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fractalfeline: you understand my opinion perfectly. My position (as an atheist) is also that as long as religious people respect all life (in the sense of not making exceptions for "infidels") then, strictly from the "is life is sacred?" point of view, there is no practical difference between...

bradym, those definition points from your post are great for continuing the discussion. I am non-religious so for me the the points for discussion are 5, 6, and 7 (i.e. not associated with a deity). In that respect, for me life IS sacred. I guess the sense is that life is something special...

I voted "agree". Yes, joejv4 has a good point, the word "marriage" has had a clear meaning of male + female until now. But, as the word is now used in a legal context to grant certain rights and responsibilities to an association of (so far!!!) two people then I guess the point is that, as far...

@ John Klyne - I would answer but could you elaborate a bit on the purpose? Also, maybe except one or two questions, the others would get stock answers depending on the respondent being religious or not. For me, being an atheist, you could probably guess what I would answer. Are you still...

Uh, guys, I've just voted. But, is the text "a Global treat" meant to be "a Global threat" maybe? I mean, where I live, some warming would indeed be a treat... Or is this meant to be funny and I don't get the joke?

Actually the Higgs boson may have a bearing on space travel. It is assumed it gives mass. Mass means inertia. Mass means you need an infinite amount of energy to reach light speed. It also means humans would get squashed by an acceleration of more than 30-40 Gs, which means (even assuming a lot...

Socialism sucks in real life. I was born and raised in a socialist country so I know of what I speak. Every time I've spoken about this with Western Europen "socialists" they keep going on about "what Eastern Europe had, what Russia had, what China has, what Cuba has, what North Korea has, is...

I have nothing against gays. In fact, I am part of a minority that finds it very hard to "detect" is a person is gay just by looking at them or listening to them. Of course I can see the parodic "gay" characters in films and sitcoms but I think these are exagerrated so that it is clear what they...

Man, you think in binary?!?!:eek: As for the thread's question, my opinion is that, unless the debate is about religious issues, then religion is not a valid argument in a debate. But the trouble is, different (religious) people have different (and and probably infinitely gradual) limits/rules...

I think that there is no such thing as purpose for life in general in the sense that life just is. It has trends (it appears to be the reverse of entropy, life really seems to tend to increase complexity), it has rules, it (still) has some unknowns but IMO no purpose. As for what purpose a...

No, I did not mean that that the witness should be myself, after all, I did not witness Michaelson's experiments and I do not have the material (and time) to reproduce them but they make sense, are backed up by theory and are supported by other experiments, so I thus believe his conclusions...

Existence of God "proof" issue What I would consider "proof" is to take a well known and accepted law of nature, scientifically validated, and have ono or more "special" persons do something that violates that law because of divine intervention/will/prayer/"the chosen one" effect, whatever...

First, you've asked your question of Zen-R and I am not Zen-R, so apologies to both of you if you think I shouldn't answer this, but my opinion on this is that a non-religious person can simply say "I do not know" and leave it at that. It does not follow that for every "I do not know" we need...

For me it was seeing the Montreal Olympics in 1976 on TV. Hmm... All 3 posts here so far refer to TV "moments"...

I became a member only 3 weeks ago or so. It was a few minutes for me (from when I submitted the request with all fields completed) and there were no problems of any kind either with the process of getting an account or since then. So far, really good quality in all respects.:biggrin:

Religions were not invented or promoted to "help" people behave or to make them feel better. Yes, there was an element of "spontaneous" belief in spirits, powers, etc. due to ignorance and to witnessing pretty spectacular and frightening events without any available explanation. But when some...

If the microorganisms from space have seeded life here (Panspermia) then life should be abundant enough that we (or our descendants) should find some traces of life as soon as we explore our Solar System in a more serious and systematic way. Of course, they should be similar to us (at a...

Do Aliens exist at all, as in intelligent beings not from our planet? Probably yes. Drake equation (cited in this Thread already) is a good enough argument. Have they come visit us here? Probably not. The fact that some of the most powerfull people and organizations on Earth do not seem to...

I assume by this question that there is the belief of certain death before taking action. Yes, definitely for my children. Also for my wife. Appart from that, no, not until my children are grown-up. My principle is that my first duty is to them, so I need to be around. After that, maybe I...

What's with all the doom and gloom? The future will be better than the past. It has been so thus far, if you take an average of all humans and if you define "better" starting with "live longer" then maybe "feel safer" then maybe "make more of your own choices" (as opposed to slavery and...