Man, it took me forever to read through this thing, very interesting though.

I've seen this debate for years now, argued from both sides, and even did a fair amount of research back in the day.

This is just my personal opinion, but I've concluded that evolution ... is a theory. Much like electricity, relativity, gravity and any other natural observable process that has undergone rigorous scientific testing and experimentation (with the math to support it).

The bible, does not need to be proved. The concept of the bible is such that trying to prove or disprove it, essentially becomes a moot point. In the end it's something you take it on faith, and that's something everyone can agree on, even the bible. (Of course, one thing I've always wondered was: Assume Adam and Eve were the first people on earth. They had children. Now we all know the fate of one child, but concerning Cain... who did he marry? or a better question I guess would be: who did he have children with, because he obviously did have children?)

Now is it possible that what the bible says is true? Sure. Can anyone really prove or disprove it? No, those events happened thousands of years ago, even archeological evidence would be sketchy at best.
Here's a hypothetical situation to illustrate why you can't claim the bible fact or fiction either way: lets assume that it's the year 4009... that's 2000 years into the future, and some future human digs up a Blockbuster. It's a huge find for those future humans because it's one of the only few caches of such rich information about the early 21st century. Now lets say these humans find the show "The Office". Now, would it be so difficult to assume that those humans may actually think characters from the show are real? Or lets say they also find a real documentary about people working in offices. How can they draw any conclusions as to what is real and what is not? Maybe a fan website about "The Office" survived, and this website treats characters from The Office as real, the wouldn't it be evidence that "The Office" is real? Or maybe the website explicitly expresses "The Office" as a fictional show, then would those that believe "The Office" to be real just say that a website is not credible enough evidence?

It's impossible for those future humans to answer all those questions, in the same way it's impossible for us to answer all the questions about a book written over the course of thousands of years.

I say, it's quite pointless to argue the validity of the bible because no one side can come to any definitive conclusions about whether it's real or not. I mean, honestly, it was written before some countries even existed, transcribed into many many different translations and oh btw it's not even complete (Holy Roman Empire, when they standardized the bible to the books we see today, left out some of the books to preserve "continuity" or something to that effect. So those who don't see any glaring contradictions in the bible, it's because it was done intentionally).

Evolution on the other hand... if you want to argue that it's possible that it may be wrong, sure go ahead, but then you're in the 8th dimension (in that plane where the all possible universes or realities meet). Scientifically, it's pretty much a solid theory, hasn't been disproved yet.

wake up

I'd rather go base jumping... too bad it's illegal in the US (or so they say).

I'd say the best part of skydiving is the free fall maneuvers, I mean the canopy stuff is fun, and you usually have a better view, but it's not as exciting, and the landing is always the most nervewracking... I mean, it's not the jump that kills you, it's the landing .

In California, I made an appointment with the DMV to wait in line, just so I could turn in some paperwork and leave.

I'll have to disagree... I respect your opinion, but it doesn't seem to make much logical sense to me.

For 1

Time and space are dimensions, so I don't think they really have origins per se... as for matter, the Big Bang theory postulates that matter may have started off as a massive singularity of imploding energy that essentially exploded, and that matter is just condensed forms of this energy (the energy = matter proven by Einstein E=MC^2). There's plenty of observable evidence for this...
look at thermodynamic laws, Maxwell's equations, quantum physics...

For 2

On a nice cloudless day, step outside and look at the sky. You see that bright yellow ball like thing that hurts your eyes to look at directly? Congratulations, you have just observed hydrogen "evolving" into higher elements (namely helium and some lithium isotopes).

For 3

Look at 1.

For 4

Look up Miller-Urey experiment

For 5

This argument is getting old, like beating a dead horse. I'm not going over all the arguments for this. Just go to a museum, go to a zoo... look at a mule or a liger...

Usually when I hang out with a girl, whether it be just a friend, date, prospective date, co-worker, classmate or whatever, I pay for everything, only exception is if it's in a group setting, or if the girl insists (I have a friend who pay for everything herself, but then again, she's a bit of feminist).

But that's just me, most guys won't do that unless they want something more. My guess is that the situation is awkward only for you. Some guys (like myself) don't feel it necessary to talk too much, actions speak louder than words. If he comes off as distant, let him know and see what happens.

A very smart economist/financial manager once told me that the best way to save money is to save on the big stuff, and not worry too much on the small stuff. In more specific terms, you'll save more money by buying a cheaper car than buying cheaper groceries.

I used the car as an exaggerated example, but a more technical explanation for this money saving method would be called a top down cut approach. That is, instead of trying to save on the smallest items first and then moving up to bigger items, start with the big items and then start cutting the small stuff (of course I'm not talking about essentials like your house, or your car if you need it for work).

Believe it or not, it's actually a very common tendency in people to work from smaller to larger, in fact, some companies do this, i.e. they fire their low wage workers before thinking of possibly getting rid of inefficient but highly paid *expensive* upper/mid level management.

I guess you could work at a paper company... :)

That was a great episode btw

You don't fall in love.
You find a seed of potential love, then nurture and grow it, and hope it becomes something strong, beautiful and worthwhile.

If it turns out ugly, you may choose to kill it, if it turns out weak, it may die, if it turns out unmanageable, you may throw it away, then go out and look for another seed you can plant.

Even though the seed itself factors in how that love will grow, in the end, how you nurture it (or neglect it), will determine how it turns out.

I'm no poet, or romantic, but that's the way I see it...

Unless it was some really important class, along the lines of half of the midterm will be based on what that class covered, or your professor has an "attendance mandatory" policy. Don't worry about it, it's just one class. Honestly, just a blink when you take into context the rest of the semester, or even quarter, and less when you take into context your entire time in school or even your entire life.

It's ok to have a little fun and take a load off, even if you miss a class, just as long it doesn't jeopardize your future, career, family or anything that's really important to you in life.

Adultery is also a UCMJ punishable offense (meaning, losing pay, free time, rank or get jail time) if you are in the military.

Accodring to all the briefings I've had coming from a whole swath of interrogators, intelligence officers and agents in military and federal agencies, torture as a method for intelligence gathering has proven to be rather counter productive, especially in the current conflicts we face today.

Assume we use torture, or at least, there's the perception we use torture, and we gain some credible information about a terrorist training camp, weapons cache, or attack on coalition forces. We manage to shut those down, but in the process we shifted public opinion in the "front lines" against us. That is, less of the populace is willing to cooperate with us, or provide us with information for fear that we might take them into custody and torture them for more information (like Saddam Hussein did during his time in power), or for fear that we might do that to their cousin (who happens to be a member of a questionable organization).

It's important to note that this "war" is "war among the people", not between two nation/states or large centralized organizations. Meaning that we're more likely to get good, credible information from the people (who hide, protect and supply our "enemy organizations") than hardcore members of the organization. And considering the decentralized structure of the terrorist organizations, even if we capture the head of one cell, there's very little chance that person will know what the other cells are up to.

The market was worse in 1982, and yet, here we are, still chugging along.

All those dystopian futures conceived backed in the 80s hasn't happened yet (and we've passed most of their prediction dates).

I still think we're in for hard times, many people's lifestyles are going to change, some might be destroyed completely, but I don't think we're going to be in the middle ages or wild west again any time soon. Decline of such magnitudes happens over a long period of time (even the fall of the Roman empire didn't happen overnight, it spanned several hundred years).

Is it possible that we will end up in some dystopian future like Mad Max? Possibly, but I doubt it will be in our lifetime.

Depends...

fear does a better job of controlling people

love does a better job of keeping people loyal

Respect does both.

So if you had a third choice, I'd rather be respected.

Uhhh... if you treated that "special person" the same way you treat everyone else, he/she wouldn't be very "special" now would he/she?

Nothing different. Why? 2 reasons:

1) I could be wrong

2) Whatever it is I'm doing is probably preparing me for wherever it is I'm going (Mars, The Moon, Planet X, etc.)

If you meant "last day on earth" as a euphemism for "last day I'll be alive", then still, nothing different, but for slightly different reasons:

1) I could be wrong

2) If I'm going to die, why should I care what I did before I died? It's not like you can feel any regret when you're dead.

3) If I found this out recently, it would be too late to do anything meaningful and if I found out some time ago, I would already have done whatever it is I wanted to do.

The way I see it:

Insanity is a matter of perspective, where the perceiving person believes the perceived person's behavior has no rational basis.

Now to make an argument for it:

Some people would consider gathering at a building on a perfectly good Sunday to sing, meditate and listen to someone talk about an invisible, omnipotent and omnipresent being and following a text compiled a thousand years ago, written in the course of several thousand years will somehow allow them eternal happiness/life. Others would find that perfectly sane, because based on their values/beliefs/background, there is a rational basis for what they do.

Some people would consider someone willing to sacrifice their lives for an ideal (the greater good usually) as insane, but others would not (in fact, most consider that heroic).

Some people would consider spending an amount equal to the lifetime earnings of another person for a frivolous item they will use maybe once, and throw away as insane, but others would find perfectly rational explanations for it.

Yes

Even if there was no ice, any applied force (Fn) to the cars would move it. The real question is how far?
With very high coefficients of friction (uk and us, as stated from previous posts), the cars would move (albeit a very minuscule amount, possibly a couple micrometers).
With very low coefficients of friction, the cars would move a lot more.