see #27678705 above.

Actually, Galileo was commissioned by the pope at the time (Pope Urban VIII) to write a book detailing both sides of the argument for and against heliocentrism. Galileo was instructed to make it unbiased but made the character Simplicio (who was in support of Geocentrism) seem foolish in his arguments. The pope (who clearly must have supported geocentrism) was offended by this and thought that it was a personal attack made by Galileo. This is widely accepted by modern historians to not have been Galileo's intentions.

And then, in a truly revealing act by the church, the publication of Galileo's book supporting heliocentrism was banned, along with all of his past and potential future works.
After all of this happened in 1633, Galileo died in 1642. He was denied burial with the rest of his family (at the order of the same Pope who opposed him) and this was maintained until 1737, almost 100 years later when they moved his body to a new site near his ancestors.
In all it wasn't until 1758 before books supporting heliocentrism were removed from the index of banned books (although Galileo's book remained banned) and not until 1835 before Galileo's book was removed from the index (along with all others advocating heliocentrism).

This clearly shows that the church opposed scientific advancement for over 200 years, using censorship and supression to repress an idea that had been suggested since the 4th century BC (by Ancient Greeks, but possibly earlier too).

My point is that in your post you implied many things, the first (and most obvious) is that God exists and the the Christian bible is His divinely inspired word. In addition to this, you imply that no other holy books are.
Certainly, Jewish scriptures mention the coming of a Messiah, but it is widely accepted (I would say almost completely accepted) that Jesus was not it.
So, when you say that in order for Prof. Hawking to be "saved" (ie, get into heaven) he must "trust in Jesus Christ", you are also saying that Judaism is wrong.
I mentioned the Quran and UFO stories in my post because they are both just as reliable (in terms of evidence) as the Christian bible. They are all examples of anecdote.

And that's a very shallow interpretation of my comments.

I think Prof. Hawking needs to set up a video camera so that there's no way religious vultures can claim a deathbed conversion (as is Richard Dawkins' plan). But I do sincerely hope that he pulls through and that he lives to do more.

You missed the most important part.
God has also made is abundantly clear in the Quran that Jesus was just another prophet, certainly not the same Jesus as described in the Christian bible.
God makes no mention of Jesus in the Jewish scriptures.

You really shouldn't go around touting that one book is the actual truth when it's just as reliable as UFO stories.

Or at the very least, you shouldn't live there.

[Citation needed]

Exactly, just like Noah's flood, and how the earth was created around 6000 years ago and how people used to live for hundreds of years. Oh wait....

Are you 100% sure that Thor, Zeus etc don't exist?

Are you 100% sure that you shouldn't be following the 5 pillars of Islam?

Are you 100% sure that you shouldn't be ridding youself of body-thetans at your local Scientology center?

I am 100% sure that I'll make my life decisions based on the evidence I have at hand.
The Bible is anecdote.
Data is not the plural of anecdote.

That's a flawed interpretation, doesn't it make sense that a vast majority of claims were against competitors? If someone is breaching copyright on your products for commercial purposes, they are selling your product too, making them a competitor. That means that the other 43% are probably made up partially by the 37%, with the rest being valid claims against non-competitors, which to me says private entities (ie, not commercial ones).

I find it surprising that there aren't more claims against competitors, given that if someone is violating copyright on your work (and then selling it), that pretty much makes them a competitor by definition, if they weren't already.

If I had points, I'd mod you up, both for the informative post and the subtle(?) Heroes reference.

I still find nethack mesmerising, you insensitive clod!

The difference for us in Australia is that our uncovered areas (Nullarbor plain etc) have almost no people living there, where in the US (where they may have even more square km's covered), they might still have population uncovered.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=RDF&defid=1134528

Probably hanging out with the ark of the covenant, Joe Smith's golden plates, the city of atlantis, xenu and russel's teapot.

Except that the missing links actually existed at some point.

It still baffles me that people can delude themselves to the point of arguing with evolution and still claiming to know the truth.

Since you clearly believe that everything that has ever lived exists in the ground somewhere, how do you account for the gigantic underestimate of the number of atoms in the universe? Or the way the Earth manages not to collapse into a black hole under the weight of every life form that has existed since the first replicators formed in primordial ooze?

So the bible is fact until science disproves some part of it, at which point you can simply decide that that part is just metaphorical and thus is still correct by some interpretation.

Genesis is not a retelling of anything. It is just as truthful as the Australian Aboriginal "Dream Time" and the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster's story of drunken creation.