Is it really possible that in 80 posts, no one has suggested The Geek Atlas?

It's a book of 128 geeky sites to visit, with background stories and science discussions for each one, as well as the normal location and logistic information.

There's also a website with maps and other content, as well as an iOS app that will give you info on the places closest to you and other handy reference info.

It's also damn easy to make.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLhwkFKLdPA

You'd have to be fairly confident in your chemistry skills to put the result in drinking water purifier, but for home chemistry and presumably for whatever it's used for in meth production(yeah, really don't feel like googling that), it should be fine.

So once again, our laws only hurt the legal users.

Luckily there are people who can do something who care.

TSA operates with the blessing of local law enforcement and the property owner of where they are. They have no jurisdiction, nor law enforcement powers, and are totally dependent on these individuals.

From wikipedia:

Savannah incident - Amtrak temporarily bans VIPR teams, 2011
In early 2011, a TSA VIPR detained and patted down people at an Amtrak station in Savannah, Georgia. The incident became rather controversial. According to Trains magazine, Amtrak Police Chief John O'Connor described the TSA behavior as illegal, and in violation of Amtrak policy. The incident led Amtrak to temporarily ban VIPR teams from Amtrak property.

Yes grammer nazi, I care a very little bit, such that I could in fact care less, but not very much less.

As long as it still works as a sync agent for Reeder on Mac and iOS, I could care less. Reeder is so much better than the Reader interface anyway.

Yes. What the general public doesn't seem to realize is that 95% confidence is the standard, and that means we expect at least 5% of scientific studies to be false positives.

(As a side rant, I really think statistics should be the capstone course in math in HS, not Calculus, as it's much more useful to the general populace.)

Actually, I did respond to that, but apparently not clearly enough, so I'll highlight it:

I make the meta-argument that there is nothing to recommend the Bible as better than the Koran or the Vedas, or the hundreds of other earlier tales of demigods that die and come back to life. John Loftus calls the the "Outsider Test For Faith". I reject Christianity because it is not in fact remarkable enough to clearly show the world that it is in fact the one true way, and claims an eternal punishment for not believing that it is. The fact that I give multiple kinds of ways God could have communicated better and established clearly the truth of the Bible and hence of Jesus does not undermine that argument. There is no reason to choose one of the sub-arguments, as you claim.

I recommend reading a book like "50 Reasons People Give For Believing In a God" or the anthropological chapters in The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails. Heck, read any modern anthropological textbook. Every major religion gives this kind of evidence for their God. If it was only Christianity that did, I admit it would be good evidence, and the world would have converged on that religion instead of 2/3s of the people rejecting it, and Christianity splintering into smaller and smaller sects. If the Holy Spirit enlightens us like the bible says, he does terrible job of it. Things like the 30 years war are god's fault if he does exist, because he clearly could have communicated the truth better, or even what parts were essential and what was debatable. He didn't.

I have given God many opportunities to show himself, but he only does so in a matter that is exactly the same as chance. In the OT, he is supposed to have sent fire from heaven, and a simple lack of the Baal to act was proof that he was not the true god, and in the tale his prophets were murdered. Elijah didn't say, "Oh, I understand, my god values divine hiddenness also." No, simple failure of a god to respond to a challenge was definitive proof of his non-existence in the test YHWH himself designed. Somehow, once modern science and good record-keeping came about, god no longer shows up in any measurable way, and the theological sausage grinder comes up with ideas like "divine hiddenness" and the soul making theodicy. Strange that. I have yet to meet a Christian who is willing to anticipate future consequences of God's existence. No,belief in belief is the belief of the day, and even Christians recognize it.

The reason I am an atheist is the Chrisitianity does not stand up to the "Outsider Test for Faith", which it must if god is good and universalism is not correct. Either Christianity is false, god is not good and not worthy of worship, or universalism is true. From my study of many books on both sides, it seems the first is most likely. Christianity seems to be trending towards the last, as the first 2 destroys the belief.

If you want to talk more, feel free to contact me at steve (dot) pinkham (at) geemale dought com (the domain is phonetic of course.). I'd be happy to talk more by email, google+(i'll send you an invite if you don't have one) or at reddit, but slashdot doesn't seem the best forum.

The only argument that was throughly refuted is that Jesus could have been talking about Noah as a fictional character, which you chose the third option: To ignore the fact that was your whole argument before and add new arguments. Was there a good argument that hasn't been well answered, besides a 64 page document I refute with another long document? I simply don't have time to cover every point here on issues that have been refuted a million times. Yes, I have some issues with Carrier and some of the other infidels writers, but they did a good job in refuting the arguments of McDowell et al. That road has been tread a thousands times, and I see little benefit over trying to explain it again.

Why does Bart Ehrman, probably the foremost new testament scholar, not believe? Why does Bishop Spong not believe? These are people who know much more about the early Christian writings than I, apparently the evidence is just not that strong. Spong definitely wants to keep Christian morality and practice alive, which leaves none of the excuses Christians usually give to explain away people who reject the resurrection.

I understand the Christian position. I was one for 25 years. I've been an atheist for about 1/2 a year, and it's a highly uncomfortable thing for me to be. My whole family is Christian, most of my neighbors and friends are, etc. If you or anyone else could convince me there was any good reason to believe, I would happily go back. The only evidence is evidence that is only convincing if you already believe. The only logical Christianity I've come across is Calvinism, in which it makes sense that nobody else accepts the poor evidence given for the deity and resurrection of Jesus, because god is a jerk who didn't choose them.

If you want "new" arguments, come to http://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion . I and others have preposed a number of new arguments there that are not covered by multiple people 20 or 200 years ago. That's the only reason I've linked to infidels.com, you linked to a book treatment of an argument they covered well 15 years ago. There's tons more stuff out there, it just hasn't come up in this discussion yet.

I'm well aware of how the gospels were produced, and how long it was from Jesus's death. The problem is they are just not believable, we don't know which books should have been canonized if any, etc. If that really was God's idea of the best way to give a message to his world, he's an idiot.

There's a number of different ways Jesus and the Bible could be extraordinary, but they fail to be. That's not a flaw in my argument, it's just the nature of the myth of the culture you grew up in. It is clear to everyone in every other culture that there's nothing special about the myths of yours.

Yes, I know of the excuses given for why things must be that way, but it is clear to 2/3 of the world that they are just that: excuses. If there was a way to know, the world would long ago have converged on the true religion.

How can I tell the difference between Jesus, Vishnu, Osirus, Thor, etc? I can't, and it's not for lack of trying.

I read your link. It is a poor rehashing of "Evidence that demands a verdict" and similar books. I've read both them and their critics, and their logic comes up quite short by comparison. To start with, the gospels are all anonymous and there is no good reason for believing eyewitness wrote the gospels.

As to his "Coup de grace", he's a poor scholar. It is clear that the women fit Mark's narrative quite well.
Quoting Ehrman on the issue, in a debate with William Lane Craig:

For more on why Christianity succeeding without a resurrection is not as improbable as people think see this or the book treatment linked from that page.

No, I haven't "missed' that point, it just makes no sense. If Jesus affirmed a falsehood, even if intentionally, how do we tell what is true and what is not?

If he didn't have time to "correct science", couldn't he have said "don't torture and kill people because their theology is slightly different that yours"? There's SO many simple things Jesus could have said that would have stopped things like the 30 Years War, Inquisition, etc.

Just teaching basic hygiene would have saved innumerable lives over the past centuries. The Talmud commands washing hands before meals a few hundred years later, but Jesus didn't tell people that was important. In fact, in Mark he says the opposite.

Jesus could have said that all races, sexes, and genders are equal and owning people is wrong, but he didn't.

He was a totally unremarkable preacher for the time, expect he tells us we can only come to god through him. No evidence is offered to us, except the gospels which are full of falsehoods (like the one under discussion), have mutually contradictory stories and crazy events we're sure didn't happen(like zombie apocalypses). If he wanted me to accept him, all he would have to do is give some way I could know he is the true god and Vishnu is not. Unfortunately, he failed even at that.

Jesus was (at best) a failed apocalyptic preacher and nothing more.

I replied to the "sister comment" on why the "common culture" view is untenable. Please reply there if you wish to talk about that topic more.

I know fundamentalism is not the only view of Christianity, but I've yet to encounter another theistic version of Christianity that makes sense. It is clear that the bible is full of falsehoods. It is fairly clear from Church history that God is incompetent or non-existant. It is fairly clear from infinite sharding of Christianity into smaller groups with different beliefs(that has caused much great bloodshed over the years) that there is no good way of discovering the "correct" doctrines.

I've read Marcus Borg and Spong on post-theism Christianity, but it doesn't really have much to recommend it.

So, where do I go to find the "correct" view of Christianity? Because from the hundreds of books I've read, nobody can agree how to do that.

The greek gives no hints that this is the case. Still, if early writings showed people at the time unambiguously knew Noah was literary, you might have a point. However, that is not the case.

Especially as one of those reference is in Luke, and Luke listed Noah *in his genealogy of Jesus*. (Luke 3:36).

In 1st Peter, Jesus is referenced as going to preach to the spirits of people who died in the time of Noah.

I could go on with other reference (remember the "faith" chapter(Hebrews 11), and 2nd Peter references Noah again), but I think the point has been made.

Clearly, it was not unanimous understood in the time period that Noah was a literary figure. As such, If Jesus wanted to communicate clearly he would have referenced it "as in the story of Noah" or similar.

I call bull.

For Christianity specifically, Jesus references a literal Noah. This isn't "in the story of Noah", this is the supposed words of Jesus talking about a literal event.

Paul's theology depends on Adam. The story of the fall is referenced just as literally as Jesus's death.

Even if you had a good way of splitting the Bible up into story and fact(which no Bible scholar has ever put forth outside of archeology, which says it's almost all story or very over exagerated historical fiction), these passages say you can't discount a literal Noah and Adam without discounting Paul and the Gospels. Without Paul and the gospels, there's pretty much nothing left in Christianity.

In this case, the fundamentalists know what is at stake. They are right in trying to defend the indefensible, because without it Christianity loses all meaning.

For more reading, I recommend Spong's Why Christianity Must Change or Die for a Bishops point of view, or The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails for people who came out non-Christian at the end. They both say the same thing about the evidence.

I was a Christian for 25 years. I am no longer, largely because looking into this issue led me deep into biblical criticism, in which well supported scholarship and archeology say a VERY different thing about the Bible than what you've heard.

See also The Bible Unearthed, Who Wrote the Bible and Cutting Jesus Down to Size: What Higher Criticism Has Achieved and Where It Leaves Christianity

Or just click around wikipedia for a while if you don't trust my choice of books. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorship_of_the_Bible

I miss candidate Obama. He was so much closer to my views on this than the guy in the White House now seems to be.