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Comment Not faith - belief (Score 3, Informative) 575

Faith is belief in something for which there is no proof or even strong evidence. Faith is generally applied only to spirituality, and it should be so according to the definition. For example, I don't need faith to believe that the Yankees won the World Series this year - there IS evidence for that. I do believe that they won BECAUSE of the evidence.

You do NOT need faith to believe that the universe is anything. Ordered, structured, causal, etc. A good scientist believes these things because there is evidence of order, causality, etc.

To not have faith is to not believe in something for which there is no evidence.

One does not need faith to look forward to the future doing something chaotic because of the belief (through prior observation) that those kind of things (earth turning into a carnivore butterfly) just does not happen.

Science and faith are NOT intrinsically linked. Science and belief ARE. Science and faith are two completely separate things.

Comment Re:Keep It Simple (Score 1) 721

Can any of us imagine a Holy book being delivered two thousand years ago that babbled about relativity, the Higg"s Boson or multi dimensional universes?

I can. True, no one would have a clue as to what it meant at the time, but if the bible stated (as YouTube user FA quipped:)
"Verily, I say unto thee, that thine energy is as thine mass times the speed of light multiplied unto itself."
... well, I'd find THAT pretty impressive.

I'd much rather that Moses (or Aaron, whatever,) gave us the "Book of Circles" which contained 3.14159....... out to one million places. Or e. Or Newtonian physics. ANYTHING of that sort, that had nothing prior like it yet could be later shown to be (close enough to) correct and pragmatically useful would instill some faith in me.

Comment Re:The problem with religion (Score 1) 721

A biblical reference to the "four corners of the earth" doesn't mean that the earth literally has four corners (i.e. it's flat). A biblical reference to God making man in his own image doesn't mean that the god they worship literally looks like we do.

Generally, yes it does - see the previous issues with Gaileo, Darwin, etc. Literal interpretation is THE biggest issue for religious thought. When you start to question "holy" scripture (7 days, four corners, Adam/Eve in god's image, flood, etc.,) you open the possibility that the OTHER stuff might also not be literal.

Well, what stuff is that and who gets to decide? Perhaps "son of god" and "saviour of all mankind" isn't literal anymore. Nor is "god's kindom" or "hell" or ...

(which I'm fine with. I think it all to be spiritual snake-oil.)

Mozilla

Firefox Most Vulnerable Browser, Safari Close 369

An anonymous reader writes "Cenzic released its report revealing the most prominent types of Web application vulnerabilities for the first half of 2009. The report identified over 3,100 total vulnerabilities, which is a 10 percent increase in Web application vulnerabilities compared to the second half of 2008. Among Web browsers, Mozilla Firefox had the largest percentage of Web vulnerabilities, followed by Apple Safari, whose browser showed a vast increase in exploits, due to vulnerabilities reported in the Safari iPhone browser." It seems a bit surprising to me that this study shows that only 15% of vulnerabilities are in IE.

Comment Re:Ah, Uracil! (Score 1) 264

It seems that evolution is, in fact, a fact.
Much like: the sky is blue, the sun gives off light/heat, gravity keeps us planted to the earth.

The theory of evolution - the process by which evolution occurs - is a theory.
(much like we have theories for how gravity works.)

That evolution occurs is factual - we've seen it happen both naturally and in the lab.
The exact processes that cause it are somewhat (but not very) debatable.

Comment It is worth it (Score 1) 1040

disclaimer: I'm in and from the States.

It sounds like you would like to do a lot of things here in the U.S. Each of those activities could take days, if not weeks. I would guess that the hassle you might receive entering (a few hours delay? LESS than the flight over) would be worth it for the experiences available to you once here. The cities, the diversity of people, the scenery (Niagra / Grand Canyon / etc.,) are all really amazing and quite accessible.

Yes, border crossing into the U.S., especially by air, can be "harrowing" sometimes - but the experiences can be very rewarding. Reconsider putting a trip over-the-pond back onto your to-do list.

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