caplanjr

Comment Threads

• heteromeles commented on Crib Sheet: The Fuller Memorandum
  Actually, you didn't need to fix that, but I appreciate the gesture. The central paradox I like tackling is whether one believes what's in a book, or whether one believes the evidence of one's own senses, trained or not. This leads to some tricky issues. For instance, an atheist would say that someone who believes in the literal truth of the Bible is deluded, because they're believing a falsehood they've read. But what do atheists do about the people who claim to have seen God? Worse, what do they do when those people teach others to use their methods, and...
• paws4thot commented on Crib Sheet: The Fuller Memorandum
  Well, that last was part serious, part snark. I really don't care what anyone's views are, as long as they lead by "being nice to other people because they can be", and if they "go to service" it's because they actually want to do so rather than because they "want to be seen to do so" if you see the distinction? It was put that way because I find "evangelical atheism" every bit as annoying as "evangelical $religion". If you think your belief system is so great then show me by living it rather than by talking it at me!...
• kristian.m.pettersen commented on Crib Sheet: The Fuller Memorandum
  "Personally, I believe in the subjective existence of God. That seems strongly supportable by a mass of evidence, and it seems to be trainable and at least partially repeatable." And I believe in the existence of hallucinations brought on by recreational drugs. To go from the existence of the hallucinations to the existence of the stuff the hallucinations are about isn't performing a repeatable experiment. It is misunderstanding the nature of reality and our interactions with same. Sorry, but I am starting to see why you think science and religion are both based on faith. And "not having a clue...
• Zorro commented on Blogging for Orbit
  Natural uranium on Earth contains more like 0.7% U-235 rather than 0.2%, so Shin-Tethys uranium at 1% is richer in U-235 than natural uranium than Earth but not by that much. If we apply the implied correction factor to real isotopic abundance (U-235 is 5 times more abundant on Shin-Tethys relative to Earth) then we get natural uranium at 3.5% U-235 on Shin-Tethys, ready to fuel a light water reactor or a blue smoker without further enrichment. /isotope-pedant...
• Trottelreiner commented on Crib Sheet: The Fuller Memorandum
  Well, as for Ian Fleming, James Bond surely looked kinda scary, especially in his late years... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bond_(ornithologist) Come to think about it, names of famous ornithologists might be good as aliases for RPGs and like. Though you easily get into, err, strange territory, as with this German guy, author of the standard guide around WW2: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Günther_Niethammer For those not fluent in German, Niethammer joined the NSDAP and the SS in 1937, which might indicate he was more into it for the connections and not for the ideology. In 1940, he joined the Waffen-SS which used him for guard duty. In...