But I have to ask you, on what grounds do you suggest most actors or actresses are idiots? Are we to believe that they don't read newspapers, books, are not interested in learning, nor have an interest in Politics?

Are we supposed to suspend reason - which dictates that they are most likely normal people with concerns about who is running their country and who they think has the best implementable and beneficial policies (or vice versa) for the sake of indulging the stereotyping of an internet poster who may also be an idiot and has little knowledge about the candidates as well?

There could be. And this would have absolutely no impact on whether Big Bang cosmology is correct.

"to have such a force to create the big bang theory, there would have had to be something out there to create the big force, surely."

And we descend into an infinite regression of inquiry that ultimately leads us nowhere and does not increase our understanding of anything.

"my vote is god purely because sometimes, you need to think outside the square you live in right??"

Isn't that precisely what we did? For many, many centuries standard knowledge told us that the phenomena within the universe were created or at least guided into existence by god/gods/goddesses/forces/dragons etc... god was and is the "square". Now we have a model of the universe that helps us account for universal constants, experiment and manipulate these phenomena, and increase human knowledge.

Big Bang cosmology helped us leave the square "god did it" rhetoric and expanded our understanding of the universe.

"For sure science has gone a long way but they are trying to prove that the atmosphere created the big bang theory because the more they "research" the more money they get out of the findings, correct?"

This is completely wrong.

Switch to Linux; Ubuntu is pretty damn sweet. You can get all the porn you want/need and Linux doesn't have the market share that Windows has, so there aren't many viruses out that can even really touch it and it's designed for one user (as opposed to windows which is specifically designed for multiple users: in that windows has many ways of being penetrated... sexually.)

Stop looking at pornography. That simple act solves 98% of virus and spam related computer problems. And if you're not looking at porn... cough ... use an internet condom.

But really, the best and most exciting events of the Olympics are the pure track and field events.

I hear that all the time: when they're pandering to religious fundamentalists (many are religious fundamentalists), to lobbying groups, to major corporations etc. It's not something unique to democrats.

Sometimes what people need to hear is what they want to hear. For instance, the need for a politically strong-willed president stems from a perception of vulnerability or weakness. This in turn transfixes the want of individuals towards the ideal of a strong leader.

"They don't mince words to make their speeches all prettiful like the Democrats, the go straight to the point and take actions that are necessary to keep this country on top, rather than actions that we want to happen that will eventually make us more vulnerable to attack from enemy countries."

Instead of making unfounded generalizations, it's important to recognize that there are some republicans who do lie, who do mince words, who do pretty-up their speeches and who do pander to what people want to hear as opposed to what is reflective of reality. Just like there are democrats who do the same.

We are talking about politicians here.

"But we do not need to assume that just because the person is a minor, they cannot understand what is being done."

Actually we can. Increased understanding of brain development shows that within the teenage years, neurological development isn't particularly sufficient to provide teenagers with a rounded foundation for making mature decisions. The likelihood of a 14 year-old girl or boy having the faculties to seriously consider the short and long term consequences of such action is questionable at best.

"There are reasons why we have judges and juries who take the time to think about whether anyone has been wronged; because it requires human judgment to determine this."

Actually, it requires adult reasoning. That's why we don't put kids on the jury stand.

"Mechanical special-cased laws, such as those prescribing definite age limits, can never accurately describe what is moral."

But they can prescribe limitations that are beneficial for proper child development.

"To say that taking a photograph or painting or other depiction of a naked minor is wrong in all cases is tantamount to saying that nudity itself is wrong - a view I simply do not understand."

You can't understand it because this is absolute nonsense. It's patently, demonstrably absurd.

It certainly doesn't make him a pedophile. In and of itself. But he's not asking underage children to pose for "art" in a public arena. A private pool rented for family use and the public sphere are two different places and atmospheres of consideration.

"Obviously exploitation of a person is wrong, no-one is arguing against that - but what you are doing is jumping to the conclusion that the portrayal of underage nudity must be for purposes of exploitation, and this is simply not so."

How are you not exploiting fourteen year-old boys and girls by having them pose naked in order to be criticized and exposed for public consumption?

But it would also invariably lead to media outlets not simply skewing what they report, but entirely misrepresenting ostensive reporting and thereby no longer "reporting" national, international or local events. The very idea of journalism would lose all of its credibility.

If one follows where the evidence leads, we see a planet and universe that is diametrically opposed to design or hyperagency, one that is probably devoid of divine touch and one that is very, very much a natural phenomenon contingent on natural processes.

But consider for a moment what you state here. You would "rather". For you, it's a matter of preference and not a matter of what accurately explains and accounts for the world around us. You want to exist in the comfort of tradition and the safety of ignorance in the same way that a young child might ignore the fact that he or she is devoid of companionship because they would prefer to remain in the comfort of their imaginary friendship with their imaginary friend.

"It doesn't make sense to say that if you look at a car, that somehow everything crashed together and made a car that RUNS."

You're absolutely right. And we can demonstrate precisely why that wouldn't make sense. We use artificial designs to produce and manufacture artificial objects called cars that exist to serve a specific human purpose. And we can demonstrate to you how that car was precisely built, we can even show you the philosophy of transportation leading to the development of the car, we can even take you to a manufacturing plant and watch humans and other robots assemble the car for you if you want. But the universe and the planet earth are not cars.

The universe is a product of elemental forces acting upon one another. It might seem very complex, but it's just a combination of simple interactions overlapping with one another in various ways.

"This "powerful being" already thought of that and gave us a book that he inspired called the bible. "

And many Biblical scholars can attest to the fact that the Bible more than likely isn't the product of divine revelation or divine production. In fact, because of the various writing styles in the Bible, Biblical scholars know almost unequivocally that many of the books in the Bible have multiple authors from various cultural sources over varying periods of time. The Bible is folklore.

"He gave it to us so that we could know more about him"

And we can be fairly certain that this is wrong - insofar as reality and the history of human life is concerned. But I recognize that this is what you would "Rather believe". This is your preference. It has little to do with reality or human history. This is what you would like to believe. But there is nothing objectively or ontologically true about your beliefs, and god-belief tends to oppose reality and transforms the worldview of many into something unreal and unrepresentative of how the world and the universe really works. And this is precisely why you have to "rather believe" it. And I won't knock you for it.

But god doesn't exist. And any complex definition of god, as Paul Tillich would conclude, is simple idolatry and revokes the divine status of god, transforming that status into a very pedantically human entity absolutely devoid of its uniqueness.

So an important question is when will high polluting nations step from acknowledgment to implementation and even more importantly when will they be able to make a meaningful shift.

A democracy doesn't imply freedom of speech. It only implies at the very least that within a population of citizens there exists equality in representation. And political correctness certainly doesn't stifle either dialogue or idea because it is dependent on those things occurring in the first place. It merely accentuates a way in which we go about relating to other people - filoksenia.

Political correctness is one of the social tools that allows a democracy to thrive. It ensures that individuals and groups of individuals are capable of communicating their ideas as efficiently as possible. I can honestly juxtapose a politically correct environment with one that lacks political correctness and you will often see diametrically opposed environments - the former being the most productive and the latter being unproductive. And there are very simple and practical reasons as to why politically a-correct environments aren't particularly productive.

Thankfully they do. The conclusion that is inherent to atheism does not necessarily follow from any know logical method. And its subject is impossible to deduce. It is therefore illogical on every level. This isn't about defining logic such that it's equivalent to reason, because you can reason well and use very rational argumentum and still be illogical. This is about whether the conclusion that god does not exist can be inferred logically. And it can't.

If you don't accept that basic fact of thought and Western language, and so far you haven't - as evidence by your original dissent, then I can only come to one conclusion: you don't know what you're talking about and this is out of your league. Not in the sense that it is above you, but in the sense that you're ignorant of the important, relevant information.

I have taken a step back. Read that and ingest it carefully.

I have to teach this stuff in my critical thinking and creativity course to students your age (assuming you are 17), who are just as presumptuous as you are. So when I'm being lectured by sophomores about issues of language and proper thinking, I think I have an obligation as an educated philosopher and member of the American public to be a bit pretentious and condescending. I apologize if it's offended your dainty sensibilities.

I know that penguins have feathers. Please don't make a habit of selective reading comprehension. I already covered this in the preceding posts.

"You can't make a logical argument that penguins aren't birds based on the fact that they don't have feathers, because they do, thus invalidating your argument."

"All birds have feathers. Penguins don't have feathers. Therefore, penguins are not birds" is a valid, deductive argument because the conclusion necessarily follows from the premises. That's all a valid argument is. No one is claiming that it is correct. Again, I already went over this in preceding posts.

The fact that penguins have feathers only makes the argument wrong, not illogical. Wrong ≠ Illogical. Please don't respond until you have a firmer grasp of any form of logic. Would you like some free lessons?

It's a great example of unreasonable logic. Logic is only concerned with how we move from premise(s) to conclusion, not what that conclusion is. I could concoct an outright lie of epic proportions and still make a logical argument to support that lie.

"But I tend to view "illogical" as meaning going against logic and/or reason, and being as there is no solid logic and/or reason on the side of believing in god/gods either, it doesn't seem to work."

But it does seem to work. You've admitted that here: "To me, you're essentially making the argument that any stance on a god or gods' existence cannot be built on solid logic, being as there is no solid evidence, which I agree with."

So, either you agree or you don't agree. Whether theistic claims have no logical foundation is irrelevant to whether atheism is logical or illogical.

If you cannot present a formal proof, or even a proof at all, then you have no grounds on which your claim "my reasoning is valid" stands. Point: valid reasoning only exists in formal predicate logic.

"we can only make rational decisions about the existance of god through past evidence and observation, not formal logical proofs. To say they are equally illogical, whilst maybe true in formal logic theories, isn't true in the real world."

Here is where you concede. Maybe knowingly or unknowingly. We can only make rational decisions about the existence of god as atheists - and the real world that is all we are doing: making rational decisions about god, not logical ones.

"Formally, atheism is illogical as there is no formal proof against god... But in the real world, my reasoning is more "sound" than that of a believer in god. I'm taking a far more logical approach."

QED, I suppose. Atheism is illogical, but rational. That's all I've ever argued.

I can't believe I got down points just to eventually be agreed with.