All of Wesmaster160's Comments + Replies

I'm a math major, and taking pretty much only math classes, which basically don't deal with any of these topics. I did take an online Intro to Macroeconomics course, and it did seem pretty pro-Capitalist, not overtly, but it in subtle ways made claims about socialism not being effective and such.

This post reminds me a lot about the different models in the Video Game industry; One-time purchase, Periodic subscription payments, and Free-to-play. I think the "Free-to-play" model would work in a sense for your idea of combining the best of both worlds. Say for instance, as you did, that Google worked on a not-for-profit platform. And let's say that to keep down on any monopolization, they released all of their data to the public. Just as the "Free-to-play" games offer cosmetic items and such for monetary purchases, perhaps this not... (read more)

Playing the Devil's Advocate is a great way to teach wariness to just taking idea's at face value, and will also develop your child's ability to work out why the statements are wrong. Another practice that me and my mother would do is have a conversation, and let it flow to where it may. At some point, we would then stop the conversation and try to follow the flow backwards to the original point of the conversation. While it sounds mundane, I now look back on it as great practice in following my train of though, and seeing why I think what I think.

There are lots of mysteries in the world. But the truth is that maybe... those things aren't all that mysterious at all... Maybe they're just things I don't know about yet. And that's why they seem mysterious.

--Your partner in Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity

Since the post starts with "Many Christians who've stopped really believing', let's consider a Christian who does believe. If I was looking at a religious text, I'm pretty sure an artistic work would not inspire me to believe in any diety. But, a text that attributes the creation of existence to a diety while also giving me historical facts that at the time I may be able to verify, such as lineage, armies defeated by the Isreal tribes, and the such, then I would be more likely to follow this diety. As a Christian, and proud of it, maybe I am just providing justification for my all ready decided bottom line, but I believe that this arguement is logical.

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2DanielLC
So, if someone wrote down his religeon a thousand years ago, you won't believe it, but if he adds some current events you will? That would only show that it was written at the time and not made up later. It doesn't make their beliefs correct. If they give a lot of detail it might be evidence that what they wrote about miracles was correct (If the miracles were exaggerations, some of the historical facts would probably be exaggerated too). You said that they should have historical facts that you are able to verify. I would consider this a fact justification unless you actually verify it. You might argue that someone else would have checked, and you'd know about it. Someone did check, but you wouldn't know about it. The Bible does not have a perfect historical record. For example, it describes a large exodus of Isrealites that never happened.

Im not taking a side on this little arguement, but Jacob posted an arguement against atheists, and the two examples of counter-evidence given were about agnostics. Did I miss something?

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0TobyBartels
The replies are a bit narrowly and inappropriately focussed, considering how universally bad Jacob's post was. (I can go through it more thoroughly if you think that this would be worth while.) I can only guess that xandam is a fan of Warren Buffett, so that a reference to donations by atheists (of some sort or other) caught his eye.
8HonoreDB
Those of us who do take either side generally count agnostics as atheists. Atheists do so due to a Russell's Teapot, empiricist-type attitude (and the political advantages of counting the more polite members of a tribe).