response 313 of 432:

Feb 17 02:54 UTC 2006

Anyone who mixes up East and West is not necessarily mistaken, he may
just be a Mahjong player. :)

You are trying to explain why you believe in God (you have said that 
you have "seen" him, and have "met" him.)  This is not identical to
"proving" him but it certainly embodies similar characteristics.  If you
believe he exists because of a reasoning process which includes his
existence as one of its premises, that's certainly your right but it's
not going to impress many people.

response 315 of 432:

Feb 17 04:13 UTC 2006

Re. 310:  You can be hallucinating whether or not God exists, for the simple
fact that, even if he does exist, you can't be sure that you have actually
perceived him and don't merely think you have.

response 317 of 432:

Feb 17 12:02 UTC 2006

Re #315: I understand hallucination as one's normal senses giving false
sensations, while what I described was sensations not coming from my normal
senses.

Re #316: Like I said, it isn't sufficient to prove, but proof is never required
for any other cases.

response 319 of 432:

Feb 17 15:48 UTC 2006

Of course proof is required.  When you enrolled at Calvin College they 
required you to produce evidence that you exist, that you are who you say
you are, and most importantly that you will pay for the services you recieve
there.  People expect proof of such things all the time in lots of ways;
they just don't require it in every social situation because it's
considered a bit rude.

"Celebrity you have never met" has a lower standard of proof because it has
a lower standard of mattering.  I haven't taken much trouble to verify that
Tom Cruise actually exists because the claims about him are not particulalry
extraordinary (he's just a man) and because it's not important.  If it turned
out that there's no such person as Tom Cruise and he's just a CGI effect, it
would not have any meaningful impact on my life.  Would it have one on yours?

response 321 of 432:

Feb 17 20:26 UTC 2006

My dictionary defines "celebrity" as "a famous person", and defines
"demonstration" as "conclusive evidence; proof."

A political figure is more important than an actor, but the claims about
ours are still rather unremarkable.  If someone claimed that Donald
Rumsfeld was born on Neptune and can fly, that would be an extraordinary
claim that would produce a lot of skepticsm from me (and, I hope, you as
well.)  However, the claim that Donald Rumsfeld was born in Chicago and
can walk is not particularly extraordinary and so I'm willing to accept
it without much scrutiny.

response 323 of 432:

Feb 17 20:33 UTC 2006

Re #321:
"Celebrity" for me gives the connotation of glitz, glamour, etc., but no 
real substance -- actors are celebrities, but royalty (for example) 
usually aren't. "Demonstration" vs. "proof" -- if I've got a computer 
program in binary form that takes one number in and outputs another, I 
could demonstrate that putting in 5 returns 25, say, by doing so, but that 
wouldn't prove anything, while reading the code that produced the binary 
would.

response 325 of 432:

Feb 17 22:25 UTC 2006

#324: All right, all right ... a proof by the laws of logic is a form of a
demonstration. "Proofs" is a subset of "demonstrations". Mostly I end my proofs
with the three dots, if I do anything. :)

Believing that he was born on Neptune would depend on a) how he answered the
question and b) how reliable the source of that rumor had been in the past. If
it was "is from Neptune and is able to fly," if I saw him flying I'd probably
believe the former half.

response 327 of 432:

Feb 19 05:03 UTC 2006

getting back to the issue of the cartoons, the situation is getting 
worse.  from news reports at cnn.com:

[b]Protests against cartoons of Islam's Prophet Mohammed continued on 
three continents Saturday. Sixteen people were killed and 11 churches 
were burned in Nigeria. An angry but peaceful protest drew more than 
15,000 people to Trafalgar Square, central London. And in Pakistan, two 
leaders of a religious group were arrested after the government banned 
a march on the capital, Islamabad, scheduled for Sunday. [/b]

Also another story says that a cleric in Pakistan has placed a $1 
million dollar bounty on the head of the cartoonist who drew the 
drawings.  

response 329 of 432:

Feb 19 07:08 UTC 2006

 I wonder if he's actually got a million dollars..

response 331 of 432:

Feb 19 17:39 UTC 2006

The War of Jenkin's Ear comes to mind...

response 333 of 432:

Feb 19 18:59 UTC 2006

Re #332: Actually (according to legend) it was started because Paris didn't
refuse to take sides in a dispute between three goddesses.

response 335 of 432:

Feb 19 23:56 UTC 2006

re #328 that was my typo, of course he knows there are three 
cartoonists, they have been carrying around posters with their pictures.

They even had a muslim protestor interviewed on cnn who said:

"one drop of muslim blood is worth all the blood in the world.  You 
insult the Prophet, and you will pay"

This isn't about those cartoons, those cartoons are flashpoints to 
rally the faithful, just like those false reports that U.S. soldiers 
flushed a Koran down the toilet.  The real issue is the U.S invasion of 
Iraq, which the radical element in the muslim world equates to a holy 
war.  They will seize on any issue, even cartoons of the Prophet, that 
incites the outrage they want against the U.S.  Its ironic that the 
Danish are taking the heat for this, because while the cartoonists were 
from Denmark, the rage and wrath is against the U.S.

This is further proof that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was a HUGE 
mistake, and the mistake only gets worse over time.  We didn't solve 
anything by invading, and the world is not, repeat NOT, safer now than 
it was before.  It is far more dangerous, and we are closer to a holy 
war, with tens of millions of muslims thinking we are the holy enemy of 
the Prophet, than at any time in recent history.