... to not know of anything ever again. Every day in infinity with no existence. It would be as if you never existed. And when the universe dies in the heat death nothing would have mattered anyway. No record of civilization. No life. Nothing but a bunch of subatomic particles hanging out in eternity. No matter what you did, who you were, what deeds you've done, it never mattered. Yes, a good time to die.

Hey wait... I think you're a theist. You want to die that evening because you know it will never come. Tricky.

I'll be entertained by more theological debates.

Except the iPad's games (with some exceptions) aren't up to the quality of the games on the 3DS. An example is "Scribblenauts Remixed". Here, 5th Cell failed an opportunity to make something great. Instead of producing the definitive version of Scribblenauts, they made a gimpped version that removes everything that made Scribblenauts great such as multiple play environments, a level editor, etc... If you look at "Scribblenauts Unlimited", it has all of those features plus the ability to create your own objects! Until recently, the iPad version of "Phoenix Wright" had the same resolution as the DS version! So it looked like crap. About the only game that was actually better on the iPad was "Ghost Trick".

That being said, the iPad does have some great games such as "Plants vs. Zombies", "Angry Birds", etc... But all in all, I'm more excited about the 3DS's lineup than the iPad's and I'm willing to spend more money on 3DS games.

Coming from a Southern Baptist, yes some Christians are gullible. No, not all of them are. Just like there are all kinds of atheists (yes, there are gullible ones too), there are all kinds of Christians. Contrast someone like William Lane Craig with Pat Robertson and you'll see what I mean.

I agree that nobody should rely on this for security, but I think it would be more secure if it was a 3D camera instead of a 2D one. Then it could work more similarly to Kinect. But I suppose then that someone could take a picture of a person on their Nintendo 3DS and trick the phone that way. :)

I miss lobster day. It always came with a side of caviar.

Maybe if you win a Nobel Prize in Economics, you can receive a higher prize.

This! ^^^

Sometimes the best answer is because my wife likes it that way. ^_^

Agreed. And you're a person, not a duck. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, I think that Salem's Hypothesis is interesting. Here, I post it word for word here for those who might not want to click through a link.

And

The first premise doesn't really apply to this debate since we're arguing "Do religious people enter careers that are not related to the church and useful to society?" We're not having a Creationism vs Evolution debate. Nor am I inviting anyone to enter such a debate.

The second point says that engineers tend to form a predisposition to intelligent design. To summarize, Those whose role in society it is to create are more likely to believe in a Creator That makes sense to me. So to summarize even further Those whose role in society is to create are more likely to be 'religious'. So let me take that as the first premise of the argument you're building for me.

Here's my second premise: "Those whose role in society is to create is useful to society"

So my conclusion: "Therefore those who are religious may occupy jobs that are useful to society"

It's obvious that you were trying to refute me somehow since I've offended your religious beliefs, but you actually strengthen my argument. Congratulations. :)

Because all religious people wind up working for churches? I did not grow up in a religious home, however I am a theist. I'm also an engineer. The idea that religious people somehow do not or cannot contribute to society is weird at best. In fact there are other engineers on my team who are also theists and they do an excellent job. One coming to a logical conclusion that there is a God does not correlate to their ability to do work.

Now my daughter is being home schooled. Not for religious reasons but because public schools teaches to the lowest common denominator. If she was going to public school, she would be in pre-school, but she already reads, adds, subtracts, multiplies, does simple algebra (2 times duck = 2 ducks) and has basic science concepts. The only place she is lacking is writing (she writes like a kindergartner) and history/government. But she's only 5 and Kindergarten doesn't even teach that. So this weird concept on Slashdot that th== dumb is plain academic intolerance in action.

The problem is that I'm an engineer. I think in logic, not fantasy, emotion, and politics. So people like Dawkins don't appeal to me. I'd like to hear more p's and q's and less political emotional nonsense.

I'm not suggesting God nor am I trying to prove God. I'm suggesting anything. Since stuff exist, it's always always been here, or came into existence. There really isn't an in between here. There is no gap in this logic. If so, I'd love to hear it, but all you neoathiests do is go back to God which is not even being argued here.

So postulating about multiverse, quantum soups, etc... is wrong? You simply can't ever believe in anything other than everything came from an uncreated something unless you're willfully ignorant. To believe otherwise would be like believing that 6 == 7. It's just not true. This isn't opinion either. Here let me point out the various example scenarios:

1.) God created it - God is the uncreated something
OR
2.) Universe came from quantum soup (Krauss's position) - Quantum soup is the uncreated something
OR
3.) Reality did not exist and then it did. Reality is the uncreated something.
OR
4.) Something else entirely.

You simply cannot believe that everything was created. At some point, you get to an uncaused uncreated something. Whether that's an infinite number of multiverses in the past (an eternal uncreated something) or the universe just popped into existence one day (a finite uncreated something). All of you highly emotional neoatheists have not provided one piece of logic to even support the whole "I don't know" answer. I don't know if 6 == 7? Really? That's your best response? Let me know when athiests can debate logic. Every example of "I don't know" possibilities have been uncreated somethings.

So my arguments stands - you cannot ridicule the theist for believing in an uncreated something when everyone believes (though knows not necessarily what) in an uncreated something.

The reason for equating neoatheism with emotionalistic responses is this:

1.) I state that everyone believe an uncreated something must exist, but not everyone agrees what that uncreated something is (universe, quantum soup (what Krauss calls "nothing"), God, whatever).
2.) I conclude that therefore using the argument, "Theists are stupid because who created God" is a silly argument since both the theist and atheist must agree that there exists something uncreated. They disagree only on what that is. There really isn't a dispute here.
3.) I get dozens of response arguing about the existence or non existence of God.

See, I wasn't trying to even prove God, but rather that the argument used against the theist was invalid since the theist and the atheist believe the same thing. Namely, something has always existed. But just as a nominal Catholic or your average Pentecostal will get super emotional when they halfway kinda sorta not really suspect someone might be dissing their God, the neoatheist response similarly. It's like an over emotional religious atheist.

This seems to be the nature of neoatheists. Take this video for example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Np0nrxbGQik I'm annoyed at the editing a bit (it's a bit over the top), but it demonstrates my point. My brother and I were discussing this the other day. I'd love to listen to a challenging, thought provoking atheist pod cast that is on the level of a Dr. Craig, but I can't seem to find one. Atheist appear to use emotion rather than logic to illustrate their point. I'd be happy if someone could prove me wrong and provide me a podcast that uses logic rather than emotion to argue an atheistic position.

I'm not sure what you're arguing. It sounds like you're agreeing with me. Something (universe, God, computer, whatever) is uncreated.