Faith on the other hand is an absolute necessity. You could not drive a car or walk down the street, nor live with other people without it.

I manage to drive my car, walk down the street, and socialize with people without the need for any faith based concepts. There very existance today is
illogical. We don't need godheads to explain the wind, sun, or the rains.
That also includeds convoluted complex historical godheads in any form.

However, if others require a god figure to chew gum, well, that's there problem.

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Faith on the other hand is an absolute necessity. You could not drive a car or walk down the street, nor live with other people without it.

I manage to drive my car, walk down the street, and socialize with people without the need for any faith based concepts. There very existance today is
illogical. We don't need godheads to explain the wind, sun, or the rains.
That also includeds convoluted complex historical godheads in any form.

However, if others require a god figure to chew gum, well, that's there problem.

I don't think that you quite understood what Jim meant by faith. He is using the term faith to mean belief without a reasonable amount of proof.

Imagine that you are at the airport trying to catch a US Air flight to Philadelphia. For the sake of argument, you are an aeronautical engineer and happen to know how airplanes "work." You check the departures board, see PHILADELPHIA and get the gate number for your flight. Without independently verifying this information, you head to that gate... showing faith in the port authority to get this information correct (or, more generally, showing faith that the public would not long patronize an airport that routinely got such information wrong). After a body cavity search by the TSA, you find that the gate waiting area is painted in US Air's colors and has a US Air logo, which strengthens your faith that this is the correct place to be.

Eventually, someone wearing a US Air uniform announces that flight number such-and-such is now boarding. It matches what's on your ticket, and you have faith that the travel agent gave you the right number (because, as above, people generally have faith that the market would punish service providers who provide bad service). Following the instructions given by the announcer... whose identity you haven't verified... you board a plane that happens to be parked at this gate. You can see the plane's registration number through the windows, but you have no way of knowing if that registration number matches up with your flight number in the airline's database.

While boarding, you pass by people who claim to be a pilot, co-pilot and flight attendant, respectively. You've never met any of these people before. However, your faith in the market-driven economy gives you reassurance that the airline would only allow qualified people to fill those roles, and that the airport security has ensured that they are the people that they say they are. Comfortable in your logic-dulled faithful state of mind, you find your seat and wait patiently until the plane takes off and heads-- you believe-- on a course for Philadelphia. Since you haven't brought a GPS unit with you, you'll just have to have faith that the plane is heading there.

Academically, you know that the plane could be diverted for security or safety reasons, but you have faith that the airline will compensate you for any delay that might arise. (Note that recognizing the one-in-a-million chance of not making it back to Earth alive is a calculated risk, the expectation of compensation for a diverted flight is a matter of trust/faith.)

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No animals were harmed in the making of the above post... much.

Academically, you know that the plane could be diverted for security or safety reasons, but you have faith that the airline will compensate you for any delay that might arise. (Note that recognizing the one-in-a-million chance of not making it back to Earth alive is a calculated risk, the expectation of compensation for a diverted flight is a matter of trust/faith.

You are confusing faith with logic and logical speculation.

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I don't think that you quite understood what Jim meant by faith. He is using the term faith to mean belief without a reasonable amount of proof.

Imagine that you are at the airport trying to catch a US Air flight to Philadelphia. For the sake of argument, you are an aeronautical engineer and happen to know how airplanes "work." You check the departures board, see PHILADELPHIA and get the gate number for your flight. Without independently verifying this information, you head to that gate... showing faith in the port authority to get this information correct (or, more generally, showing faith that the public would not long patronize an airport that routinely got such information wrong). After a body cavity search by the TSA, you find that the gate waiting area is painted in US Air's colors and has a US Air logo, which strengthens your faith that this is the correct place to be.

Eventually, someone wearing a US Air uniform announces that flight number such-and-such is now boarding. It matches what's on your ticket, and you have faith that the travel agent gave you the right number (because, as above, people generally have faith that the market would punish service providers who provide bad service). Following the instructions given by the announcer... whose identity you haven't verified... you board a plane that happens to be parked at this gate. You can see the plane's registration number through the windows, but you have no way of knowing if that registration number matches up with your flight number in the airline's database.

While boarding, you pass by people who claim to be a pilot, co-pilot and flight attendant, respectively. You've never met any of these people before. However, your faith in the market-driven economy gives you reassurance that the airline would only allow qualified people to fill those roles, and that the airport security has ensured that they are the people that they say they are. Comfortable in your logic-dulled faithful state of mind, you find your seat and wait patiently until the plane takes off and heads-- you believe-- on a course for Philadelphia. Since you haven't brought a GPS unit with you, you'll just have to have faith that the plane is heading there.

Academically, you know that the plane could be diverted for security or safety reasons, but you have faith that the airline will compensate you for any delay that might arise. (Note that recognizing the one-in-a-million chance of not making it back to Earth alive is a calculated risk, the expectation of compensation for a diverted flight is a matter of trust/faith.)

People make these assumptions based on induction. Not faith. You'll find that when a few planes fall out of the air people become strangely reluctant to fly. Such inconveniences somehow fail to put religious people off their beliefs though.

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Reality Internet Personality

In every war they said, "God is with us."

-bash-2.05$ fortune -m mercy
%% (fortunes)
A reading from the Book of Armaments, Chapter 4, Verses 16 to 20:

Then did he raise on high the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, saying,
"Bless this, O Lord, that with it thou mayst blow thine enemies to tiny
bits, in thy mercy." And the people did rejoice and did feast upon the
lambs and toads and tree-sloths and fruit-bats and orangutans and
breakfast cereals ... Now did the Lord say, "First thou pullest the
Holy Pin. Then thou must count to three. Three shall be the number of
the counting and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt
thou not count, neither shalt thou count two, excepting that thou then
proceedeth to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being
the number of the counting, be reached, then lobbest thou the Holy Hand
Grenade in the direction of thine foe, who, being naughty in my sight,
shall snuff it."
-- Monty Python, "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"

-bash-2.05$

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You are confusing faith with logic and logical speculation.

Isn't this the whole point of the "arguments" of the religious zealots? To mix up science and superstition?
IMHO such concepts like "intelligent design", and the insisting that it is somethimg like science, is just to obfuscate the religious fundamentalism behind it.

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Gruesse vom Saenger

For questions about Boinc look in the BOINC-Wiki

"Saenger, I tried to say something similar a long time ago."

My pet bird died this morning... I find comfort knowing it's at home in Heaven... ;)

You are confusing faith with logic and logical speculation.

Pure logic doesn't allow for any speculation whatsoever, only syllogisms. You cannot logically predict that the Sun will rise tomorrow.

In everyday experience, we say that it is "logical" to assume that patterns will continue into the future, for which the term "rational" is more appropriate.

I will accept that the matters of faith in my post and similar situations are so commonplace that they are considered rational in our culture. The line between what is "rational" vs. "faith" for one person is different than the line between what is "rational" vs. "faith" for another.

There were a large number of people in New Orleans who had faith in their government to protect them in the event of a natural disaster. The city and state governments appeared competent in day-to-day operations of getting the trash picked up, the roads maintained, the police at least semi-effective and the welfare checks distributed. They had seen Florida handle hurricanes, New York handle blizzards, California handle earthquakes, Washington handle volcanic eruptions, Hawaii handle tsunamis, Kansas handle tornadoes, etc., etc., etc. It appeared rational to assume that Louisiana could handle a hurricane. When the mayor fails to evacuate the city, the governor fails to declare a state of emergency, and the federal government fails to notice those failures in time, it would appear that the populace's faith was misplaced.

(edit for typos)

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No animals were harmed in the making of the above post... much.

And here's a smilie for you, DB!

I actually forgot it was there, as I was saving it for some special! But now the opportunity's there!

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"I'm trying to maintain a shred of dignity in this world." - Me

...people ... who had faith in their government to protect them in the event of a natural disaster.

This is more a expectation, assumption, or trust in the knowledge of those officials based on (too many other variables than) their educational background to function within their capacity at that postion in the appropriate manner.

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No matter where you go, there you are...

Victory seems elusive in new 'Scopes Trial'

By Michael Powell
THE WASHINGTON POST

October 22, 2005

HARRISBURG, Pa. - By any measure, the professor appeared trapped on the legal ropes.

Biochemistry professor Michael Behe had conceded in federal court that precious few scientists support the intelligent design theory, which holds that the machinery of life is so complex as to require the hand of an intelligent creator.

Now came another question: Isn't it true, professor, the nation's most esteemed scientific organization denounced the theory as non-science?

Behe, bespectacled and bearded, sat straight up in the witness chair.

"Their statement is a political document without any marshaling of evidence," Behe said with rising voice this week.

The courtroom setting has been called another Scopes "Monkey Trial," in which the forces of science would vanquish those who would inject religion into the science classroom. But as the trial in U.S. District Court in Harrisburg reached a midpoint this week, victory has proved elusive.

That first evolution trial in Tennessee in 1925, in which teacher John Scopes was accused of illegally teaching that humans are descended from one-celled organisms, pitted scientific modernism against the fire-and-brimstone set.

Scopes lost, paid a $100 fine, but the verdict was reversed in his favor. And the case's long-term effect was to deal a crushing defeat to fundamentalism.

This time, the scientific establishment faces a more artful foe, one comfortable with the language of science.

Even if the judge rules against intelligent design in November, few predict a cultural turning point.

"The evolution debate has exposed a fundamental divide in our society," said Michael Ruse, a philosopher of science at Florida State University and author of "The Evolution-Creation Struggle."

"There is no question America is fractured and the intelligent design people are bloody serious. A court case isn't changing that."

Dover is a farm town in central Pennsylvania that is half-evolved into a suburb. Last year, its school board voted to require that high school biology teachers read to students a short statement casting doubt on Darwin's theory of evolution and offering intelligent design as an alternative theory.

Eleven parents sued, arguing that intelligent design is religion masked as science.

Legions of scientists say Darwin's theory of evolution remains solid and is the soil in which modern science takes root. They say advances from DNA research to the discovery of fossils tend overwhelmingly to shore up their case.

The Dover plaintiffs have marshaled notable witnesses, beginning with Brown University biologist Kenneth Miller, to fire scientific salvos at intelligent design.

"It is what a philosopher might call the argument from ignorance," Miller told the court several weeks ago. "Because we don't understand something, we assume we never will and therefore we invoke . . . a supernatural creator."

But bringing a legal case against intelligent design is a tricky business.

The small band of scientists who publicly support intelligent design are able debaters and, as became clear when Behe took the stand, they do not sound remotely like William Jennings Bryan, the lawyer who eight decades ago in Tennessee invoked biblical authority to decry evolution.

Behe, an advocate of intelligent design, began by rattling off the names of prominent scientists, many of whom are not advocates of intelligent design, who questioned key aspects of evolutionary theory and noted there is scant evidence for large mutational leaps.

Then he read aloud from a paper written by an evolutionary biologist, whose theorizing was peppered with "maybe" and "might have" and "probably."

The heart of Behe's argument centered on biochemistry, where he claims to have found machinery so complex, such as the bacterial flagellum, as to be irreducibly complex – meaning it could not have evolved because it needs all of its parts to work.

"If leaders in the scientific field do not know how something came about, then one can be confident . . . nobody in the world knows how it came about," Behe said. "There's no natural evidence that Darwinian evolution would have produced it."

Intelligent design, evolution trial ends
Judge to issue ruling possibly by year-end

By Laurie Goodstein
NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE

November 5, 2005

HARRISBURG, Pa. - The nation's first trial to test the constitutionality of teaching intelligent design as science ended yesterday with a lawyer for the pro-design Dover school board pronouncing it "the next great paradigm shift in science."

His opponent, an attorney for the 11 parents suing the school board, dismissed intelligent design as dishonest, unscientific and based entirely on "a meager little analogy that collapses immediately upon inspection."

The conclusion of the six-week trial in U.S. District Court yesterday made it clear that two separate but interconnected entities are actually on trial: the Dover school board and the fledgling intelligent design movement.

The board in Dover, a growing town south of Harrisburg, voted last year to read to ninth-grade biology students a four-paragraph statement saying that there are "gaps" in the theory of evolution, and that intelligent design is an alternative they should explore.

At the trial, board members repeatedly said they wanted to "encourage critical thinking." But the parents presented evidence that the board's purpose was religious and that the intelligent design statement was a compromise they settled for after learning they could not teach creationism.

Operating on another plane in the case were the dueling scientists, those who argued that intelligent design is an exciting new explanation, versus those who testified that it does not deserve to be called science.

The case will be decided by Judge John E. Jones III, who said he hopes to issue his ruling before the end of the year, or early January at the latest.

The scientists who advocate intelligent design said the complexity of biological organisms and the "purposeful arrangement of parts" are evidence that there is a designer. They said their theory is not religious because they are not claiming the designer is God, since that is untestable.

In his blunt closing argument, the plaintiffs' lawyer, Eric Rothschild, accused the intelligent design movement of lying just like he said the school board members had lied when they testified that their purpose for changing the science curriculum had nothing to do with religion.

They lied, Rothschild said, when they testified that they did not make or hear religious declarations at board meetings, and when they claimed they did not know that an intelligent design textbook was purchased for the school with money collected at a church and funneled through the father of school board member Alan Bonsell.

Earlier this week, the judge himself grew agitated as he questioned Bonsell about whether he had lied about the books. Rothschild reminded the judge of that interchange and said that the board's dishonesty "mimics" the intelligent design movement.

"Its essential religious nature does not change whether it is called 'creation science' or 'intelligent design' or 'sudden emergence theory,' " Rothschild said. "The shell game has to stop."

A lawyer for the school board, Patrick Gillen, said in closing arguments that while some board members had strong religious beliefs, neither their "primary purpose" nor the effect of their policy was to advance religion.

The trial laid bare the fighting over the biology curriculum that went on between Dover's board and science teachers for more than two years, before the board passed its policy on intelligent design in 2004.

The campaign to teach creationism alongside evolution was driven largely by two school board members, William Buckingham and Bonsell, who both testified that they believe the Bible's account of creation is literally true.

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This is one dangerous a**hole. CNN link as well.

For those that think the oxymoron "Intelligent Design" is not
an evangelical trojan horse for creationism, think again.

Pat Robertson said, and I quote, "If they have future problems in Dover, I recommend they call on Charles Darwin. Maybe he can help them." Well, don't
depend on FEMA either, it is run by people of the same ilk as Mr. Robertson.

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This is one dangerous a**hole. CNN link as well.

For those that think the oxymoron "Intelligent Design" is not
an evangelical trojan horse for creationism, think again.

Pat Robertson said, and I quote, "If they have future problems in Dover, I recommend they call on Charles Darwin. Maybe he can help them." Well, don't
depend on FEMA either, it is run by people of the same ilk as Mr. Robertson.

Who or what is FEMA?
Also how do you post a picture?
Jim

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This is one dangerous a**hole. CNN link as well.

For those that think the oxymoron "Intelligent Design" is not
an evangelical trojan horse for creationism, think again.

Pat Robertson said, and I quote, "If they have future problems in Dover, I recommend they call on Charles Darwin. Maybe he can help them." Well, don't
depend on FEMA either, it is run by people of the same ilk as Mr. Robertson.

Who or what is FEMA?
Also how do you post a picture?
Jim

Federal Emergency Management Agency {a division of the United States Department of Homeland Security) which among other departments has been packed with political cronies (a great American tradition - patronage). And yes, I'm being sarcastic since the division between state and religion is getting blurred here in America by the ultra right wing conservatives. They believe that the tenets of their religion should be codified into laws irrespective of the beliefs of others. They are attempting to do a end run around our constitutional Bill of Rights. Replacing scientific Darwinism with Creationism is but one of the many things on their agenda. (Sounds like Iran doesn't it)

I can not show you how since that would trigger errors in the post.
Simply click on "reply to this post" which has a picture and check out the format for posting a pix.

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And yes, I'm being sarcastic since the division between state and religion is getting blurred here in America by the ultra right wing conservatives. They believe that the tenets of their religion should be codified into laws irrespective of the beliefs of others. They are attempting to do a end run around our constitutional Bill of Rights. Replacing scientific Darwinism with Creationism is but one of the many things on their agenda. (Sounds like Iran doesn't it)

How about this:

And yes, I'm being sarcastic since the division between freedom and totalitarianism is getting blurred here in America by the ultra-left-wing liberals. They believe that the tenets of their ideology should be codified into laws irrespective of the beliefs of others. They have done and continue to attempt to do an end run around our Constitutional Bill of Rights. Replacing capitalism with socialism is but one of the many things on their agenda (sounds like the Soviet Union, doesn't it?).

The point being that your commentary above is exactly what the party in power does. When you support a system that is nothing more than the use of gov't force, coercion instead of protection, this is exactly what you get.