I’m not sure where you’re doing your own fact checking, but I think you’re incorrect: hyPOthermia is freezing and hyPERthermia is overheating. The above reference to paradoxical undressing is correct, though please correct me if I’m missed something so I can improve the article.

Thanks,

Andy

http://odeo.com/episodes/88016

In my opinion, it is by far the best overview of the Hindu dharm in existence in English.

Here is a quote from Swami Vivekananda from the Parliament of Religions in 1893 in Chicago, IL:

“From the high spiritual flights of the Vedanta philosophy, of which the latest discoveries of science seem like echoes, to the low ideas of idolatry with its multifarious mythology, the agnosticism of the Buddhists, and the atheism of the Jains, each and all have a place in the Hindu’s religion.”

You can find the complete speech here:

http://www.ramakrishnavivekananda.info/vivekananda/volume_1/addresses_at_the_parliament/v1_c1_paper_on_hinduism.htm

NO evidence of panic except for hasty abandoning the camp. They got a fire, they took care of damaged fellows, they tried to survive as far as it was possible.

To prove or disprove the existence of something, you must first define what that something is. “God” is not simply an intelligent creator of the universe, “God” is purported by Christians (at least) to be so much more.

Proof that “God”, by Christian definition, does not exist.
————————————————-
Premise 1) “God” desires salvation for Mankind.
Premise 2) “God” wishes to send a directive message crucial to the salvation of Mankind.
Premise 3) “God” is capable of sending counterfeit-proof messages to Mankind.
Premise 4) A precondition for salvation is that Mankind receive and understand “God’s” directive message.
Premise 5) There are many messages in the world that falsely purport to be of “God”.

From P 4 and 5: The salvation of Mankind depends on our ability to differentiate between genuine messages of “God” and phony messages.

To do this in a world full of false messages (P5), it’s necessary for “God” to send a message uniquely attributable to “God” (i.e a message in a form immune to human counterfeit).

The fact that Mankind has not received a coherent directive message uniquely attributable to a non-human source, much less uniquely attributable to “God” is positive evidence that “God”, by definition (P1-4), does not exist.

———

The only first message and commandment that we could logically expect a competent and non-mischeivous god to make is: “I will never send a messenger, only believe and follow what I tell you directly”.

In a world full of false prophets who with words and writings claim falsely to speak for “God”, the idea that “God” exists, is capable, but chooses to send commandments through human intermediaries (holy books and prophets) anyway, makes about as much sense as the idea of a treasury department which can print counterfeit-proof money, but chooses to print money that is susceptible to counterfeit anyway; even worse, a treasury that continues to print copies of bills known to have already been counterfeit! If a treasury had the means, we would expect it to exclusively print counterfeit-proof money. To do otherwise would be mischievous and/or stupid.

Essential to the preservation of authority, is the principle that subjects of authority MUST reject commandments not provided in certified form, and as such, a lack of obvious and irrefutable evidence that a directive originates from “God” is actually proof positive evidence that the directive could not possibly originate from “God”.

So why not specify exactly how many devices your home theater consists of?

I did: see the links above my chart - the JPG and PDF files have a little more detail. (I tried, but couldn’t make this information easily fit on a web page without horizontal scrolling, so made the extended info available as a separate link.) My system consists of a TV (a CRT), 2 DVD Players, and a Nintendo N64. No other components (no satellite/cable box or powered speakers/sub, for example). When I measured the wattage, the TV was on and one DVD player was playing. The other DVD player was on, but not playing. The N64 was turned on.

My idea of “home theater” is pretty minimal.

I would suspect a faulty Kill-O-Watt power consumption reading. (Maybe it’s defective?)

Perhaps, but based on the results from everything else I tested, I would argue this is not the case.

In order for your readers to draw any applicability to their own situation, it would help to specify what you mean by home theater. For example, are you talking about one of those home theater packages that come with the tiny satellite speakers or are you referring to 4 tower-style speakers for a pro-logic system, or are you talking about a self-assembled 5.1 or 7.1 system (not to be confused with the all-in-one packages with the mini speakers)? You see, “Home theater” can mean a lot of things to a lot of people — from a $199 JVC or Sony to a genuine high current amp built by Harman/Kardon, McIntosh or similar. Moreover, some people may own a separate VCR, DVD player and CD changer, whereas another person might have an all-in-one VCR/DVD/CD/Recorder. That’s one digital LCD vs. three or four separate ones. Others have the DVD player built into the TV set. The variations are so innumerable that it is hard to define “average” in this instance. So why not specify exactly how many devices your home theater consists of?

…Fixed.

Thanks for the correction!

…Corrected. Thanks!

The only thing the secret does not explain is death and how to deal with it. I am thinking happy thoughts. I am even receiving insurance money from my grandmother’s soon demise, but I do not know how to feel– and the The Secret did not explain this, but I know as I medidtate it will come. I am thankful for all the blessing I have!!!!!

You are the first person to come close to my objection to Pascal’s wager.

Thank you.

I would explain the fourth paragraph slightly differently.

No religion I know of, not even Pascal’s Catholicism, claims that mere belief in God gets anyone to some desired goal like heaven. Every religion I know claims you must also do some additional actions or believe some additional things. In Protestant Christianity, for example, mere belief that Christ is God is not enough. You must also believe Christ’s death “saved” you. Catholicism, in addition to this belief, also requires participation is certain sacraments.

And, even if all religions are wrong and Pascal’s argument that merely believing in God will get to some paradise is correct, how would you possibly know?

So, in my opinion, Pascal’s wager provides no useful guidance about what to believe.

Thanks,
Nick

Another point I’d like to make is that you don’t have to be gullible or stupid to be religious. The story of the Bible, the Koran etc is plausibe, if you allow that certain things about the universe cannot be observed or confirmed - hardly illogical. A rationalist like Dawkins will say you can only believe what you can confirm, anything else is a delusion. The problem with believing only what you can confirm is that you cannot in fact confirm anything. Take the tree falling in the woods. We determine reality by the senses and through memory - neither of which we can say with certainty are accurate. Furthermore, the picture we are starting to get from quantum physics is that the universe as we conceive it does not actualy exist (incidentaly, something the eastern religions have been saying for thousands of years).

Religion is basicly comprised of a)moral laws and b)traditions. The moral laws are useful to society, the traditions may be non-sensical but are harmless.

Look forward to the SEO meeting tomorrow!

Nick

It’s amazing how quick people are to jump to claims of magical or paranormal properties when simple, science based answers are readily available. It’s as if they’re afraid to face the prospect of a mundane, even boring solution.

There’s no credible evidence to suggest anyone has any kind of “special” powers when it comes to generating static electricity. In the vast majority of cases it’s because of the clothing combinations people are wearing. They refuse to believe it’s their clothing because they don;t understand the physics of static electricity and only associate static with a very limited number of fabrics.

Faulty wiring is the next cause. Perhaps your outlets are improperly grounded. Perhaps the insulation on some of the wiring is going. Perhaps the power supply to your home is corroded. All of these things are possible explanations for the phenomenon described above.

As for computer crashes, viruses, faulty drivers and an overloaded CPU can all explain that. And yes, there are problems that will cause a computer to crash when a mouse is moved or a key pressed. It’s also common for a PC to be frozen and no one to notice until they try to use it, but then assume it happened when they touched the PC, because that’s when the screen saver was deactivated revealing the damage.

Finally, there’s medicine, real medical conditions that can increase your body’s conductivity, all of which need treatment and indicate more serious problems.

The bottom line is if you get a lot of static shocks, there’s something very, very wrong in your home or your body, you aren’t a mutant or in possession of magical powers.

It doesn’t make you special.

I did some research and if you’re experiencing a spike in static electricity in your body after getting infected with LYME then it’s because your pituitary gland is damaged, causing excessive urination, causing dehydration, making you a better conductor.

If what you claim is true it’s because of a medical condition that if left untreated will slowly kill you. It will destroy your ability to function. There’s nothing mystical, para-scientific or paranormal about it. A parasite has damaged part of your body and if you leave this untreated it will kill you.

Get to a doctor before it’s too late.

I have been a participant in martial arts of one sort or another for about 40 plus years. I think to start with I believed there was some mystical content that needed to be tapped before one could achieve the higher grades. However as I started to move up and reach these levels I came to realise that it was hard work and training that makes a good practitioner - not eastern secrets.

It is a little sad seeing a “master” come back to earth with a thud. Obviously he thought he could do that otherwise why put himself in that position? But in the end it needs to be exposed for what it is. Students need to know that their master is not a demi god. On another note I had no idea that raising alternate big toes would protect me against Dim Mac masters - must remeber this as I walk down the street from now on.

I agree with Rick in that there are times when breaking can provide you with an idea of how good your technique is - but a lot of that can also be performed on a heavy bag.

Thanks again for the informative site.

You’re probably frying cell phones because of faulty / poor wiring in your home. Try using a decent surge suppressor when you plug it in to charge it. Have an electrician inspect your wiring.

A cell phone damaged by a power surge while charging can fail later during use. Damaged parts may last until put under the strain of actively broadcasting a call to a tower.

The first video is a great example of something that’s needed: the “put your money where your mouth is” type of challenge.

The second to last is important because, as Rick alludes, belief is a very powerful tool when used emotionally. It has no influence over the physical word. Another example of how mystic powers just don’t cut it. (Or, perhaps they do… in this case, painfully.)

Nick, while in a core idea of this type of statement is technically correct, ignoring any and all nuances about what we believe (and why) can be dangerously reductionist. Parsimony is useful as a rule of thumb, but does have its limits. Especially when something as complex as the brain is involved.

The results of brain damage show pretty irrevocably that we use ALL of our brain. One should also bear in mind that, being a complicated network of neurons, the brain is not split neatly into discrete functional compartments. This can make it difficult to determine just what a particular area does, but by no means does it signify uselessness.

-”Nobody knows what part of the brain allows him to recognize that he is seeing a dog”

To David, I would say we have at least a crude understanding of quite a bit more than 10% of the brain. And even though we may not know the exact area involved in your example, it’s quite easy to explain given our brain’s tendency to generalize and look for patterns. I don’t know if it’s the case with your son, but young children often use the label ‘doggie’ quite loosely. It’s usually an early-learned word and they often overgeneralize it to most four-legged creatures they see that resemble their rough mental image of a dog (similar to their overuse of the “-ed” past participle with different verbs).

Obviously this man believed that he wouldn’t be cut.

Obviously his belief wasn’t sufficient to affect reality.

It reminds me of the “Boxer Rebellion” in China.

Regarding the final video: There are applications where breaking wood is not totally useless. It can demonstrate good technique. However, one wonders whether striking with your head is a very wise maneuver outside of TV and movies. I certainly wouldn’t want to expose such a vulnerable area to counter-attack.

There are many functions that the brain performs which have been localized, either through the study of brain injuries or functional neuro-imaging. There are however functions that have not yet been localized. For example, when my 3 year old sees a dog, even one that is a different breed, color, shape, size, etc than all of the dogs to which he has previously been exposed, he knows what it is. Nobody knows what part of the brain allows him to recognize that he is seeing a dog - so when someone says that you use only 10% of your brain I explain that and say, perhaps it is that we only understand what 10% of the brain is doing and the other 90% is doing the things which occur we don’t know where.

Fish that live in caves where there is no light lose their site because the ones that have random mutations which cause blindness are not selected against. The fact that different proteins are knocked out in different populations of fish confirms that the process is random.

Thanks,
Nick

Unfortunately, it just isn’t that simple. You may, under some circumstances, defend a claim that positive atheism is a religion: there is a positive belief in a proposition for which that is (as far as I know) no proof or evidence. Negative atheism is not, under any circumstances or in accordance with any acceptable use of the word, a religion.

It may look like hair-splitting to some people, but as a negative atheist myself I am irritated by claims that I maintain a positive belief in something that I have no evidence or proof of. And when religious leaders write articles in newspapers (http://tinyurl.com/59uwyn) they sometimes like to take a swipe at atheists. One of their favourite attacks is that atheists are inconsistent; that on the one hand atheists criticise theists for believing something without proof or evidence but on the other hand believe something themselves without proof or evidence. You may be able to attack positive atheism on that basis, but you simply cannot attack negative atheism on that basis.

The distinction is important.

The theory of evolution accurately predicts that we will find evidence of species that once existed but that are now extinct

This makes no sense either.. I exist, right now.. evolution predicts what that I will be exictint someday? Based on what.. the coelcanth was suppose to be exitinct, but i have heard excuses that its a new type of species, that looks just like the fossil record? Please, it’s a contradiction, and u assume we will be exitinct without ever really knowing that.

Fish loosing there eyesite, isn’t something to say it’s a survival of the fittest, ever think they were made that way? And no evolutionist likes to explain why they would go blind, to make it harder to hunt, or how they manage to survive until they develop new hunting techniques.. sorry, but evolution (macro) doesn’t happen…

Nick

Thanks,
Nick

All hypotheses contain assumptions and all conclusions reflect those assumptions. This is evident from the recent works of Dawkins, Hitchins et.al. and, indeed, from the work of Charles Darwin. The scientific method, of course, should always refer to the sources of data but your reference to dopamine provides none. For all I know it could be fictional. Certainly the main clinical studies on the role of dopamine and its impact on personality do not indicate that a clinical trial on the basis you suggest would be of any value.

The correct role of criticism should always be applied to oneself and not to those with whom one disagrees. Perhaps you should apply the scientific method to your own arguments first.

Well, I think you missed your own target. It’s freedom of speech that is paramount, I agree. But ask yourself which religion, right now, is “truely” physically dangerous? Which religion, today, is most likely to cross that line and retaliate against opposing speech?

I suggest to you that it is not even CLOSE.

Today the catholic church, the mormons, and christians in general, are routinly savaged by thier critics. And how do these groups retaliate? They either just turn the other cheek or they “speak” back. They dont “hit” back! These christians are the ones who truely practice FREE SPEECH as stated in the 1st sentence of your article.

I mean just look at the constant snipes and bashing that christians get daily from tv, movies, sitcoms, web, and even from those darwin-jesus-fish bumber stickers! Are these christians marching in the streets waving weapons and shouting death threats - OF COURSE NOT.

I’m afraid when you equate Mitt Romeny or Joe Biden to the muslim political world, you are not sticking to your “critical thinking”.

This country, since it’s founding, not only has tolarated ALL religions, but has done it with religious (predominantly christian) people in charge.

I personally don’t adhere to any of the main religions. I, like you, find stories of miracles and and gods to be without fact. I have never seen God or seen any real evidence of supernatural events.

But I can weigh and measure the evidence of religion and religious people and the effect they have on societies. And I see the overwhelming evidence that suggests that even the most strict christian bible thumpers are of NO THREAT TO ME OR TO THIS COUNTRY. In fact, in my opinion, they are in large part responsible for the judicial and governing principles that we live by today.

In contrast, just look at the effects of Islam and politics. I don’t need to tell you, your article highlights thier utter intolarance of others speech and the lengths that they will go to “physically” shut you up.

There are many REAL threats out there to freedom of speech: Communism, Socialism, and Islamic Dictators top my list.

I dont worry in the least if Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, Ron Paul, Joe Biden, or Mike Huckabee say that they read the bible or pray. I would worry if they said they liked socialism, communism, or islamic rule.

~Bob

I’ve seen chaos like that caused by those idiotic magnetic bracelets people wear for their circulation. I’ve also seen refrigerator magnets on the side of a computer case cause issues. While computers are designed to handle such minor magnetic fields, customized cases, poorly designed cases or even an improperly attached motherboard can all make the PC vulnerable. There are even some older Pacemaker and cell phone models that interfere with cheaper PC hardware, particularly poorly shielded CRT monitors.

It could also be his clothing. Some cloth combinations can build up static while sitting still typing. The minor movements of the arms can, with the right clothing combination, build up enough charge to shock. One of my fleece shirts, combined with the wrong t-shirt, can make my fingers spark if I wear it in dry weather, and that’s just from sitting around. His clothing could be building up a charge through his movement, which is then discharged through the keyboard.