dozens of parameters such as the speed of light, the force of gravity, the mass of various particles, etc, etc, etc.) all must be exquisitely precisely set at the levels they are in order for the universe to allow for complex structures such as us. Take any one of them, say the strong force (interaction between protons and neutrons), and make it a fraction of a percent different than it is and immediately, it’d be absolute lights out. The prevailing scientific explanation for this one in a google stroke of luck is the multiverse where there are infinite universes separated in time, space, or dimension and ours just happens to be one that allows for complexity which explains how we can be here talking about it.

That's why it took billions of years for us to show up.

Also, looks like Scotland will remain a part of the UK........for now.

RX Reven' wrote: ...The prevailing scientific explanation for this one in a google stroke of luck is the multiverse where there are infinite universes separated in time, space, or dimension and ours just happens to be one that allows for complexity which explains how we can be here talking about it.

Fueled by Caffeine wrote: I ban reason, sobriety and pants from my house. Take that Isis.

I think they only have a problem with 2 out of those 3.

RX Reven' wrote:

trigun7469 wrote: Science and religion have long been at odds with one another

Which is really unfortunate as neither are currently capable of offering satisfactory answers…kind of like arguing over whether Bud or Coors is more satisfying…um, they both leave much to be desired. I’m far more in the science camp than the religious camp but I cringe whenever a “quasi scientist” smugly ridicules people of faith. We clearly live in an anthropic universe (dozens of parameters such as the speed of light, the force of gravity, the mass of various particles, etc, etc, etc.) all must be exquisitely precisely set at the levels they are in order for the universe to allow for complex structures such as us. Take any one of them, say the strong force (interaction between protons and neutrons), and make it a fraction of a percent different than it is and immediately, it’d be absolute lights out. The prevailing scientific explanation for this one in a google stroke of luck is the multiverse where there are infinite universes separated in time, space, or dimension and ours just happens to be one that allows for complexity which explains how we can be here talking about it. Fantastic, but there’s no current way to test the multiverse theory so it isn’t so much as a smidgen more scientific than just having faith.

These kind of posts are why I love this forum. Well said.

RX Reven' wrote: Which is really unfortunate as neither are currently capable of offering satisfactory answers [...] um, they both leave much to be desired.

I find science's answers to be quite satisfactory.

Suggesting that a working universe implies some form of intelligent design is just another form of creationism, only picking at something we don't understand as thoroughly as biology. Suggesting that the universe is anthropic doesn't make sense now - there are many more species and we are definitely not the best-suited to the universe, and not even the most influential, although we're probably in the top 10 of those we know so far. The idea of an anthropic universe would make even less sense if we found alien life.

RX Reven' wrote: I’m far more in the science camp than the religious camp but I cringe whenever a “quasi scientist” smugly ridicules people of faith.

A scientist who ridicules people of faith isn't necessarily a quasi-scientist. He could be just a rude scientist. Science can't prove or disprove untestable religious concepts - and all surviving religious concepts are untestable (except "pop-culture Karma" which could theoretically be disproven - personally I'm certain it would be.)

It's not anti-scientific to be anti-religious any more than it is to be religious.

Read a blog post a day or two ago which boiled it down to this: theists and non-theists share the same problem, i.e. there's no solid incontrovertible proof for either view. In that context, being an atheist is every bit as much a leap of faith as being a theist.

I'm probably gonna piss some people off with this next, just remember that it is not meant to paint all with the same brush: there are entirely too many conflicts started over whose deity is greater, or even over whether adherents of the same deity are worshiping it properly (Protestant vs Catholic, Sunni vs Shiite, etc) and I'd really like to see that go away. I don't mean that the religions should vanish, if that's what someone feels/needs/wants that's fine. I just would like to see the intolerance go away.

Sometimes when I see how certain sects treat knowledge such as this ISIS crackdown on certain subjects in schools, Muslim leaders barring girls from schools, fundamentalist Christians screaming 'God hates fags', some atheist leaders flipping out and calling theists stupid, deluded etc, I get a little worried about the future of humanity.

Best thread on the net?

• I submit Exhibit A:

RX Reven' wrote: ...The prevailing scientific explanation for this one in a google stroke of luck is the multiverse where there are infinite universes separated in time, space, or dimension and ours just happens to be one that allows for complexity which explains how we can be here talking about it.

And if the court would be so kind

• Exhibit B:

Curmudgeon wrote: Sometimes when I see how certain sects treat knowledge such as this ISIS crackdown on certain subjects in schools, Muslim leaders barring girls from schools, fundamentalist Christians screaming 'God hates fags', some atheist leaders flipping out and calling theists stupid, deluded etc, I get a little worried about the future of humanity.

this is why I love this place...

Curmudgeon wrote: Read a blog post a day or two ago which boiled it down to this: theists and non-theists share the same problem, i.e. there's no solid incontrovertible proof for either view. In that context, being an atheist is every bit as much a leap of faith as being a theist.

This is absolutely and categorically UNtrue. Science cannot prove a deity does not exist, correct. It is a logical impossibility to negatively prove something - absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

However, that is an entirely different thing from saying that the evidence in favor of science is fundamentally equivalent to the evidence in favor of religion.

And I'm going to leave it there.

Duke wrote:

Curmudgeon wrote: Read a blog post a day or two ago which boiled it down to this: theists and non-theists share the same problem, i.e. there's no solid incontrovertible proof for either view. In that context, being an atheist is every bit as much a leap of faith as being a theist.

This is absolutely and categorically UNtrue. Science cannot prove a deity does not exist, correct. It is a logical impossibility to negatively prove something - absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Wrong, you can totally prove a negative:

http://departments.bloomu.edu/philosophy/pages/content/hales/articles/proveanegative.html

It's true that theists and atheists share the same problem, that there is no scientific support for either position - although this is indeed different from saying that there is equal evidence in favor of science and religion.

To say that being a theist and an atheist require equal "faith" is debatable and really a cultural discussion. It presupposes that agnosticism is a "default" or "neutral" position - one which can only exist as a cultural norm.

To me, there are all these old books saying that there are gods, and a chaotic indifferent universe which doesn't suggest that any of these deities exist - and in IMO actually makes the idea of an all-powerful benevolent deity seem absurd. So to me, atheism doesn't require any belief - it's just a lack of belief.

Curmudgeon wrote: ...there are entirely too many conflicts started over whose deity is greater, or even over whether adherents of the same deity are worshiping it properly...

It aren't just the religious folk me matey...

You take pretty much any two differentiatable (!) populations, stress them out (piss them off) and some of them will start killing each other. I like to call those people a-holes.

It's not the religions that's the problem really... it's the a-holes...