I just wanted to respond to your post. I don't want to argue, and I really have no agenda: believe what you will. But let me ask a few questions: Do you believe that there is any afterlife at all? Or does our consciousness vanish into nothingness? Do you believe that you have a soul or a spirit? Is this human body you occupy just a vessel? A kind of avatar with a connection to somewhere else? Or is this just an elaborate biological mechanism that has somehow created for itself a sense of "you"-ness?

There is something I have noticed and wrestle with personally. I see evidence for an afterlife. I have been told too many stories and heard too many accounts of people with near-death experiences, and the strange thing about it is that they are pretty much consistent among those that have them at all. In other words, I don't hear that this person had an awakening to a 7th dimension where we eat colors and see sounds, and then this person over here has an experience where they awaken in a world of spaghetti. No, they all involve waking up, seeing themselves from out of their body, usually floating above the room and describing what others are doing in the room, there's usually a tunnel of some type, there is usually a feeling of engulfing surrounding love and belonging, bright light that seems to be God or some deity, and there is a sense of familiarity and welcomeness. They all seem to say that when this happens, it as if they are awakening from a dream: as if this life we are in was the dream and they are now awake and in the true life; it seems that clear to them.

Now, when I say I've been told stories, I mean to me personally. These have been people I knew, trusted, who I don't believe have an agenda, and in many cases these experiences defy or contradict what they know from the bible. This is over the course of 30 years, between people of different walks of life and whom have never met each other and certainly never corroborated their stories.

Well this bothers me a little bit. To be atheist, one would technically have to believe in no greater power, no afterlife. But yet, here sits this evidence staring me in the face.

What do you make of it? Your thoughts.

After I read that part of his comment, I figured you could take it either way. But what I really thought was, "What an elitist prick."

Hm. Thank you for educating me. I wasn't aware Stalin wasn't genocidal.

I apologize for calling you a moron. Especially since you're not from the U.S. Sorry -- I carelessly assumed I was talking to one of our own.

No, English is not just a social custom and it's not really open to change. Unless you mean the complete dismantling and destruction of American society as we know it. I suppose I'll grant you that scenario.

So which country is EU exactly?

And if you violate a law in a language you don't understand, how does that play out?

Or are all "EUians" just taught and expected to know 4 languages?

There was an English-only movement:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-only_movement

It's not the official language of the federal government, but it IS the official language of these states: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, and Wyoming.

My state is Texas, and English is apparently not the official language here... but I still point out that English is required in all 13 years of school, as well as most state-accredited college programs. And as of yet there are no laws in Spanish (the 2nd most popular language here). (Which is totally different from Spain Spanish.) (It's more like "Tex-Mex" or possibly "Spanglish.") Also, all courts (federal also) operate in English only. (I've never heard of a court proceeding in Spanish.) Also, all of our road signs are in English, and never in dual languages (I'm talking about road signs the government puts up, not billboards). All of our laws and regulations are in English, and if you're ever arrested you're read your rights only in English. I'd say that's pretty strong evidence for an "official language" any way you want to slice it, even if its unspoken or there's no explicit law that says so. (Semantics aside.)

But it's easy to see why no law could ever possibly be in Cantonese; if it ever were, that would be a strong indication that the United States would effectively be something else entirely anyway, thus making the whole problem moot.

Hm. Really.

Then maybe you can educate me on why all the federal laws are written in English? (I mean authored and penned in English, not simply translated to other languages.)

OMFG. I can't pick which freakin' idiot to respond to.

English is the language of the USA. If you think otherwise, just TRY to get a law passed in any other.

Moron.

There isn't room for two languages. There must only be one national language. It's hard enough to govern with the English set of laws we already have. Can you imagine valid laws in another language (and not just a translation, I mean a law that was authored and penned in the other language) as being the de facto rule? It's a completely asinine idea.

You're clearly an idiot.

Wordnik.com (that you linked to) shows a single dictionary that has that as a definition: Wiktionary. Ooooh, credible.

Actually, I take it back: I think I will let you quote the Urban Dictionary:

1. virii

buy virii mugs, tshirts and magnets
Virii is in fact an INCORRECT pluralization of "virus", however, some retard keeps resubmitting it as the plural form.

My dictionary has cactus and cacti. It has syllabus, syllabuses and syllabi. It has virus, and viruses. But no virii.

If none of my dictionaries have the word "virii" it means it doesn't exist and you made it up. So if you want it to be a real word, then go write Merriam Webster and ask them to add it.

Otherwise, I suggest you make a citation to one (and the Urban Dictionary doesn't count).

Oh shut up already. We don't give a crap about your Latin skills. My dictionary says:

World English Dictionary
virus (vars)

— n , pl -ruses

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/virus

You make a large file called DBLSPACE.BIN and put a TrueCrypt volume in there. Use a long password and several keyfiles. Best to make it so that it has a hidden volume also, but if you don't, then they will have a very hard time figuring out whether DBLSPACE.BIN is a corrupted double-spaced partition or if it is where your encrypted files are.

Opulence. I has it.

No, sir, I disagree with that. It isn't just about models that can predict things.

You would agree with me that archeology is a part of science, is it not?

Assuming you say yes, then what does the discovery of a mummy or a king's treasure or a civilization's mathematical processes or sewage system -- what does it predict exactly? Nothing. Now, I'll grant that we occasionally learn some new scientific fact about mathematics or astronomy that we didn't know and can perhaps apply to our own models, and history will teach you lessons that you should learn from and apply to your own society, but on the whole of it, it doesn't predict a darn thing. But it does piece together how past human civilization worked (or didn't work) and evolved (or died out).

What about forensics? It's all about how a particular event occurred and it's parameters.

There are lots of theories out there that explain how something came to be, but don't necessarily predict how things will be. All product of science.

Well you might say, "No, the act of archeology is the science part, the discoveries are just its product -- it predicts where you'll find history."

Fine then. I would even be OK with saying that any form of Creationism fits under the "History" topic and not "Science." But the Big Bang theory and the Theory of Evolution will suffer the same issues. Evolution only explains how we got here, it makes no prediction about where we will be (and it can't). And I have no idea what the Big Bang predicts exactly. Maybe you can enlighten me.

Perhaps you have missed the point.

Jesus said a lot of things, but I believe the most important was when he was asked what was the most important commandment was, he gave two. But I'll even shorten it down further to just one, so that if there is ANYTHING that even a non-believing individual could and should take away from the Bible, please take away this one thing:

"Love thy neighbor as thyself."

Thank you, that is all.

I agree with you.

Except, that doesn't mean a Creationist's model can't be made. It just means one hasn't.

And yet, as I'm thinking about it, why does it have to predict anything useful at all?

Why is it any less difficult to conceive that SOMETHING made... just your planet. Or just your solar system. Or just your galaxy. Perhaps it could even be said that sure, planets and stars and solar systems form naturally... but HERE, maybe in this one specific case, it was an alien race not native to your planet that created this one. Some alien race with Terra-forming technology. That knows how to make an environment with just the right amounts of water, oxygen, etc., is just the right distance from the sun... I mean it isn't that far-fetched when you look at it that way... and just happen to give it the name "God." There are many levels from planet to multi-verse where anything more powerful than man could be injected, and be completely undetectably different from nature.

True Creationism (not the rigid extremist kind) doesn't really care WHO created it. The position is that it was just "created" somehow in some manner unnaturally.

That said, I'm not a Creationist, and I happen to believe in Evolution. But my mind is at least open to other possibilities rather than leaping to the conclusion that "oh, that's just some wild fairy tale from wacko-conservatism." Therefore, I consider myself a true scientist.