Conversation:

btw Insight, some of the same on genetics and orientation:
(the last person I was arguing this with ran away. )

homosexuality can be passed on genetically because genetics is not a mere baton race. Recessive genes are a simple example, combinations of genes etc. (best if a left-minder like Hoovooloo or Ste explains it since I can only think of the analogy of mixing paints. Different colours come from other colours, sometimes their ancestry is difficult to trace.) Hence, the parentage/ancestry of a homosexual person would cause that trait, if it is a nature thing, and would this not be passed on and through their other offspring- if there are any- and other branches of the family?
Simple.
Chain-smoking causes harm to yourself and others. Still, some choose it. Homosexuality carries *no intrinsic risks.*

also: Catholicism and contraception= same reason as abortion is frowned upon. It removes the potential for a life.
Surprised you didn't know that one.

Della
more.........

As I said the scientist loved books.
His wife didn't love them so much, they made a mess piled up on the floor, and as the piles got bigger, she became more distressed with this mess.
So she made him promise that for every new book he bought, he'd throw two away!

When he died, my friend said she would sort out her dad's effects, which included a trip to the attic.

She almost couldn't get in the attic space, because floor to roof top, were teetering stacks of books.
He'd been squirreling them away, not having the heart to throw books out.

Every patent, every design, every bit of paper that had made up his life, was also there in amongst the books.
Slowly she began to make her way through the paper history of her dad's life.
In all of the books were penciled messages, left for his daughters ( he had two- one in Canada, one in the UK)
My friend began to read her way through the books.

On the evening of 911, she rang her sister in Canada to discuss the sad and dreadful things that happen in the world.

Whilst on the phone her sister miles away happened to be staring at her book case. There was a book spine she didn't recognise, so while talking she pulled it out wandering how it had got there.
Inside the fly leaf was a message from her dad and the words 'just in case you need this'.
She was so touched that her dad on his last visit had left this book for her and not said anything, just slipped it in amongst the others.
The book was about how God is perceived in the world.
She was over come and told my friend what she had found and the title of the book.
My friend miles away, sitting on her bed, picked up the book she was currently reading from her dad's hoarde and opened it. It was the same book with the same message in the front.

Carrying on with her sorting day after day,she opened one book and inside was a curling, yellow, half page newspaper cutting.

The cutting included a large photograph. the photograph was of me and my ex.husband and the story was about a hospital giving a young woman a drug she had already advised them she was incredibly sensitive too.
The report outlined her 'death' and how the medical staff reacted to bring her back and the story of how she'd come to be in that situation in the first place.
After not seeing the woman in the photograph for many years, she picked up the phone and invited her old friend to travel a few hundred miles for a meal.

God is in the smallest coincidence, God is in the smallest detail, but if you're not aware of it, it isn't true for you.
My says thanks and can I please stop giving him those metaphorical biscuits.

Insight

"But the view being suggested is more that we are a small part of God. I don't really agree with it anyway, since we are told that God is perfect whereas humans are clearly not."

We are made in God's image, is it possible that an omnipotent God could create anything with imperfections? Why?

The Universe provided by God is perfection as are our lives, they are perfect for the experiences we have come here to have.

if homosexuality is not a matter of nature then it must be a matter of choice. But given the attitude of most of society towards gay people, it seems clear to me that nobody would chooose to be gay.>
Wouldn't you also think that nobody would choose to be ill?

Do people choose to be ill? Have you chosen to be hetrosexual, have you chosen to be male?
Do you think that 'sin' caused the birth of children who contain both sexual organs or that this was a choice?


"Some people have a (possibly genetic) tendency toward violence. Is that from God? Is it evil to suppress that feeling?"


We all have this in us, not just some people, so it comes from God. it has a point even if we don't rewcognise it. You don't have to suppress it, you have to integrate it. Violence is anger born of fear. Stop feeling fearful.
Suppress anger and it will erupt anyway, since suppression isn't getting rid of anything. Violence generally follows.

"Well, to take a recent example, inter-racial marriages were illegal in South Africa before the mid-1980s and in many US states before the mid-1960s.
I'm thankful to God that my wife and I met in a different country (and later time) or we might have sinned against him. "

I'm confused a bit here, how does going against a negative marital law in one country create sin against him(assume him god)

"You've got to call him something, and if you don't call him 'He', you'll probably end up calling him 'It', and forgetting that he has a personality. Two things that may or may not be relevant though:
1. Man, not woman, was made in Gods image.
2. In Genesis 6 (I think), sons of God came down, not because the men were attractive, but because the women were attractive."

It was said that Eve was made from Admas' rib. How then is Eve less than God? So how did the son's of God come down because of their attraction to woman. Man was there first.???
Imagine God has no defined sexuality, no gender, unless of course you imagine God also has a female form to compliment God.
Can you explain god's personality to me as you perceive God?

"Perhaps it wouldn't matter anyway, they probably don't have any sex-drive."

So what do you think is God's purpose in creating these people and I doubt that they are without a sex drive, since these drives come from hormones not their physicality.

Once again we can hear Hoovooloo share his wisdom. Specifically, that we are simply animals and should judge our behaviour relative to such,

I haven't seen Hoo describe mankind as animals. Certainly on one level we operate in an animalistic fashion (see hormones) but what separates us is our spirituality. Humans have the capacity to be aware - not everyone is aware of that though.

"i hope he would not feel the need to suppress her instincts to fit in with his own idea of normal. such cruelty.>
To fit in with my own idea? No.
But to fit in with God's idea? Yes. Unless, of course, I didn't actually care about her and was happy to abandon her to her fate.

Actually it's people that think like you that make her fate something you feel the need to 'rescue' her from.
Irony or what?
God has no problem with his creation other than it's willfullness to cause harm to others in thought and deed. Can you tell me where lesbians are mentioned in your bible please so that I can read, as you must have done, where God makes a ruling on Lesbian behaviour.

Being celibate also reduces the potential of life
This is smiled upon?


That's my problem with many religions, the apparent contradictions.
the church says something, someone asks a question and then theories get cobbled together to support each other.
At the end of the day when the cobbling get's too complex and seems to contradict itself the church will say
"oh well God moves in mysterious ways and it's unfitting to speak to him direct, so we'll have to 'make up the rest and tell you it's God's mysterious word.

Soemthing to think about perhaps?

The religionists would have you believe that I created you as less than Who I Am so that you could have the chance to become Who I Am., work against all odds – and I might add - every natural tendency I am supposed to have given you.
Among these so called natural tendencies is the tendency to sin. You are taught that you were born in sin, that you will die in sin, and that to sin is your nature.
One of your religions even teaches you that you can do nothing about this. Your own actions are irrelevant and meaningless. It is arrogant to think that by some action of yours you can go to heaven (salvation) and through no undertaking of your own, but through grace granted by God through acceptance of His Son as your intermediary.
Once this is done you are ‘saved’ Until it is done, nothing you can do – not the life you live, not the choices you make, not anything you undertake of your own will and effort to improve or render you worthy – has any effect, bears any influence. You are incapable of rendering yourself worthy, because you are inherently unworthy. You were created that way.
Why?
God knows. Perhaps He made a mistake. Perhaps He didn’t get it right. Maybe he wishes He could do it over again. But there it is. What do you do…….



You are mocking Me if you are saying I, God, made inherently imperfect beings , then demanded of them to be perfect, or face damnation.
You are saying then that, somewhere several thousand years into the worlds’ experience , I relented saying that from then on you didn’t have to necessarily be good ,you simply had to feel bad when not being good ,and accept as your saviour the One Being who could always be perfect, thus satisfying my hunger for perfection. You are saying that My Son – who you call the Perfect One – has saved you from your own imperfection – the imperfection I gave you.
In other words, God’s Son has saved you from what his Father did. Now who is mocking whom?

We gotta relax! Is or isn't either is or isn't. Opinions don't change facts, just attitudes. When we die, we get to look in the Big Book of Answers, and get to know everything that we ever wondered about, like "what really happened to that puppy I brought home when I was 7?" or "what if I married Marryanne instead of Charolette?"
In the mean time, we gotta chill a little. Nobody gets any of the answers until the end, anyway

"In the mean time, we gotta chill a little. Nobody gets any of the answers until the end, anyway "

Agree with the first, can't see why not with the second
Anything is possible if you believe it to be .
Man might even learn how to fly.

Hi Hasslefree .

Love the 'something to think about', I'm sure now that if the Christians are right you'll be in the pool of boiling blood next to mine and Hoo's. Nice to have some company .

Right, on to business. One thing I have noted in many of the arguments so far is the 'superiority of the human species' attitude. We have either been created or evolved to be lords of all we see. What a load of horse doo-doo's! We are the only ones to develop consciousness and thus the only ones that are important. You really believe that do you? What a limited consciousness many of you have developed then.

There is no proof that I am yet aware of (there's your opening Hoo) that we the only conscious beings on this miserable little mudball. Nor that we are the first either. However, in my experience, and that of many thousands of other 'native' religionists over the millenia, there is the spirit of life and consciousness in a wide range of animate beings. We are just a small part of the whole and it is about time that we realised that before we wipe ourselves out.

Even the redoubtable Mr.Adams, though not a fan of my point of view necessarily, pointed this out with his 'so long and thanks for all the fish' scenario.

You may now lock me in the garage with my dragon, thank you.

Blessings,
Matholwch the Apostate /|(just trying to break us away from the christian science debate for a bit ).

Are we going to have a competition for the first person to the 1000? Who will have that 1000th post? I'm up for it, are you?

Blessings,
Matholwch /|\.

If I said animals have no consciousness, I didn't mean it that way. I meant and think i said it somewhere, that animals are not aware of having a conscious, otherwise no doubt we'd be seeing small shrines of assorted bones and dog biscuits and kennels with religious logos The great dog in the sky!

Humans have the ability to be aware, if they can leave the TV screens long enough. I don't exclude other life forms. I'm certain that awareness is not restricted to humans alone, but that's taking us to a conversation about 'life on other planets'.

I do believe that there is life elsewhere, both more and less aware then ourselves.

Did anyone get to see Channel 4s Birth of the Earth last night? Stirring stuff.
There still seems to be no accepted theory for how water got here in the first place. I wondered about that. Where does water come from when the interior and exterior of a planet is a billion year long boiling pot of lava? No water, no life as we know it.?

One theory suggests water came in the form of billions of dirty ice comets, from the original explosion, crash landing and producing steam. But this has been discounted so we're still looking.
(though I've still to get my head around how H20 can survive such tempretures as a Supernova creates in scientific terms?)
this theory was discounted because the icy comets contain equal proportions of H20 and HD0 (check these chemical symbols Hoo) and the earth doesn't.It contains more H20. so if water came via these comets we'd expect to see equal amounts of water and heavy water on earth.and that's not the case.

One thought I had was if this was the case,water delivered by comet, why isn't the moon full of oceans , since we can see the evidence of comet collisions on it's surface.
Or like Europa (possibly)is it icy and hidden? One for Hoo to add to my limited knowledge of the moon and probably Europa

Insight wrote;

>Two things that may or may not be relevant though:
1. Man, not woman, was made in Gods image.
2. In Genesis 6 (I think), sons of God came down, not because the men were attractive, but because the women were attractive.

I. Genesis 1:26
Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."

Genesis 1:27
God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

So in the first chapter it says man and woman were created at the same time and both were in Gods image.

II. Genesis 6:1
Now it came about, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them,

Genesis 6:2
that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose.

Who were these sons of God? They could not be Angels unless angels are not asexual. Some translations call angels, princes. We know that the angels fought against each other and one was held up for 21 days;

Daniel 10:13
But the angel of the kingdom of Persia put himself against me for twenty-one days; but Michael, one of the chief angels, came to my help; and when I came he was still there with the angel of the kings of Persia.
Daniel 10:13
But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days: but, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me; and I remained there with the kings of Persia.

So what do we know about these sons of God?
Genesis 6:4
The Nephilim were in the earth in those days, and also after that, when God's sons came to men's daughters. They bore children to them: the same were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.
Genesis 6:4
The fallen ones were in the earth in those days, and even afterwards when sons of God come in unto daughters of men, and they have borne to them -- they [are] the heroes, who, from of old, [are] the men of name.

Some myths about call them 'the shining ones' or 'the watchers' and they are described as being very tall and fair with white faces. A group of technically advanced people who were around before the flood.

Read FROM THE ASHES OF ANGELS By Andrew Collins @

http://www.andrewcollins.net/page/articles/ashes/ashespreview.html


Alji ,{Guru},(Join The Guild of Wizards @ U197895)

I'll have a lot more to say later to various people (hello again, "Insight" ) but for now, here's a quickie on astrophysics.

Water is not a complex molecule. It's just two hydrogen atoms and an oxygen atom. It forms quite readily in the presence of these two elements. Hydrogen is the most common element in the universe. Oxygen is less common, but still one of the top ten most common elements.

All elements heavier than Lithium are formed in supernovas. The beautiful and poetic upshot of this that we are all, literally, made of starstuff. A large proportion of the atoms in our very bodies were formed in the centre of the most violent events in the known universe. This is an explanation of our creation which I find far more inspiring than the notion that we were knocked up out of clay in less than a day by a vindictive, racist megalomaniac. It also has the virtue of fitting the observed facts very well, unlike Creationism. But there I go bashing it again. Whoops.

Water doesn't survive the temperature in a supernova. The supernova creates the heavy chemicals (oxygen et al). Water forms, as a molecule, later.

D (as in HDO) is deuterium - heavy hydrogen - a hydrogen atom with an extra neutron. It's rare - only one hydrogen atom in about 6700. As far as I'm aware, this ratio is universal rather than unique to earth. Anyone know better? I'm therefore surprised at the suggestion that there's lots of it in comets. I can't argue with it, because I don't know. But I'll check it out... interesting.

Even if the water did come from D-rich comets billions of years ago, there's a crucial difference between D and H. D undergoes radioactive decay, leaving H. So if you started off billions of years ago with a 50-50 mixture, you'd expect, today, to see mostly H and hardly any D. Which is what we do see.

The moon isn't full of oceans because there is no atmosphere there and lower gravity. The only thing which keeps water in a liquid state on earth is atmospheric pressure. The only thing keeping water vapour near the earth is gravity. The moon has no atmospheric pressure at all, because it has a little under one sixth the gravity of the earth. Any water arriving there in a violent way (e.g. comet landing) would be mostly boiled away into space. It certainly couldn't exist as a liquid there. There apparently IS water on the moon (and quite a lot of it) in the form of ice in deep shadows. Presumably that is the residue of such cometary impacts.

Europa is a good deal larger than our moon, if memory serves, and if I remember correctly (forgive me if I'm wrong, this is totally off the top of my head) the ice there is solid/liquid ammonia, not water. If it IS water, then the ice crust must be VERY deep. Europa is heated internally by tidal stresses caused by its proximity to Jupiter, and is also subject to lethal radiation fields which surround that planet (lethal to us, that is, not necessarily to all life...)

Anyhoo, as I say, much more on consciousness, dragons, insights , religions and other stuff later...

H.

Hi Math

If I end up in the boiling blood bath I'm certain that we can just rearrange some molecules and order some ice cold drinks and a bit of air conditioning
hoo will be fine because he can deny the 'pit' so he won't feel it.


I say it's not the situation you find yourself in, it's the company you're with that warms or chills the blood.

I'm thinking like this;

God sends Jesus to give humans a clue. He's only around for a couple of really 'useful years' so nowadays religionists have to refer to the 'rule' book.
Great. So God said "I've created you , here's the manual, get on with it?" Personally the first thing I do with overly long manuals is throw them in the bin. My perhaps 'female orientated brain' prefers to discover how things work by trying them out and making mistakes. The lesson stays put longer than the written word for me.
Meanwhile in the couple of years he's got Jesus sings Love is all You Need (or variations on a theme) and love they neighbour and says those commandment things are all about harming no one and if everyone follows the basic priciple, no one will be harmed back Simple hey?
You don't actually even have to believe in God to feel that he's got something going here. A sort of Occrams razor about how to get along in life perhaps?

while he's preaching these things, the church of the day and local area get into a huddle.
"We don't like this, this guy preaching love is taking away all of our control here, this is feeling very uncomfortable. People may stop giving us money and bowing down to US. I quite like the respect I get when out in the crowds. I'd like to hang on to it. This Jesus feels very threatening. What shall we do?"
So as the story goes, they nail him to a cross, not even the Romans felt up to this act. but here we have the relgionists taking matters into their own hands and no doubt referring to a book that give them some permission to rationalise their actions. "Crucifing this preacher is God's rule." I can almost here them say. "We've decided that this words about love and all being equal is blasphemy."

so when they had the oppotunity to have a quick word with Jesus, get some facts straigth perhaps, they blew it.
After this went down, they all suddenly made an about face, "er actually we thing we made a bit of a mistake here - or perhaps more likely they thought "hey we can use this stuff and call Jesus a martyr. Yes let's bring some of his words in, maybe add a few of our own, you know the bits where we have this crazed devil figure to hand out punishments to anyone who says different to what we want them to think."

Religionists today are still using the same set of basic old testement rules that crucified their saviour???
Makes no sense to me when I look at it from their perspective.

Thanks Hoo

"I'm therefore surprised at the suggestion that there's lots of it in comets. I can't argue with it, because I don't know. But I'll check it out... interesting."

Thing I heard was not a lot of it in Icy comets, from erm ...about the leftish bit of the sun - about 50 50. H20 HD0 (perhaps I should say furthest away from sun hence ice)

I'm thinking that I knew that elements make water, but it seems so...I don't know Water seems so ...liquid and runny . Ice solid, steam vapour.

"As far as I'm aware, this ratio is universal rather than unique to earth. Anyone know better? I'm therefore surprised at the suggestion that there's lots of it in comets. I can't argue with it, because I don't know. But I'll check it out... interesting."


I think that was the thought at first; 'not so much HD0 in icy comets' and that is how the comet theory was worked out, until they had a look at the comets to verify this water delivery system and discovered they contained more HD0 than they originally thought.
Any findings you come across would be welcome on the subject

"Even if the water did come from D-rich comets billions of years ago, there's a crucial difference between D and H. D undergoes radioactive decay, leaving H. So if you started off billions of years ago with a 50-50 mixture, you'd expect, today, to see mostly H and hardly any D. Which is what we do see."

you should send this theory to the guy whose trying to prove HIS theory of water being delivered by comet. How come he hasn't gone with this obvious -when -you -think -about -it thought too?
Thank you once again, my limited understanding of the moon does fit in with what you say. I just couldn't remember if there was ice of some nature there underneath.
Early earth water was acidic too ,like the amonia on Europa?

Is Europa a model for early earth?
Since our moon was also closer to earth billions of years ago
Since another theory suggests that the moon was a result of a planettoid (wrong word??? planetette ??) colliding with Earth.
.
If the 'water' boiled off the moon. Where do you think it went? Does steam exist in space? or soes it undergo a change, back to essential elements which I seem to have trouble getting my head around

Post 829:
"it's not generally fitting for him to speak to us directly"
Why not?>
I don't really know. But this is the impression the Bible gives, and on some issues, that's all I can tell you."

INCREDIBLE! It admits ignorance. Interestingly doesn't for a moment suggest that you should do anything other than believe him. But admits that even he doesn't know how or why he knows it. Excellent. Progress at last.

"Wouldn't you also think that nobody would choose to be ill? etc."

Not even worthy of comment.

"Some people have a (possibly genetic) tendency toward violence. Is that from God? Is it evil to suppress that feeling?"

Erm... by your reason, yes, it is from God. Isn't EVERYTHING?

"you'll probably end up calling him 'It', and forgetting that he has a personality."

And you know what will happen to you if you forget for a moment that he's a vicious, racist megalomaniac, don't you? That's right, he'll put you in a lake of fire for all eternity.

"Two things that may or may not be relevant though:
1. Man, not woman, was made in Gods image."

Bible "expert" in ignorance of what the Bible actually says shock. Read all about it.

"I would assume that God will be merciful in such a distressing and humanly-unsolvable case, although I have not studied the matter."

Wow. More admissions of ignorance. He's learning. Big assumption by the way. Any evidence for it, apart from wishful thinking?

"Perhaps it wouldn't matter anyway, they probably don't have any sex-drive."

Do I even need to comment on this?

"To fit in with my own idea? No. But to fit in with God's idea? Yes. Unless, of course, I didn't actually care about her and was happy to abandon her to her fate."

Wonderful. I don't think I need to comment on that either. I pity your children, Insight, assuming any woman so misguided as to allow you to impregnate her compounds the error by giving you any control over their upbringing.

"Ah, insults."

In the words of Marvin - Yes.

"Something else to immediately expect when Hoovooloo appears. It's good to know that there are some constants in peoples personalities."

I'm nothing if not consistent in the face of consistent wilful ignorance. I might add that there are many people on this site whose expectation when I appear is not insults. You might ponder why this is. But I doubt it.

"<"Did you check Insight's Space?"
Several months ago, yes. Amusing, isn't it?>
I should think so, given that it was taken from a comic strip. Wobbly Headed Bob, to be specific."

Priggish, arrogant, condescending, and now, it turns out, not even original. Why am I not surprised?

"Can't you really see any reason not to believe that the movement of electrons causes consciousness?"

I'm sorry, I'll read that again...

"there is no clear understanding why such activity should appear to us as consciousness. But it does, obviously.>
Why is it so obvious?"

Um... because we're conscious? And because when the measurable activity changes, we cease to be? It's not complicated.

"Ah, that's why your theory is obvious. Because every alternative theory is just wishful thinking. And why are they just wishful thinking? Because they clash with your obvious theory."

No, dear boy, they clash with observed reality, or fail in any way to explain it.

"Possibly. But is it not also possible that we have misjudged which section of the brain is responsible for conscious thought"

It's possible you have. Don't do your usual trick of assuming that the entirety of the scientific and medical establishment shares your ignorance and prejudices.

"Perhaps that section merely serves some purpose to do with short-term memory, and is recording the decision that we made."

You theorise from a position of complete ignorance (not for the first time). Do you have any idea at all how it is even established which areas of the brain are responsible for what?

"I'm not sure if it has been mentioned, but is free-will compatible with the idea of a purely physical consciousness? I wouldn't have thought so, but Hoovooloo appears to believe in both. Perhaps quantum theory will provide a way out, since it doesn't rely on certainty."

Good point, and one that has recently exercised the minds of people who know much more about this than you or I. And you are correct, quantum uncertainty has been suggested as a possible explanation of the puzzle of consciousness. It's also been suggested that it's an emergent property of a complex system. I really must write a Guide Entry about those things...

"I still can't understand your mind."

Doesn't surprise me in the slightest. I forgive you.

"I think anything which is suggested as *creating* physical reality is unlikely to conform to the laws of physical reality, since the laws were not previously there to conform to."

The big bang is not suggested as a point of creation. It is merely the point in the past beyond which our predictions based on known laws cannot reach. There may well have been something there before - we just can't know what it was.

"Strange that this quote should come from Hoovooloo, king of the creationist attackers."

Read the entry on the Aquatic Ape. I don't attack Creationists per se, I attack closeminded people who deliberately don't allow themselves to think and try to stop others. The aquatic ape theory offers no succour to Creationism, it merely show scientists to be human.

"For example, the least complex explanation for people thinking differently from me is that they are all mad"

No, dear boy. The least complex explanation for people (YOUR plural) thinking differently from you is that *you* are wrong. ONE ignorant moron is a MUCH less complex explanation than a world full of them. Obviously, if you ARE an ignorant moron, you wouldn't see that, and you'd think that the world full of madmen was the less complex explanation. Never mind.

"the least complex explanation for the moon landings is that they were hoaxes"

No, it isn't. That explanation requires politicians to take unacceptable risks (the risk of failing to reach the moon having tried is as nothing compared to the risk of failing to fool the world into thinking you had). It requires hundreds of thousands of people to have kept the biggest secret in history perfectly for over thirty years. Hoaxing is a MUCH more complex explanation.

"and the least complex explanation for a moving picture on a TV screen is that I am imagining it."

I wouldn't credit you with that much imagination.

"Although according to what I have read, Occam's Razor says that not the least complex theory, but the theory which requires the least assumptions, is most likely to be correct."

Which explains why your examples are nonsensical. Thanks.

"But what Hasslefree said is true - the area is still there, it is just no longer defined as being the upper surface of the thighs."

I can't be bothered going through that again if you still don't understand.

"Why does it matter who votes or, more specifically, who gets into power? They all cock it up just as badly as each other."

Spoken like a teenager.

"
Haven't you answered your own question? An alternative theory is that there is "something" in our head, rather than it actually *being* our head which experiences our lives."

That's your theory, is it? Insight's theory of "something". It's not a theory of everything, just something. I feel privileged, I really do. You heard it here first, folks...

H.

"If the 'water' boiled off the moon. Where do you think it went? Does steam exist in space? or soes it undergo a change, back to essential elements which I seem to have trouble getting my head around "

Your instincts are correct. There IS steam in space, in the sense that there are free molecules of water floating about. They don't break up into their constituent elements unless there's some energy applied. This can be in the form of electrical energy in a school lab electrolysis experiment, or in space as an incident cosmic ray. But it's out there...

H.

Hi Hoo !

"ONE ignorant moron is a MUCH less complex explanation than a world full of them".

Hmmm.... have you been to the USA recently? Or watched an episode of Today in Parliament, or listened to a UN Security Council debate?

To paraphrase someone (who I can't remember)- "Individuals are intelligent, sane and kind. People are stupid, mad and bad".

Blessings,
Matholwch the Apostate /|\.

Hi Insight .

"Why does it matter who votes or, more specifically, who gets into power? They all cock it up just as badly as each other."

Because if we all take that attitude then it won't be long before a truly incompetent or amoral person takes power and then we are all in real trouble.

For examples of this see Hitler, Adolf and Bush, George W.

The older I get, the more conviced I am of Heinlein's theories on Citizenship. It should not be a right. It must be a hard-earned privilege, based upon service to the community through military or public service. You only really appreciate that which you've had to fight for. Then, and only then, can you eliminate ignorance from your democracy.

Our present democracies are decided upon by soundbites and image-makers, which depend on the apathy of the populace. This serves the rich very well.

So join the Mobile Infantry today!

Blessings,
Matholwch the Apostate, and former RN Submariner = Citizen /|\.

In a paper published in the April 27 edition of Nature, the American planetary scientist Scott Messenger, at Washington University, has unearthed new and provocative evidence suggesting that a class of interplanetary dust grains (IDPs) might well have pre-dated the planetary system.
Though IDPs exhibited a larger overall range in deuterium enrichments, they were often up to ten times more enriched in deuterium relative to cometary material.

The proportion of deuterium in comets is five times greater than in Uranus or Neptune.
Uranus and Neptune have three times more deuterium in their hydrogen gas than Jupiter or Saturn.

From http://astronews.prao.psn.ru/news/September_99/19990929n1.html
and http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0005/08comets/index.html

Alji ,{Guru},(Join The Guild of Wizards @ U197895)