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There's always an exception.
I think John Carpenter's remake of The Thing was much better than the original, for instance.
Similarly, when someone says that sequels are always worse than the original, I think of Aliens, which was at least as good as Alien, or Terminator 2, which was about equal with Terminator.
And then there are the classics, where they don't bother to make sequels, like The Crow or Highlander.
What? No they did not. There were no sequels to those films. I'm not listening. <hands over ears> LALALALA.
Imho, the reason why remakes are not as good is because modern acting and directing have gone down the tubes. The only good thing about modern movies is that special effects are better than in the old days.
Dunno; if you've seen Jeremy Irons in, say Damage (or the aforementioned Lolita), or Morgan Freeman in just about anything, I think a case could be made that some current actors are very good indeed -- easily the equals of Gary Cooper, for example. As for directing, Michael Mann stands out, as does Christopher Nolan (almost no one from the "good old days" could possibly have pulled off Memento, for example). The bar for special effects is certainly higher now, but unfortunately, overuse of CGI and sped-up film for action sequences makes certain modern efforts look more like cartoons.
I think the problem with most of these remakes, and movies lamely based on old TV shows, is that they're never intended to be good movies -- just throw-away potboilers, meant to make a quick profit and then be forgotten. In the past, making a movie was a big production -- you had to put some effort into it. Now they churn zillions of 'em out like toadstools after a rain, and it's sometimes hard to find the gems (Wallace and Gromit, for example) hidden among the worthless pebbles.
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True, although I admit that I own both. The original certainly has its charm (in my book at least). John Carpenter's version was just a damn great movie.I think John Carpenter's remake of The Thing was much better than the original, for instance.
The only 'classic' sci-fi movie that I can watch on endless repeat is Forbidden Planet. I have no idea why, but that movie hypnotises me...
A remake of that would invoke CAPSLOCK OF RAGE!
There's always an exception.
I think John Carpenter's remake of The Thing was much better than the original, for instance.
Similarly, when someone says that sequels are always worse than the original, I think of Aliens, which was at least as good as Alien, or Terminator 2, which was about equal with Terminator.
And then there are the classics, where they don't bother to make sequels, like The Crow or Highlander.
What? No they did not. There were no sequels to those films. I'm not listening. <hands over ears> LALALALA.
I saw "Highlander:The Source" the other day. *shudder*
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I saw "Highlander:The Source" the other day. *shudder*
I'm sorry. Also, I just had a touch of hysterical blindness, so I have no idea what you just typed. It was like Highlander, and then some other words. Perhaps it was a movie about Scottish people?
'There can be only one.'
Lord knows, there should have been only one...
I knew I should quit after Highlander II.
I saw "Highlander:The Source" the other day. *shudder*
The only good Highlander has been the 1st movie and the TV series. Part II was terrible. I don't think it is even considered canon anymore. The Immortals are aliens from another planet? Who actually thought that was a good idea(LOL!)?
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The only good Highlander has been the 1st movie and the TV series. Part II was terrible. I don't think it is even considered canon anymore. The Immortals are aliens from another planet? Who actually thought that was a good idea(LOL!)?I knew I should quit after Highlander II.
I saw "Highlander:The Source" the other day. *shudder*
They actually re-released two with all the references to them being aliens cut out. It was even more lame than the original.
Although making the Magnificent Seven into a television series seemed like a bad idea.
They should have stuck with dealing in lead, not in sequels.
Courtfool (and anyone interested) - You should pick up a book called Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior. It's only been out a short time, and you can check it out at swaybook.com
I haven't read through the whole thread, and someone may have mentioned it already, but it's spot on with your original post. Among other things, it discusses 'diagnosis bias,' which deals with how doctors are so reluctant to change their initial diagnosis, despite new information. Information that, if they had from the start, would have resulted in a different diagnosis. Fascinating stuff.
I'll try and read through the thread and the linked article when I get a chance, and post more, but I have some work that I need to get done first. I spent part of my day getting punk'd by a certain Mr. David Fryer, and now I need to catch up.
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That article is so right, as we have seen here. The same applies to people trying to judge how open minded they are as well. I don't see how saying you will not support someone who believes in creationism is open-minded, especially when that same person said that it should be taught as an alternative alongside evolution. I personally could care less what someone thinks about how the world was created. There do not seem to be any big creation or dinosaur crisis looming on the horizion.
I will tell you this much. I am a Republican who supported Obama until I started to listen to what he was proposing and saying. The more I heard from him in debates and interviews, the more I realized that he did not support my views and I could not support him.
Also the idea that party loyalty is BS is crazy talk if you ask me. You join a party because it represents certain things that you believe in. I became a Republican because I believe in a strong national defense, lower taxes, less government regulation, protection of innocent life via restrictions on abortion, tough penalties for crime, and personal freedom. Democrats, according to their party platform, support higher taxes, more government restriction, freedom of abortion, and a softer, more understanding attitude towards criminals. I do not see how it is being closed minded to say, over all, I will support Republicans over Democrats, because they believe the same things I do.
Creationism is not good science. If creation ends up in a science classroom as a science, then it deserves to be subjected to the same scrutiny that every other science is subjected to. Therefore, before I will even consider the possiblity of Creationism as a science I will have to see it subjected to scientific scrutiny.
In science we care if theories have three basic characteristics. Does it have explanatory power, does it have predictive power, and does it allow us to solve problems. In addition to that, we have criteria by which we judge the relative scientific strength of any piece of knowledge. It needs to be testable, there needs to be evidence supporting it, it needs to have use as a tool etc. etc. When people say things like "Believing in creation is no different from believing in evolution" I laugh. I don't believe in evolution because no belief is required. I have evidence supporting it that I myself can observe. Even more to the point, evolution as a theory is a powerful tool that lets me solve problems. As an example, consider vaccination medicine. How many vaccines do you suppose existed before evolution? The answer is one. That one was small pox. The entirety of vaccination medicine is based on evolutionary principles.
What problems does creationism let me solve. What predictions does it let me make. What tests can I run using it as a foundation that lets me learn anything about the natural world. Science plays by very specific rules. Intelligent Design meets very few of them. If creationists really want their children to see God subjected to scientific scrutiny, then they better be prepared to get what they are asking for. Do you really want your science teachers teaching your children about God? I wouldn't want that anymore than I would want my pastor teaching my kids about physics. Further, I think most creationists would find it interesting to know that when the question of whether Intelligent Design should be taught in the same way as other sciences comes up in legislative hearings it is usually religious leaders that are the most vocal against it. That is because they don't want God treated to the same methodology as evolution. All they want, is Intelligent Design thrown in there. They don't want to understand the nature of the designer or how that information can be used to understand scientific phenomina. They just want sciene teachers to say God is the creator because it lends their beliefs credibility. If Intelligent Design is ever mandated to be taught in the classroom, I will be very interested to see how long parents and religious leaders will last before they demand it be taken back out of the classroom again. Science does not deal in matters of faith. If there were more evidence for intelligent design than evolution and if it had been subjected to the proponderous amount of tests that evolution has, then I would be willing to accept it as good science. As it is it barely qualifies as pseudo science.
I believe in God. I also believe that God created the universe. However, I believe those matters on faith. I understand well that is not using science as a way of knowing. There are lots of ways to know things. I want science to approach the problems it solves using it's methodology. The notion of an intelligent designer does not fit in that methodology. By definition it can't. For the 5000th time. Science does not deal in the supernatural. It can't answer the question of if there is a God and what the nature of that God is. That is a matter left to faith. If a person can't understand that, then there isn't a lot left to say. I certainly would love to hear what they do when they get sick though. Do they go to a doctor? Because that doctors treatments are built on evolutionary theory. The whole reason the testing of drugs in animals is a viable model to try to find medications useful in humans is because of the concept of common ancestry. The way antibiotic resistance works is based purely in natural selection. The explosion of species in the fossil record over time is a direct result of multiplication of species. When there is an extinction event, we start over again with a few species and again multiply over time into multiple species. The fact that adaptations in an organism are passed on to it's offspring is modification with descent. Evolution does not claim there isn't a God. It merely is a scientifically supportable model by which we can understand the natural world. There is a famous quote I want to share with you to dispel the notion of Evolution as the "religion" of atheists. It goes thusly...
"It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent upon each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction; Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the conditions of life and from use and disuse: a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved."
Charles Darwin in the final paragraph of Origin of the Species
Evolution doesn't say there is no creator. It is silent on that question. What it does do is provide a working mechanism by which species have evolved and multiplied. It fits the evidence we have, it follows logically our observations, and it lets us solve problems. Most of all, it does that while allowing for the existance of God. All the right wing fundamentalists who want God in the classroom at any cost need to understand what science is, and even more importantly what evolution is. I'm not trying to teach my students to discard their faith in God. I'm trying to teach them the nature of science and how evolution is a useful scientific tool. Belief doesn't factor into it. I don't worry about whether or not I believe in a hammer or a screwdriver. All I care is that they are tools that work for a certain type of job. Evolution is no different. There is nothing that says God couldn't have created the universe and our world with but a few organisms and then created evolution as the mechanism by which those few early creations led to the plethora of species today. It just happens that that particular postulation doesn't jive well with the 7 day creation myth. As near as I can tell, creationists are the one rejecting evidence here. Not evolutionists.
Good stuff!
Yes! I'm not the only one who sees absolutely no conflict between evolution and a God (or gods, if you prefer).
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Is this code speak for racial differences?I think that's because you're in Texas. In a more left-leaning state, liberals, in my opinion, are very different.Could it be that the Haves, which would likely be conservative, will be happier than the Have Nots, which would likely be liberal?funny, most of the liberals i know in houston are fairly to quite well off, but they're still pretty miserable. most of the poor people i know don't seem nearly as angry all the time as the far left people i know...
nah, i think he's saying all the happy texans make liberals mad...
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The only good Highlander has been the 1st movie and the TV series. Part II was terrible.
I liked the series. Tessa was a cool character, and I didn't hate Richie as much as I thought I would at the beginning.
Having washed-up musicians playing Immortals was also funny, in a 'what rock star is gonna get decapitated tonight?' sort of way.
It got pretty silly in the later seasons, 'though, IMO, and the Amanda-centric series looked painful.
I know not of this 'part II' you speak of. There's some Lovecraftian flailing about and muttering occurring in the back of my mind, but I'm not prepared to un-repress the trauma of having paid money to see such a thing in the theatre...
Good stuff!Yes! I'm not the only one who sees absolutely no conflict between evolution and a God (or gods, if you prefer).
Ditto!
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Frankly if creationists would take the time to come up with some facts, quantitative measurable outcomes, and JUST ANY SCIENCE behind their assertion of creationism then I'll take it more seriously. I won't agree with it, but I'll take it seriously.
I think they have (predominately scientifically verifiable evidence that calls to question a great many things concerning, for instance, the length of time this planet has been "alive", etc.- obviously there's been no reproduction of the divine in the lab, etc.) just that the initial premise of this thread proved just as true there as it has in politics as well.
On the flip side, the science behind evolution leaves enough gaps that any decent scientist wouldn't tout it as gospel either.
In the end however, what I think is the most important is that we don't disrespect the person because of their beliefs, but we do it all the time. This person here, the creationist, is a complete idiot because of their beliefs, but it may also be the person that always has a kind word for you, or took care of you in a time of need, etc. Also note, I am not trying to state that an evolutionist wouldn't do the same, or any such, because I've known some real buttheads from the bodies of faith and some real sweethearts who were evolutionists. What I am saying however, is that regardless of how we got here, I still respect and honor you.
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Frankly if creationists would take the time to come up with some facts, quantitative measurable outcomes, and JUST ANY SCIENCE behind their assertion of creationism then I'll take it more seriously. I won't agree with it, but I'll take it seriously.I think they have (predominately scientifically verifiable evidence that calls to question a great many things concerning, for instance, the length of time this planet has been "alive", etc.- obviously there's been no reproduction of the divine in the lab, etc.) just that the initial premise of this thread proved just as true there as it has in politics as well.
On the flip side, the science behind evolution leaves enough gaps that any decent scientist wouldn't tout it as gospel either.
In the end however, what I think is the most important is that we don't disrespect the person because of their beliefs, but we do it all the time. This person here, the creationist, is a complete idiot because of their beliefs, but it may also be the person that always has a kind word for you, or took care of you in a time of need, etc. Also note, I am not trying to state that an evolutionist wouldn't do the same, or any such, because I've known some real buttheads from the bodies of faith and some real sweethearts who were evolutionists. What I am saying however, is that regardless of how we got here, I still respect and honor you.
The only gap in Evolution that I have read anything about is the notion that Gradualism may not always be required. There is no question the fossil record supports gradualism in evolutionary processes. There was however, a landmark paper written by Niles Eldridge and Stephen Gould that talked about punctuated equilibrium. Essentially what it says is that for the most part sexually reproducing organisms experience evolutionary change gradually, but when phenotypic evolution occurs it does so in local rapid events that result in rapid cladogenesis. The remaining principles of evolution have held up to virtually every test and scrutiny for over one hundred years. They also hold across disciplines (that is to say what Geologists find is corroborated by what Biologists find is cooborated by what Chemists find etc.). Just for the record, the five principles of Darwinian evolution are these....
1. Evolution - This says that species change over time. Nothing controversial here as even the most radically oppositional creationists will concede this happens.
2. Natural Selection - This is the mechanism for evolutionary change. It says that species with a modification that give them an advantage over other members of their species will be more likely to survive and reproduce, thus passing their modification on to future generations. Over time that modification causes a branch in the species called cladogenesis.
3. Multiplication of Species - This says that there are more species later in the Earth's history than their are earlier in it's history. This is born out in the fossil record, which shows unilaterally that earlier in the earth's history there are fewer species than later. Further, when we have an extinction event, the number of species drops down abrubptly and then multiply out again over time. Some creationists argue this one because they say the earth is between 4,000 and 6,000 years old and that dinosaurs were created at the same times as humans and that tools like carbon dating are unreliable measures of the Earth's age. On this one I just laugh. If you think radioactive decay is an unreliable measure of the age of the earth, you better hope you never have cancer and need Chemotherapy. That technology is based in our understanding of radioactive decay.
4. Gradualism - Says that evolutionary change is gradual and take tremendous amounts of time. I talked about punctuated equilibrium and how evidence seems to cooberate the assertion that rapid cladogenesis occurs. This also is a point of contention for creationists because of their assertion that the earth is about 6,000 years old. The funny thing is they point to punctuated equilibrium as proof of the earth's age, but then ignore what it implies about the thing they have the most problem with and that is common ancestry. If you buy into punctuated equilibrium occuring, then you also have to accept common ancestry. But the creationists just want to look at the part of that that supports their view and ignore the rest of it.
5. Common Ancestry - This is the one creationists really have a problem with. First, it implies modification with descent. It says that species earlier in the earth's history were more closely related than species later in the earth's history. Modifications that grant selective advantage are passed on to the next generation and over time a species that simply had a group with a modification becomes different enough from each other they branch into two species. It does not say we came from apes. It is also silent on how everything got here in the firt place. Why couldn't God have created the few early species and then created evolution as the mechanism by which the diversity we see on the planet came to be?
Anyway, that is really long. The point is, that Evolution is not riddled with holes. In fact, I have yet to hear even one. In fact, I have pointed out one potential disagreement amongst scientists on one facet of evolution. All anyone else has said is that there is some vague "plethora of flaws" in evolutionary theory. I would love to hear them so I can address those specific flaws. Even more to the point, I want to see even one piece of evidence for creationism. Really give me one. A favorite of the Discovery Institute (read ID world headquarters) is that species exhibit irreducable complexity that implies an intelligent design. A favorite example of that is the human eye. My response to that is this. All human retina's have a built in blind spot. A "flaw" in the design if you will. Does it stand to reason that an "intelligent" designer would have created an "irreducably complex" organ with a design flaw? Does a blind spot strike you as an "intelligent" design decision. Especially if said organ was on a human that was designed concurrently with super predators like T-Rex's?
I will say it again. Creationists don't want ID held to scientific scrutiny. They just want science teachers to say it is as valid as evolution to their students so that their students will think God has scientific evidene supporting his existance. Unfortunately he doesn't. Science does NOT deal in the supernatural. Science can neither prove nor disprove God's existance. Science can not examine God's intentions. Ergo God does not belong in the science classroom.
Some creationists argue this one because they say the earth is between 4,000 and 6,000 years old and that dinosaurs were created at the same times as humans and that tools like carbon dating are unreliable measures of the Earth's age. On this one I just laugh. If you think radioactive decay is an unreliable measure of the age of the earth, you better hope you never have cancer and need Chemotherapy. That technology is based in our understanding of radioactive decay.
My understand of their argument on this issue (I am not a young earther so don't really know for sure) is the assumptions being made. It is not that they don't except how radioactivity works. Instead they say, just because we have a certain level of C-14 in the air now, does not logical mean that there had to be the exact same level in the air previously. So if you get a sample that has less C-14 the reason could have been (1) a lot decayed thus a long time passed or (2) there was less to begin with at that time and thus we are seeing a smaller amount in our sample so maybe a long time did not pass.
Again as TigerDave said it would be better if everyone could treat others with a bit of respect, on both sides, and not just assume someone is a moron (and they might be) just because they don't agree with us. Suggesting that people that believe in a young earth, based on challenging the assumption made about how much radioactivity was around previously, are so stupid they have no idea how radioactively works is not helping.
"Euclid taught me that without assumptions there is no proof. Therefore, in any argument, examine the assumptions." - Eric Temple Bell
My understand of their argument on this issue (I am not a young earther so don't really know for sure) is the assumptions being made. It is not that they don't except how radioactivity works.
The problem is with the scale, and with agreement. We've records of variation of 14C and it's within a reasonable range. Anyway, 14C decays too quickly to date old fossils with it, so we use K-Ar, Rb-Sr, Pb-Pb, and some others. All applicable methods give close (order of magnitude) agreement, even after uncertainty for relative amounts then vs. now is included -- in other words, the earth could maybe be one billion years old, if all of the error is in the exact same direction, but there's no way it can be only 6,000 yrs old. To get an age that young, you have to have decay of ALL radioactive elements occur extremely rapidly early on, and then all drastically slow down (for no apparent reason) at precisely different rates that just coincidentally make them ALL yield the same results throughout time. The measured rates of sea floor spreading also agree with the corresponding radiometric dates, so spreading rates would also have had to rapidly change at just the right rates, and God would then have had to re-align the magnetic minerals within those rocks to match the false positions we thought they were in, vs. the positions they were "actually" in.
In other words, it would require a God who is intentionally deceiving us. I don't believe in a trickster God, who gives us the gift of reason and then intentionally sets things up so that using that gift will always lead one astray. Therefore, I don't believe in a young Earth, either.
BTW, there are many "old Earth" creationists (Dr. Beehe among them). In general, the young Earthers are either (a) ignorant of the science, (b) know a bit of it but neglect the rest, or (c) know all of it and believe that God set up the earth as an elaborate hoax.
To get an age that young, you have to have decay of ALL radioactive elements occur extremely rapidly early on, and then all drastically slow down (for no apparent reason) at precisely different rates that just coincidentally make them ALL yield the same results throughout time.
Not exactly, you could have had starting concentrations of specific amounts to get them all to align up together (not that is any more likely), the rates of decay don't have to be any different then they currently are. You don't measure radioactive decay for individual atoms, you measure the percent of decrease in radioactivity over a given span of time for a sample.
It takes the same amount of time for a 12 gram sample of pure radioactive material to decay only 6 grams of radioactive material (the other ~6 grams becoming stable) as it takes a 6 gram (of the same material) to decrease to only 3 grams of radioactive material. The assumption comes in when we see a sample that has 3 grams of radioactive material and assume that because a similar sample has 12 grams normally that this must have gone through 2 half-lives (it is now at 1/4 the expected value). But if had started at 6 grams instead, it would have only gone through 1 half-life (being only 1/2 the 6 gram value).
But if had started at 6 grams instead, it would have only gone through 1 half-life (being only 1/2 the 6 gram value).
These methods require the measurement of the daughter products as well. There would have had to have been as much more of each daughter to account for the lack of parent you're claiming, because typically the total parent + daughter isn't all that variable -- certainly not on the scale we're dealing with. Also, you'd have to account for all the fission tracks you're counting, that supposedly had no actual decay to cause them. And the intial parent:daughter ratios would have to have been off by many, many orders of magnitude beyond anything ever observed, for every single pair of parent and daughter isotopes used to get dates from the same rocks.
And the sea floor spreading rates vs. paleomagnetic alignments, and their agreement with the radiometric ages, would still be unexplained.
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Intelligent Design is it's own worst enemy. Evolution was theorized by a devout Christian, and some of the tenets of natural selection came from Gregor Mendel, a freaking MONK. (And not the Kung-fu sort, although I'm sure Gregor could open up the whup-ass when he needed to.)
I have a tailbone. I don't have a tail, nor any need to have one anchored to my body. I don't enjoy having lower back pain *entirely because of my unnecessary tail-bone.* I know why it's there, evolutionarily, because some distant ancestor of mine did have a tail, but he's dead now, and I don't really need that remnant anymore.
I have an appendix. I never needed a croup or gizzard, but I've got one, and it's sole function in my body is to get infected, swell up, explode and possibly kill me. If I need to store food for later, I'll use my beard, thankyouverymuch.
I used to have tonsils. They had to be removed. Sorry, I know they were put there as part of some divine plan, but my parents decided they would rather have me alive. Hopefully their disobedience hasn't pushed back the Rapture or anything.
I used to have a foreskin. Apparently, God's Intelligent Design wasn't real popular when I was born, because it wasn't good enough to remain unaltered. Of all my vestigial traits, that one I wouldn't have minded keeping, 'cause I hear they're fun to play with.
I have a vomeronasal organ. I'm also one of the 25% of people in whom it is open and potentially functional, which means abso-freaking-lutely nothing, since the role of that organ is to detect the pheremones produced by a female in heat. Since *human* females don't go into heat, and never have, following a menstrual cycle instead of an estrus cycle, I have this organ in the roof of my mouth that exists solely to detect something that doesn't exist, at least not in my species (and no, it doesn't seem to work at detecting if dogs or cats are in heat, either). It also has the fun bonus of giving me yet *another* hole in my head that can get inflamed with sinus infections and give me headaches. Thanks for that, oh Intelligent Designer.
I had wisdom teeth. They grew in sideways, each of the four of them destroying one other tooth and impacting a third. Eight teeth ruined and four damaged, because of those useless things, and if I hadn't been shot in the face and had to get an X-ray, I never would have even known about them. That was some brilliant design-work.
I have macular degeneration, and have had to wear eyeglasses since I was eight. My immune system doesn't recognize some of the tissue in my eye, and is constantly attacking and tearing it apart. My vision might actually *improve* if I contracted an immunodeficiency disease like HiV, as my immune system would be less effective at making me blind! (The side-effects sound pretty dire, 'though.)
That's just the stuff that I have (or had), but don't want. What about all that neat stuff that exists out there that I don't have, like echolocation or gills or the ability to generate my own internal electricity that I can use to stun people?
I would like to have some of that neat split-fiber musculature that developed in apes, but not humans, so that I could be seven times stronger. That would be cool. If I'm supposed to be the pinnacle of Creation, near the top of the Great Chain of Being, and the beasts of the field be subordinate to my will and placed on this Earth for my use, it would help if *half of them couldn't EAT ME.*
It's a mite challenging to instruct the beasts of the field in their proper place as servants of man, put here for our benefit, when they are so willfully disobedient, and quite often able to kick my butt!
That all aside, I do believe that it's very possible that an Intelligent Designer set up the tenets of evolution, and caused the first life to organize from clumps of chemicals. At which point, said Intelligent Designer appears to have taken a fairly hands-off approach, and left species to evolve and die out all according to the mechanics and whims of DNA and natural selection. I'm certainly not opposed to the idea, and it makes as much sense as the idea that it 'just happened.'
In any event, I was told in religious study that proof denies faith, and I personally hold to that notion. If I had proof that God created the world, my faith would mean nothing. Faith is a leap, a chance one takes, not a mere fact that one accepts because there is no other rational choice. Without that leap, without that *choice,* what is the significance of 'faith?'
Are you questioning His Noodly Goodness’s intelligence and motives!? Beware the pirates, blasphemer!
Beware the pirates, blasphemer!
Too few of them to help -- that's why we have global warming, you know. ;)
I was wondering about this just the other day. I have never seen someone change their mind over a debate no matter how polite and well informed. So why do we spend so much effort in debate? It seems pointless. How do you really change someone’s mind?
You are right to some extent. I think the polls show something like only 18% of the voters are malleable towards changing their mind. However keep in mind 18% of 150 million voters will be more than enough to decide the election - that is why the debates are important.
For the people that are on the fence, I notice it is most often the folks that are either apathetic or generally hate both candidates in question. For example I generally dislike McCain a whole bunch, but have a difficult time with some of Obamas policies.
With that in mind it probably will boil down to the debates or the last few days of the election for my vote. Really it will be a contest on which I dislike least amidst a plethora of political trickery.
Really it will be a contest on which I dislike least...
Huzzah for American democracy!