WE HAVE NOW MOVED TO TALKSHOE.COM. THEY HAVE BETTER SOUND QUALITY THAN BTR. GOLD MEMBERS, BEGINNING THE 14TH, WILL BE ABLE TO DOWNLOAD AN EVEN HIGHER QUALITY SHOW.
ABOUT THIS SITE:Since 1999, The Infidel Guy show has brought you uninterrupted freethought and science-minded guests such as Michio Kaku, Dan Barker, Ken Miller, Michael Shermer, Asia Carrera, Richard Dawkins, Massimo Pigliucci, James Randi and many others. At our site and on our show we take a truthful and investigative look at religious beliefs, political systems, social issues, economic systems, the paranormal, pseudo-science and scientific claims. We feature freethought news, an arcade, forums, chat room and free freethought downloads as well as paid memberships to all IG content.
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Live Player and Podcast feed
UPCOMING SHOW: July 1st, 2009
Jonathan Rowe, from PositiveLiberty.com, will be our guest to discuss the faith of the founding fathers and how both the secular left and religious right propagate myths about their beliefs.
Join us in chat.
Joining us, from the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, will be Mikey Weinstein. Weinstein is a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy and performed as legal counsel in the Reagan White House. He will be our guest to discuss the threat of Evangelical Christianity in the military. Links of interest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agLrY042-\_I http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbJ63Y4R0dA
Mike Jarsulic special hosts this episode featuring Eric Scheibeler. Eric is a former Amway Emerald Distributor and he will be our guest to discuss Amway's business model and how they focus on the "faithful" to obtain distributors.
Ryan Covington is our guest to discuss his new book, "Atheism and Naturalism". Ryan is a former fundamentalist Christian who got involved in the creationism/evolution debate a few years ago. He currently blogs at http://aigbusted.blogspot.com where he critique many of the claims put forth by apologists and creationists.
* Still having some sound quality issues. We are working hard on a better solution.
Dr. Richard Carrier will return to the show to discuss his recent work, including his debate with William Lane Craig, his latest book, Not the Impossible Faith and the Jesus Project.
Check out his work at: http://www.richardcarrier.blogspot.com or the Secular Web
Dr. Eugenie Scott, Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education, will be our guest to discuss the new science standards in Texas as well as her new book, Evolution vs. Creationism: An Introduction. IG has a crush on Genie. ;)
This should be the last week that we are experiencing major sound issues... no god willing.
Chris Hallquist will be our guest to discuss his book, UFOs, Ghosts, and the Rising God. Chris is a contributor at the Secular Web where he has written a critique of William Lane Craig's Reasonable Faith. You can check out his work at http://www.uncrediblehallq.net or at the Secular Web.
Forgive the warnings by BlogTalkRadio. I had no idea. I'll need to find a way around those.
Acharya S returns to the show to continue the discussion on her book Christ in Egypt and will also discuss the pagan origins of Easter. http://www.truthbeknown.com.
Acharya S returns to the show to discuss the influence of Egyptian religion on Christianity as well as the common attributes of Jesus and Horus. Information on Acharya's new book "Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection" can be found at http://truthbeknown.com.
We apologize for the sound quality. We plan on bringing her back another day.
Our guest will be John Lewis, a paranormal investigator from Baelfire Paranormal Investigation in Titusville, PA. Mr. Lewis will be discussing the ins-and-outs of paranormal investigation including his work, the tools he uses, the science behind his work and famous cases. Check out his work at http://baelfireparanormal.org.
We at infidelguy.com hope our guest is doing well and recovering from his emergency. Whatever it may have been.
Frank Schaeffer is our guest to discuss the Religious Right and growing up in a fundamentalist Christian family. Frank is the son of Francis Schaeffer, a Calvinist theologian credited with igniting political activism among American Protestants in the late 1970s. Schaeffer is the author of the book, "Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back". You can check out his work at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-schaeffer
Being from the UK I'm not entirely sure the level of college maths in the States. I do understand and sympathize with your situation though, as for many calculus and up can seem a bit impenetrable and terribly abstract; especially that square of -1 guff.
The why on the other hand is an entirely different matter. Perhaps the single biggest unifying factor in the sciences in the application of mathematics, it's the core languaged shared outside of philosophical reasoning. To understand an observed phenomena we need to be able to rationalise it into a model, one that can be universally shared both in time and space from the origin. The only way to do this accurately is to convert it into a graph with the associated algebra, geometry and trig functions. Only with the model in place can we conduct subsequent experiments to determine how the real world differs from the hypothetical model; and in doing so develop more accurate models with a greater level of understanding. In this way the "why" is that Maths presents a concise way to represent these models; or in other words draw accurate lines on paper.
Observations and measurement on the otherhand are ultimately meaningless without models through which to understand them.
For example, we could be describing leaf structure as a relationship of length and width; changes in generational abundance of genotypes in a population; how fast a reaction takes place or develops; how a population sample can differ from the population. I could wordiosely describe all of these things with prose, however it is much simpler and easier to understand when they are presented in a visual format. These examples could be represented on paper by something as simple as a straight line a=xb+c, it could be a parabolic curve ax2+bx+c=f(x), an exponential a=be or a series SumAn=a0+a1+a2+a3 to name but a few. When I'm presented with a mathematical model I can begin to imagine in my head and subsequently reproduce on paper a graphical reconstruction; which is to a certain extent an accurate representation, something that prose could never achieve. For example my window is a four sided shape allows for a plethora of interpretations however by giving you to geometric rule of the height x being equal to the two times the width y (x=2y) you can accurately model its dimensions; subsequently defining the angles of sides at 90o eliminates any four sided shapes like diamonds, rhombi, parallelograms or shapes drawn on spheres. I can then examine other windows to determine if they fit my model, or if it needs revision. Being able to take real world observations and integrate them into a formula or derive values then becomes a universal language free from subjective interpretation.
In this way Maths in Science is not so much about numbers as it is about model construction, and graphing. The best way to do this of course being algebra, trig and geometry. For me this didn't click until I started really studying the models of Hardy-Weinburg equilibrium in mendelian genetics. I understood punnet squares intuitively, but recognising the equation as quadratic allowed me to fully rationlise the model and subsequently understand the implicit assumptions and caveats.
I will say one thing IG, I didn't understand this stuff in school. It was very much a black box of just-so stories; do this and this happens repeat twenty times kind of thing. I invested some money I earned in my final year of school on a Maths tutor, a really top bloke who had spent most of his adult life working in applied maths. It was only after this that the rather abstract concepts started to click into place. The only reason I got put in touch with this guy is because I approached my physics teacher, who knew clearly my level of understanding and was subsequently able to point me towards the correct person for additional tuition. Had I been lower or higher I have no doubt I probably would have been directed elsewhere.
Websites and books are helpful for sure, especially if you can find one directed to your level of understanding; but nothing beats one on one tuition particularly with Maths which can be quite abstract at times. The advice I could give is find the lecturer who is most likely to be empathetic of your situation and see if she/he can offer a practical solution for you bud.
Why did you ignore my second sentence? I go on to point out that brainwashing includes physical actions, not just reading.
The worst a book can be is incorrect. Programming and brainwashing take more than that. Books (of any topic) can be part of programming method, but not the method themselves. By themselves they are insufficient.
Muslims worship and emulate Muhammad.
Only by understanding him can one know what makes them tick. Understanding Muhammad begins with a brief history of his life. Muhammad had a loveless childhood. He then passed to the care of relatives who took pity on him and spoiled him. As the result he developed narcissistic personality disorder, a trait that made him a megalomaniac bereft of conscience.
Muhammad believed in his own cause. Even when he lied, he felt entitled and justified to do so. Thanks to another mental illness, namely temporal lobe epilepsy, the prophet of Islam had vivid hallucinations he interpreted as mystical and divine intimations.
He also suffered from obsessive compulsive disorder, causing his fixations on numbers, rituals and stringent rules. In the addition, he suffered from acromegaly, a disease caused by excessive production of a growth hormone resulting in large bones and odd facial features.
The combination of his psychological disorders and his unusual physiognomy made him a phenomenon that set him apart from ordinary people. His uneducated followers interpreted his differences as signs of his prophethood.
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Is there also a hell reserved for christians who did some very evil deeds too... like Hitler or Jerry Falwell, (I put them in the same category because of the amount of hatred both men excited in their followers).
So by your definition I am going to the same place after death as a person who murdered 6 mllion Jews simply because of their religious beliefs.
And only because I refuse to be believe in something that there is abslutely no evidence for.
Bit harsh????
You dont burn simply for not believing.
Ala does not throw you in Hell for rejecting Him.
He is not in a popularity contest, or a candidate in an election.
God is a lot more intelligent and reasonable then you can imagine.
No, what you should say is, "God is a lot of imagination".
Follow Up: Parents in faith-healing case never considered calling a doctor
OREGON CITY -- Carl and Raylene Worthington told detectives that they never considered calling a doctor, even as their 15-month-old daughter deteriorated and died.
"I don't believe in them," Carl Worthington said of doctors. "I believe in faith healing."
Raylene Worthington said that her religious beliefs do not encompass medical care and that she would not have done anything different for her - daughter, who died at home of pneumonia, a blood infection and other complications.
In Clackamas County Circuit Court on Wednesday, prosecutors played videotaped police interviews with the Worthingtons, who are accused of criminal mistreatment and manslaughter for failing to provide medical care for their daughter. Ava Worthington died March 2, 2008, after her parents and other members of the Followers of Christ tried to treat her with faith healing.
-Article continues off Site, courtesy Oregon Live.
Posted by Shinai_Gene on Saturday, July 04, 2009 @ 06:53:48 PDT (13 reads)
(Follow Up | Score: 0)
Archeology: Rabbit Sized Fossil Ancestor of Modern Day Elephant Found
Scientists have found the fossil of a 60-million-year-old creature in Morocco, which is the rabbit sized ancestor of the modern day elephant.
Paleontologist Emmanuel Gheerbrant discovered the rabbit-size proto-elephant’s skull fragments in a basin 60 miles (100 kilometers) east of Casablanca, Morocco.
The creature, called Eritherium azzouzorum, bolsters the case that whole new orders of mammals were already around less than 6 million years after global catastrophe ended the age of reptiles some 65.5 million years ago.
Elephant ancestors now join the likes of rodents and early primates as some of the first known mammals to walk the Earth during the Paleocene era, 65.5 to 55 million years ago (prehistoric time line), according to Gheerbrant.
With Mikey Weinstein's kind permission, I'm going to reprint an example of the kinds of letters and emails the Military Religious Freedom Foundation gets on a daily basis from active duty military personnel and their families. The details have been changed so as to maintain the anonymity of the person who wrote it but it is otherwise reproduced just as it came in. And bear in mind while you read this that MRFF has received more than 10,000 such communications.
Dear Mr. Weinstein and MRFF: I am absolutely worried about writing this to you, as I am terrified of the (military service branch withheld), but feel I have no choice. My husband is an honorable man, who I believe has been persecuted in the United States (military service branch withheld) for his refusal to cave in to the Evangelical agenda. He is a (rank withheld), waiting for his retirement, that he won as a part of his Court Martial proceeding in (time frame withheld). Mikey, I have never seen anything like this. My husband has a (educational degree and discipline withheld), taught at (university name withheld) where we often bucked the system regarding the proselytising and has had an honorable career (in the top 4% of rank withheld) in (military command name withheld) until a new command came in to (military installation name withheld) in (month and year withheld). Up until then he was considered to be an excellent candidate for (rank withheld) but we refused as he only wanted to retire and get away from the bible thumping. This command is evangelical in nature-and they harassed me all the way through my husband's court proceeding.
-Article continues off site, courtesy ScienceBlogs: Dispatches from the Culture Wars
Posted by Shinai_Gene on Monday, June 29, 2009 @ 23:48:23 PDT (123 reads)
(Military | Score: 1)
Religion: Pastor Promotes Bring Your Gun to Church Sunday
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Ken Pagano, the pastor of the New Bethel Church here, is passionate about gun rights. He shoots regularly at the local firing range, and his sermon two weeks ago was on “God, Guns, Gospel and Geometry.” And on Saturday night, he is inviting his congregation of 150 and others to wear or carry their firearms into the sanctuary to “celebrate our rights as Americans!” as a promotional flier for the “open carry celebration” puts it.
“God and guns were part of the foundation of this country,” Mr. Pagano, 49, said Wednesday in the small brick Assembly of God church, where a large wooden cross hung over the altar and two American flags jutted from side walls. “I don’t see any contradiction in this. Not every Christian denomination is pacifist.”
The bring-your-gun-to-church day, which will include a $1 raffle of a handgun, firearms safety lessons and a picnic, is another sign that the gun culture in the United States is thriving despite, or perhaps because of, President Obama’s election in November.
-Article continues off site, courtesy The New York Times.
Posted by Shinai_Gene on Friday, June 26, 2009 @ 12:58:50 PDT (173 reads)
(Religion | Score: 5)
Law and Justice: Texas Supremes uphold Special Rights for Religion
The Texas state supreme court ruled unanimously on Friday that a town which had altered its zoning to ban two church-sponsored halfway houses in a residential neighborhood was in violation of the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
That act, which was passed in 1999 and endorsed by then-Governor George W. Bush, affords greater legal protection to religious operations than to equivalent secular operations.
Under its provisions, cities have to prove that zoning regulations — like the one passed by the town of Sinton to ban jails and rehabs within 1000 feet of a home, school, or church — further a “compelling” interest, such as protecting public safety, and do not place a “substantial burden” on the free exercise of religion.
Town officials asserted that the zoning regulations placed no restrictions on worship or the practice of religion and were merely intended to protect the safety of residents. This position was upheld at the local and appeals court levels.
