Hrm.

I don't follow reddit or twitter, so that obviously means I'm quite a bit intelligent already, but on the other hand I do post to slashdot, so maybe my IQ isn't as high as I first thought.

Zese scientists are not correct! I shtill love ein bisschen of zis gluclose, especially mit a teensy drop of der schnaps after vork.

Ze real trut is zat my vife und I yust vant to lose a little veight.

I don't particularly care what her name is, just get her over here!

So... the article mentions a "belief in god" and then conflates it with a "belief in a higher power". Well? Which is it?

See, this is why these kinds of studies are so full of epic fail: they are using terms that are so ill-defined and could really mean anything.

When a word could mean anything it ends up meaning nothing. That's exactly what we have here, unsurprisingly.

My in-laws' house is for core long haul transport, you insensitive clod!

Notepad++ does a decent, if not actually good, job of that. I just opened one of my latex docs with it -- it specifically lists "tex" as a supported language and not latex, though I haven't the knowledge to know if syntactically, that would be a major difference.

Ironically, I don't use NP++ to edit my latex docs; I use Texworks.

Sure there was. It was just set to fuzzy time: "Ships sometime this century!"

Fat lot of good this does when the poor guy is already out of school.

Besides, how do you know that he didn't listen to a guy just like you? Why should he listen to you over them?

The cool thing about Slashdot is there are lots of ideas and opinions around. The really shitty part about Slashdot is that there are lots of ideas and opinions around. Who the hell knows, really, what's good and what isn't?

I know it's been brought up before, but one of the major failings of the US is that the law is written and stands until someone is harmed by it, and only THEN can the law be reviewed and MAYBE struck down.

Our forefathers were wise in very many things when it came to the creation of a new government, but really dropped the ball on this one.

What is now needed is that laws must first be reviewed by the US Supreme Court BEFORE being voted upon and then possibly passed. Once passed, the system that's already in place will STILL be in place; namely that if a person can show harm by this law, it goes back to the US Supreme Court -- automatically -- for a review.

Oh, but the Supremes are too busy to hear this new law that Senator Fuckedinthehead has proposed? No problemo. It'll be seen in order received. That may take a few years or so. But you're in a hurry? Nothing's that important that it cannot bear scrutiny for a year or so. Now, since I'm well into my wonderful dream, I'm going to add one other thing -- that each law presented to the USSC for potential passing, there also is included one older law that will be automatically struck down unless the USSC also feels that that law passes muster. These two laws will be reviewed concurrently and decided upon in a timely manner.

If a representative submits and/or signs off on too many laws that the USSC has rejected or a person has shown as being harmed, then that representative is automatically fired with no benefits and no recourse as they've now been shown to be completely incompetent at the basic fundamentals of the job. Every freaking representative should demonstrate that they know the principles established for this country and abide by them as per their sworn oath.

It must also be driven into every American's mind as they vote that every single government position is A POSITION OF SERVICE TO THE PEOPLE.

They should be grateful for the opportunity that we have given them!

I sure wish that Slashdot was more conducive to deeper issues and discussions because I think we could at least have good conversation!

Part of what I enjoy is debate and reading other people's thoughts and insights.

I don't particularly care one way or the other; my point is that there is nothing credible that points to some sort of existence that is meaningful. There is an almost limitless quantity of meaningless talk, thoughts, concepts with which one may enjoy oneself. I also don't particularly care if people think these fantasies have any basis in reality except when they make testable claims. I, among many, like to test those claims and they are always coming up short.

If these god-concepts have some kind of existence that humans cannot comprehend then why are they able to speak coherently about them? If these god-concepts are not part of the comprehensible universe, then for all intents and purposes, they do not exist and again, it's incoherent for believers to make truth-claims about them.

We also know that the source of these god-concepts stem from the emergent properties of the brain.

Anyway, even if later today there is found evidence beyond question that something like a god does exist, it's cool by me. I'll most likely treat it like I treat every other discovery like the Higgs boson. It's cool, it's evidenced, it's there, but I'm still not gonna worship it.

Well, okay, if you want to ignore the totality of what I said to slice out that chunk, please be my guest. However, that's where the evidence leads: god-concepts that people believe are real and have some existence are made up things.

Also -- a thousand years from now, ten thousand years from now -- there will not suddenly spring forth evidence that the Abrahimic god of the Christian bible is real and has some sort of empirical existence as claimed by believers. Science (the methodology as well as the body of knowledge) has already shown that god to be made up.

Please trot out any logical, coherent and meaningful definition of a god and we'll test it now; today. Not a thousand years from now.

Yes there is. There is a tremendous amount of data supporting the fact that gods (where properly defined so as to be a coherent concept) are made up by humans. There is especially more evidence when a god is spoken of in an incoherent manner that it is simply imagination. There is no evidence of the existence of these god-concepts -- either coherent or incoherent -- outside of imagination.

This isn't a 50-50 kinda deal and it's a mistake to think it is.

This is all backwards and I still wonder why people don't seem to argue it much.

Once an item is sold, then the companies themselves must make a solid, factual reason they should have any say over it after that.

Once I buy it, it's mine. I don't need permission to unlock anything I own. THEY need permission to DENY my use.

It's just that simple.

My favorite culture? That's an odd way of putting it, but I'll withdraw the comments since I'm incorrect in my presumptions.