Fwd: Gay marriage

Legalizing gay marriage is a good thing but I am not sure that the way it happened is the best way.  My perception is that a liberal leaning Supreme Court ignored (mangled) the constitution, and a great many other Americans are going to feel the same way.  This is going to leave many people feeling screwed over.  "A man convinced against his will, is of the same opinion still."  People's views are not going to change just because the law changed.  Like the civil rights movement, it is still going to take decades.  Although it would have taken a very long time, it might have been better had the states gradually done this on their own.

Eighty seven percent of America

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ns are religious.  These people vary from mildly religious to deeply faithful and highly committed to their religion.  The majority of religious people believe homosexuality is wrong, although some are more tolerant than others.  What the supreme court has said is that people's deeply held beliefs are crap and we are going to force upon people a different set of beliefs.  I don't think that people will stand idly by and accept this.  There will be a nasty backlash.  There may be violence toward gays.  Liberals may see themselves voted out of office.  You may see a constitutional amendment defining marriage.

I think that over time people's attitudes will change, mostly due to public pressure, but it will require people to let go a major tenet of their deeply held religious beliefs.  That is a really big hill to overcome.

Best wishes,

John Coffey

Re: My comment on Facebook about evolution.

My comment on Facebook about evolution.

I'm sorry that you feel that evolution is a religion. In my opinion, evolution says nothing about the existence or non-existence of God. There are two facts that are irrefutable: The earth is very old and simpler organisms came before more complex ones. If you want to say that God made things happen that way, I'm fine with that. That would be philosophy. Science only deals with what we can observe, predict and reproduce. Evolution is the best explanation for what we observe. It is also supported by evidence from several sciences.

Darwin did not invent evolution. Many people of scientific bent believed in and proposed evolution before Darwin. i.e. Lamark in 1800 and Darwin's grandfather. Darwin's great contribution to science was Natural Selection. He wasn't the first to come up with that either. So did the ancient Greeks.


Best wishes,

John Coffey

Pascal Vs Homer

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both sides

FYI.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: John Coffey

I am not sure that a different view of good and evil is driving the difference between the political parties.   The left is driven by a desire to take from the have's and give to the have-not's.  All their other beliefs stem from this.  They don't see private property as justly earned but something gotten through exploiting others.  They see people in need as people who have been either exploited or victimized by a bad system.

The right espouses the notion that people deserve the property they own, although in reality most seem to be tax and spend politicians anyway.  This is because the political climate does not reward real conservatism, making real conservatives rather rare.

I don't see a strong distinction between left and right except for a few libertarian minded Republicans.

If we want to dig a little deeper, I agree with the notion I have heard that non-religious people have a stronger desire to fix things on Earth and not wait for some pie in the sky afterlife.  However, the method that they want to use to fix things is through government coercion, which is self defeating.  Governments always achieve the opposite of what they trying to do.

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Best wishes,

John Coffey

http://www.entertainmentjourney.com​

Richard Dawkins: Why the universe seems so strange

http://youtu.be/1APOxsp1VFw

Christianity Declines Sharply in US, Agnostics Growing: Pew

Christianity Declines Sharply in US, Agnostics Growing: Pew

Bart Ehrman Freedom From Religion Foundation Lecture

Bart Ehrman Freedom From Religion Foundation Lecture

THE THEOLOGY OF GAY MARRIAGE (interesting article)

​"Because God can't change his mind."

THE THEOLOGY OF GAY MARRIAGE

"Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, to whom you sent me to offer your prayer: If you remain quietly in this land I will build you up, and not tear you down; I will plant you, not uproot you; for I regret the evil I have done you."   (Jeremiah 42:9-10 NAB)​

Philosophical Failures of Christian Apologetics, Part 2: Absolute Truth

Check out this video on YouTube:

http://youtu.be/1YnlW59--JE

Christopher Hitchens Slams Buddhism

Check out this video on YouTube:

http://youtu.be/PkeGAl5XxHY

"Why Don’t I Criticize Israel?" - Sam Harris Podcast

Check out this video on YouTube:

http://youtu.be/HX-UPcrejHc

Sam Harris - On Charlie Hebdo and Other Things

Check out this video on YouTube:

http://youtu.be/itBK3KBMRGM

Fwd: Big bang

I don't think that the big bang theory is intended as proof of the non-existence of God.  Science is in the business of describing how things happen but not why.  I am sure that there are many who believe in both.  

Based on the evidence, the big bang likely happened, but I have heard of other theories.

​Belief in God, however, doesn't necessarily mean belief in the traditional religions.

If one has no understanding of science, then people assume that the workings of the universe are due to magic.  As more things get explained, the realm of magic becomes less and less until maybe all we have remaining is a creator.  Some would prefer to dismiss any role of the supernatural altogether.  So this leads to religion becoming a matter of philosophy and belief as to whether existence requires a creator.

I think that we are hard wired to believe in religion.  It is a natural instinct and maybe a survival skill.  But since we are wired this way, I think that this makes people susceptible to bogus ideas.  Breaking away from this requires that people be objective, which is something that we are not particularly hard wired to do.  

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Best wishes,

John Coffey

On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 11:46 AM, Grant wrote:

When I first read about the Big Bang when I was still in Jr High, Fred Hoyle a just starting to waiver on his steady state theory.  At that time it was believed to have originated from one location depicted in Discovery Magazine as smaller than a golf ball.  Last I heard this was changed to originating everywhere in the universe simultaneously.  There's still a lot of problems with the theory including increased expansion rate which is not consistent with how we view explosions.  Bottom line:  No one apparently knows, so we've been unable to prove or disprove it.  We just keep changing the model. My philosophical view is that it's hardly a proof that God doesn't exist nor has he ever, as one theoretical physicist would have us believe.

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Best wishes,

John Coffey

http://www.entertainmentjourney.com

Fwd: Mummies and Snowcrash

All the copies of Gospels that I have heard about were in Greek, and not Aramaic.  The early English bibles were copied from a multitude of Greek texts.  There were an explosion of Greek gospels starting around 151 AD, which was right after the church leaders gathered together to decide if Jesus was a real person or just a spirit.  The only Gospel that was older was a paragraph from the book of Mark found on a fragment in Egypt.  It was dated around 113 AD.

Pretty much all biblical scholars agree that the book of Mark was the first one written and the usual date given is around 90 AD, although some give a range from 70 AD to 100 AD.  All the other gospels were written in the second century and two appear to have been copied from Mark.  None of the gospels could have been written by the people that the gospels claim wrote them.  Technically, that makes them forgeries.

This lead to common speculation that the gospels were derived from previous unknown works, and these hypothetical works have been called "M Source" (book of Mark source) and "Q Source."

However, most of the stories of the Bible have been shown to have been copied from Egyptian, Babylonian and Sumerian myths.  Moses the lawgiver was copied from the Egyptian Misis the lawgiver, which in turn was copied from the Babylonian (or Sumerian?) Mases the lawgiver.  Jesus was the last of long line of demigod dying god myths going all the way back to Osiris in 4200 BC, and the Jesus story seems to have copied many of these other myths. 

If there is a Gospel older than 90 AD then that would be interesting.

'In recent years scientists have developed a technique that allows the glue of mummy masks to be undone without harming the ink on the paper. The text on the sheets can then be read.

The first-century gospel is one of hundreds of new texts that a team of about three-dozen scientists and scholars is working to uncover, and analyze, by using this technique of ungluing the masks, said Craig Evans, a professor of New Testament studies at Acadia Divinity College in Wolfville, Nova Scotia.

"We're recovering ancient documents from the first, second and third centuries. Not just Christian documents, not just biblical documents, but classical Greek texts, business papers, various mundane papers, personal letters," Evans told Live Science. The documents include philosophical texts and copies of stories by the Greek poet Homer. [See Images of Early Christian Inscriptions and Artifacts]

The business and personal letters sometimes have dates on them, he said. When the glue was dissolved, the researchers dated the first-century gospel in part by analyzing the other documents found in the same mask.

One drawback to the process is that the mummy mask is destroyed, and so scholars in the field are debating whether that particular method should be used to reveal the texts they contain.'

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/mummy-mask-may-reveal-oldest-known-gospel-n289006

The Forgery of the Old Testament

The Forgery of the Old Testament

Religion vs. Communism | In Praise of Christianity!

The first 9 minutes is interesting, but then he rambles on different topics.

Check out this video on YouTube:

http://youtu.be/jHXFJveCgiA

Fwd: Carl Sagan

Larry,

 

I say this with the understanding that I won't persuade you, nor do I particularly want to, so I will add the caveat of this is just how I see things from my point of view.  I just wanted to share my thinking on this since you are one of my favorite people to talk to.

 

I think that religion, being almost universal among humans, is an evolutionary trait that allowed primitive humans to cope with 30 year life spans, and also a survival mechanism to justify the killing of competing groups in the name of the religion.

 

I think that all official religions are a product of the human tendency to manipulate others humans.   We already know that roughly 1 out of 26 people are sociopaths and I think that these people are attracted to positions of power like the government which is probably filled with sociopaths.  Even people with good intentions will be attracted to positions of power because of the natural human tendency to promote our own self interest.

 

A rational person, therefore, would not believe in religion because he would realize that we have been manipulated (bamboozled).

 

We have roughly 200,000 years of modern human existence where I am sure humans believed in all sorts of false religions and did all sorts of nasty evil things to each other.  Modern religion would have us believe that God waited roughly 198,000 years before actually deciding to do something about this.

 

Best wishes,

John Coffey

Sam Harris vs. Dr. William Craig.

Sam Harris Destroys Craig in debate  

Sam Harris gets destroyed by Dr. William Lane Craig

"How much government is necessary?"

For the first 16 minutes, Stephan Molyneux makes his interesting case for Anarchism, which has developed quite a following, but I see this as a temporary fad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_k93op7_Pc#t=830

Molyneux is one of my favorite people to listen to on YouTube, because is he is a prolific and very intelligent speaker on many topics.  However, his faith in anarchism seems highly misplaced and defies common sense notions.  He could argue that our common sense notions are incorrect, but so few would agree with him that the burden of proof belongs in his court.

His makes the points that governments were created for the purpose of violating people's rights, and therefor cannot protect rights, and that if we raise children in an atmosphere of non-violence that people will not be as aggressive toward each other.  The first notion is incorrect and the second misunderstands human nature.

All animals and people compete within their own species for resources.  Most species understand either the concepts of property and/or territory.  I saw one squirrel aggressively chase another squirrel out of a tree.  Just as ostriches will fight each other for the best place to roost, many different animals will either defend their territory or forcibly fight to take over the territory of others.  What keeps another from stealing the place where you live or your food is the use of force or the threat of force.

The reason why some animals and people are social and form groups is simply because there is safety in numbers.  A tribe of 1 or 2 people would not last very long because all it takes is a slightly bigger tribe to chase them away or kill them.  Small groups formed for mutual defense and protection of territory.  As human population increased, this necessitated the smaller groups turning into bigger groups.  The need for mutual defense seems self evident since the first few thousand years of human civilization saw almost nothing but different groups invading, killing and/or enslaving other groups.   If you lived in the bronze age, a powerful authoritarian society might suck, but it might also be the safest place for you to be.  If your government was weak, it would be taken over by a different powerful authoritarian society that likely would have even less regard for your well being and survival.   

A small group of 20 cannot function very well without leadership, otherwise the group will splinter over disagreements, many of which will be about property, territory and rights.  Having leadership is what allows a group to get bigger, and therefor have a better chance at survival.  There is a Darwinian selection process for the groups that function the most efficiently.  As groups grew into societies, this lead to concentration of power, which certainly lead to all kinds of abuses.  As Milton Friedman pointed out, freedom is not the natural state of man.  Human beings have always lived under the thumb of some kind of authority.

The brilliance of the United States Constitution is that it created a government with many checks and balances to protect individual liberty.  The fact that the government has gotten out of hand just shows that the checks and balances were just not good enough.  Amending the constitution could help.   Still, it is one of the best governments in the world.  There are other countries that score higher on The Freedom Index, but compared to most nations, the United States interferes a lot less with its citizens.    

Abandon all government and the concepts of property and rights disappear instantly.  We would be back to the animal state where the strongest get what they want.  The power vacuum would be so great that humans would immediately start to form groups for their protection and to resolve conflicts.  These quasi-governments would eventually evolve into actual governments out of necessity because these different groups would conflict with each other.  My theory is that if you abandon all government, those who are powerful now, corporations, unions, organized crime and religion would immediately start to take over.  If had to pick one, I would guess that organized crime would only need about a week to rule the world. 

So governments were created to protect people's rights, and if that were the only role of government then I would gladly pay taxes for its protection, and it is the natural state of man to live under some kind of authority.  Despite the many flaws of government, it is possible for some people to construct governments that are much better than others.  So the goal here should not be to eliminate government, but to make it better.

Best wishes,

John Coffey

FW: Marriage

From: Daniel

 

Hay,

 

Rush Limbaugh just said what I have been saying for a few years.

 

“Sooner or later someone will want to marry their pet”.

 

Can I be first, please….

 

Regards,

 

Dan H.

 

 

 

There is a type of argument called reductio ad absurdum, which tries to argue that something is false by taking it to the absurd level.  In my view this does not invalidate the original argument, but only serves to show that going to the extreme might be a bad thing.

 

People by their nature have desires.  What people desire varies from person to person.   It is in the nature of human beings to be different and want different things.   Wanting different things does not define a person or make them good or bad.   

 

Now we know that some people wish to marry people of the same sex.  Provided that this does not harm anyone else, for the government to tell people that they can’t do this is a form of oppression.  You could argue that this would somehow have a negative impact on society, but the only way that this might possibly be true is if you consider homosexuality to be immoral, which I do not.  Gambling, drinking and smoking have a negative impact on society, but we tolerate these things and regulate them because people are going to do them anyway and they are not bad in every situation. 

Best wishes,

John Coffey

 

Richard Jeni talks religon

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Hum9EsCDOs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkKfo1POC1s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ymgcsi0mTDA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rv-lBbWeaEo

The Moral of MONSTERS UNIVERSITY

Check out this video on YouTube:

http://youtu.be/RrDa_Tci0R4

Therapeutic cloning - How it is done; possible benefits

Is an embryo a human person? Pro-life supporters generally believe that a human person comes into existence at conception. Some believe that somatic cell nuclear transfer is sufficiently similar to normal conception with an egg and spermatozoa that a human person also comes into existence during therapeutic cloning. The process of extracting stem cells involves killing the embryo. To many pro-lifers, this is murder. They feel that murdering one person, the embryo, to cure another person of paralysis, or diabetes, or heart disease, etc. can never be justified. More details. Therapeutic cloning research may well be limited to those countries, like China, the UK, and perhaps Canada, where pro-life supporters are relatively few in number.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/clo_ther.htm

This proves to me that people will believe almost anything

Not a single Jew died in a gas chamber [Holocaust revisionism]

'I Am Offended!' - Richard Dawkins @ UC Berkeley

Check out this video on YouTube:

http://youtu.be/PaJelU29jeI

Glenn Beck talks to Penn Jillette, author of "Every Day is an Atheist Holiday! More Magical Tales"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3LnVa7zXgc

THIS IS ISLAM!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxdoztoBEuc

Sam Harris: Islam Is Not a Religion of Peace

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfKLV6rmLxE

Neil Tyson presentation about intelligent design (fascinating discussion)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ti3mtDC2fQo