Lets keep that in mind when people start talking about conflicting ideas and who should be worried about whom.

All I’m asking is that everybody recognize that we are fighting the good fight, in Kansas, and winning. What is ironic, isn’t the fact we produce 2/3rds of the worlds helium. The ironic thing is that Phil’s wife and her family is from Kansas, and he should know all this…. We were bushwacked by a few idiots, lead by people outside the state, and we defeated them… That’s the ironic thing.

But science is a process and not a static thing, and most scientists are aware of that new things can arise that changes the nature of the known. Some don’t but then we can’t expect every person who shows up on this site to have an understanding of epistemology.

Because there are different kinds of knowns belive it or not. If we argue about what is known in _absolute_ terms, we will never get beyond our own self awarness. In absolute terms nothing can be known beyond that something exists that is capable of experiencing that it knows that it exists.

Zen, some kinds of buddhism (and other so called enlightenment teachings) are atheistic “religions” devoted to exploring this fact experientially, and they are surprisingly compatible with skeptisism. They could humoursly be described as methods of being skeptical towards your own existance.

But in practical terms, that will get us nowhere. If I’m hot, I like some ice tea. The absolute nature of my body temperature, or what the essence of ice tea is, removed from all contexts (I.E in the absolute) is really not something that influences my choice of beverage in any way.

So while in absolute terms I can not know that the ice tea exists at all, to function we must move our point of referense into the world that we experience and from that point of reference lots can be known about the ice tea.

This however does not make the god concept any more logical or change the relationship between science and theistic religion, because faith doesn’t carry across the cognitive chasm between the internal and external any better than an observable fact.

What it does do is make it look ridiculus when a person claims that the bible has absolute validity. (Which by extrapolation would mean that the person knows the bibles essential nature through self-reflecting experience, and therefore must infact _be_ the bible)

___
So, while science can not claim absolute knowledge, it can make the claim to have the _best possible_ substantiated knowledge of the natural universe at this particular time. And I can not, even as a holistically inclined skeptic find a reason to doubt that.

I’d love to edit my post above. But Ican’t so I’m justgoing toswear under my breath about it for a while .. Sigh.

BA – please can you find a way of letting us edit these blutzFeed comments posts, please ..

So, yes, its ironic as Phil noted.

To change your image will take time – and a lot of kicking the backsides of the morons who’ve given you this bad rap.

Sounds like the good news is you’ve made a start. Bad news though, is there’s still a way to go.

Hopefully, one day you’ll get to the point where your states name – or your nations won’t instantly conjure up pictures of idiots who believe very silly things.

It may take a while – after all, your country was created by the equivalent of annoying bible-thumpers who were told to sod off by the rest of Europe -and their legacy still shows particularly in regions that are, well, seen as if not actually, less developed, less sophisticated and less cosmopolitian. Still listening to the BA and Sagan and Dawkins and their like is a sign of progress.

- Jack

We have thrown the creationist/ID bums at every turn. We should be commended not vilify. And the reacent elections have doen nothing but solidify the pro evolution, pro education, pro sanity stance. With the Govenor (DEMOCRAT Kathleen Sibelius, stating she would like to change the way the Board of education workd)

Kansas has done EVERYTHIG right. And every lame brain issue the BOE has tried to froce on us has been written by OUT OF STATE idiots…

PLEASE stop bashing Kansas, when the voters hav voted FOR evolution every single time….

Religion is just that. Philosophy wrapped in a supernatural coating, which is based on our imagination and has no realistic ground. Or, rather, no ground at all.

Just for the record – I don’t ever regard religious people lesser than me. I just think they’re wrong. And all the stuff I wrote here is actually directed not at the evils of religion, but at its being totally unscientific and therefore inappropriate in science classes or any classes for that matter at all (except philosophy ones).

Best wishes and Merry Christmas. I hope I didn’t insult anyone personally. I’m open to a good-willed discussion.

The helium isn’t “distilled” out of the air (the way, say, nitrogen or oxygen are). It is trapped underground in airtight caverns and interstices (I love that word!) in the crust and is extracted by wells just like natural gas. It is created by nuclear decay processes (I don’t know the exact process, but I’m sure someone here does). Beta radiation is essentially a helium nucleus (two protons and two neutrons) and it just has to grab two electrons from somewhere to create a helium atom.

Any helium that gets into the atmosphere rises to the top where the radiation from the sun and other places energizes the atoms enough to actually leave the Earth completely.

- Jack

To carnifex: What is religion? Could you try to define it? Because I think I would be of another opinion than you however you’d define it, based on the conclusions you draw above.

1) 99.999% of elements with atomic number LESS than that of Iron are produced during the process of thermonuclear [b]synthesis[/b]

2) 99.999% of elements with atomic number BIGGER than that of Iron are produced during the process of nuclear [b]breakdown[/b]

I mean, isn’t helium synthesized from hydrogen? If so, then there is a slight mistake in this passage: [i]Second, understand that most of the helium on Earth comes from a) the breakdown of radioactive nuclei; a process which takes tens of thousands to millions and even billions of years, and b) the Big Bang, 13.7 billion years ago.[/i]

Of course, that’s just being picky. Nicely written, as always.

To Mr. Conkling:

I think you’re mixing up religion and faith. Faith is essential to every human being because that’s the force that keeps us going. Faith is not related to religion nor to science. Neither is ethics. Actually, faith is more related to philosophy than religion.

Religion is an utterly wrong collection of utterly wrong statements that are based upon human imagination and have no ground in REALITY. Religion doesn’t prove anything. Religion doesn’t suggest anything. Religion doesn’t MEAN anything.

In other words, I would agree that Christian philosophy is good. However, Christian religion is an utter nonsense. If it DOES achieve anything, it’s making people blind to the reality. It makes people count on nonsensical extraterrestrial (or should it be extrauniversal?) powers when everything depends on them. It makes people assume stupidest things without any basis. What is worst of all, it makes people EASY TO MANIPULATE, because they lose the ability to recognize truth from lies and reality from fiction. I assume this aspect is very well known to those, who are especially keen to get this religious antiscientific nonsensical crap into science classes…

http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/2006/12/richard_dawkins_7.html

Gary 7

http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/2006/12/merry_mithras.html

Gary 7

I think we ought to just recognize the irony that Phil wanted us to recognize, and not get bound up in the details.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Science is our only useful Way of understanding the How of our existence.

Mythology assumes there is a Reason for our being,,,such an assumption may be totally unwarrented.
We wish to believe we are special, deserving of this ability to understand. Therefore, there must be some ONE who defines this reason,,,
Perhaps the only One who can make such a case, is the one asking the question.

One cannot bash a geographical area(Kansas, Penn, etc.). We can however, bash those few individuals who are intent upon shoving their opinions down our throats. Resistance to dogma has been the hallmark of progress since our beginning as an introspective species. Hopefully, that resistance will continue into the indefinite future.

As we continue our progress into that indefinite future, we may find, we ARE the ONE that defines our reason for being. It is likely there is NO singular intelligence directing everything but our belief in the possibility of such gave us a direction to go. That may be the only real value of any religion,,,

Happy holidaze to all and to all a good night,,,

Peace,

GAry 7

This was no attack. It was an observation of irony. There’s an unsubtle difference. I invite those who see “attacks” behind every display or irony or disagreement to learn the difference.

What the Enlightened Squid and other said (or hinted at) about the overweening tendencies of religious whack-jobs: word.