Scottmkiv

Members
  • Posts

    14
  • Joined

  • Last visited

About Scottmkiv

Previous Fields

  • Full Name
    Scott Connery
  • Looking or Not Looking
    not looking
  • Relationship status
    Married

Scottmkiv's Achievements

Newbie

Newbie (1/14)

0

Reputation

  1. Objectivist Podcast There's lots of good news for this week. The 10th amendment is making strides. Individuals now have standing to sue the federal government for overstepping its constitutional bounds. Obama holds a secretive golf summit. So much for his promised transparency. The senate votes to eliminate ethanol subsidies. It's about time!
  2. Objectivist Podcast On the agenda for today: Obama's contempt for the constitution and congress. He's blatantly ignoring the war powers act. Of course congress is too cowardly to vote for war, so it's hard to blame him too much. We talk about Ayn Rand vs. Jesus. Is the GOP trying to have its cake and eat it too? More than a third of businesses expect to drop healthcare coverage in 2014 when Obamacare's uglier provisions start to take effect. Lastly, a Kuwaiti politician is calling for the legalization of sex slavery. Apparently female POWs are the best candidates for a life of rape and torment. She checked with Islamic clerics and scholars, and her idea is totally Koran approved.
  3. Thanks, I'm happy to be here The talk is just Jeff and Me. We are avidly keeping up with the way the GOP is shaping up and lamenting it. I don't think Ron Paul would impose Christianity too much, although I can't say that I love his stance on abortion. http://www.ontheissues.org/tx/Ron_Paul_Abortion.htm I guess it was the best legal defense he could come up with on the spot, but it's still stunning to hear an Obama appointee make the argument. I really hope you are right, but it's never safe to assume the supreme court will rule logically. I do think you are right in this case though. Thanks for the support!
  4. I'm doing an Objectivist Podcast, and I hope some of you out there will enjoy it. It's a weekly show, and we mainly discuss current events. You can subscribe on iTunes (and I hope you will) or just follow the direct links I provide. 6/8/11 Objectivist Podcast There's more talk about the Republican presidential field. It's getting weirder and uglier, but it isn't getting any more appealing. Is a vaguely free market candidate who doesn't want to enforce Christian edict with the power of law too much to ask for? Apparently it is. We talk about Alan Greenspan's hypocrisy, and general idiocy. He is desperately trying to dodge the blame for the problems he caused, but we make sure to call him out on it. Not that Bernanke is any better, but he is truly Greenspan's intellectual protege. Next we move to Obamacare. The Solicitor General is claiming in court that the healthcare mandate isn't really a mandate. All you have to do to avoid it is earn less. It's a "let them eat cake" level of detachment from reality in today's economic climate. Finally, we get back to some international news. The Syrians are sacrificing their own people in order to paint Israel as the bad guy and regain the Golan heights. Of course, the only use they have for the Golan heights is to attack Israel. Doubtless, the world will blame Israel for the killings anyway.
  5. There's no way the payback is really 10 years, not even counting government subsidies. They always forget to add in the opportunity cost of spending 50k+ to put solar on your house. When you compare the panels to the return you could get from putting 50k in the stock market instead, the panels never catch up.
  6. The Obama administration just announced that it has guaranteed 3/4 of a billion dollars for a new Solar Power Plant to be constructed by a company called Solar Reserve. These funds are going to be spent producing a massive solar project in the desert of Nevada. When completed, the 2,950 acre plant is projected to output 100MW of power under optimal conditions. Needless to say, this isn't a project that would have happened without government intervention. Solar Reserve needed Federal loan guarantees, because private investors wouldn't have lent money under such favorable terms otherwise. In addition, the company acknowledges that the plant is needed due to a government mandate. Nevada law mandates that 15% of it's power must be produced from renewable sources. Green Power Fantasy
  7. "Beyond a shadow of doubt, May 21 will be the day of rapture and judgment." So declares Harold Camping. According to his "research", using the Bible as a calendar, he has calculated the exact day the world will end. His message has been taken up by many Christians and Christian churches across the nation. Retired MTA employee Robert Fitzpatrick spent his entire life savings buying billboards to warn others. There are many similar stories of people who have fallen for Camping's bs. What makes the situation even more amusing is that this isn't the first time Camping has predicted the end of the world. Camping originally predicted that the world would end on Sept 6, 1994. Clearly, the world didn't end then. So, rather than admit that he was wrong and that the bible doesn't predict the future, he claimed a calculation error. He forgot to carry the biblical one, and the real date should be May 21, 2011. Full Story Objectivist Podcast
  8. Yes, I 'm not sure I've ever heard someone espouse the belief that the world was created 4.5 billion years ago through natural processes, but that god created mankind within the past 10,000 years. I haven't even heard the claim that god created the world 4.5 billion years ago, but didn't bother getting around to "intelligently designing" humanity until a few thousand years ago. Systemic: of or pertaining to a system. Systematic: having, showing, or involving a system, method, or plan. I think either works.
  9. Yes, I think that's the heart of Christian morality. That's certainly true. Very little about Christianity is original. I'm trying to get Atheists to evaluate if they still have a reason to believe in altruism now that they have abandoned faith. I think that is exactly what Marxists have failed to do. They dropped god, but kept right on going with the rest of Christianity.
  10. Hope you respond to the critique that you confounded 'atheist' with 'unaffiliated'

  11. Scott: Really? How so? Adam Let me point out a few of the obvious universals. Each specific religion's god will obviously have some unique ones, but these apply to all religions of any size that I am aware of. Bodiless existent. If you don't have a physical presence, you cannot be said to exist. Omnipotent/Omniscient - Being Omniscient means knowing the future, knowing what future means you are powerless to change the future, and are therefore not omnipotent.
  12. In the past two decades, the rejection of religion has been on the rise. Atheists now account for 15% of our country. As our country becomes more rational and scientific, more and more people find faith lacking. Gone are the days when superstition ruled men's minds unchallenged. We demand evidence before we will believe in things. As a result, atheism is becoming more common. It's still a minority, but even those who still profess faith don't cling to it as fervently as they did in yesteryear. In the dark and medieval ages, religion not only dominated men's thoughts and beliefs, but it also controlled kings and nations. At first, "free thinkers" were able to flee to a few countries to escape persecution. Over time these radicals began to influence thought, philosophy, science, and culture. In large part the enlightenment of the Renaissance flourished as society stopped looking to faith to answer every question. The culmination of this philosophical shift came when the US constitution was written. It explicitly dethroned religion and said that congress could "make no laws respecting an establishment of religion". The overwhelming majority of the country was still religious, but the founders nonetheless saw the brutality that state sponsored religion could bring. Since then, people have tended to take their faith less seriously, or reject it altogether. This rejection raises several questions for the new atheist. He realizes faith makes no rational sense, but still holds on to the moral indoctrination of his childhood unquestioningly. Man needs a philosophy, an ethical framework for life. No matter how distasteful it may be, religion does provide such a framework. Have You Abandoned Faith but Kept Christian Morality?
  13. Sounds like you got religion. --Brant I got rid of religion. But since I cannot claim to know there is no god, from a purely epistemological standpoint, I have to call myself an agnostic. God, as conceived by all modern religions, is a contradictory concept. Therefore, it cannot exist. The standard cannot be be "agnosticism" towards any arbitrary concept. Are you agnostic about unicorns? Really? The burden of proof lies with the person making a positive claim. Effective epistemology demands this. Otherwise you will be paralyzed by the thought that Allah, Huitzilopotchli, or Ahura Mazda might frown on any given choice you make.
  14. Hi Scott -- your post got some critical comment by a few of us.

  15. Nine Countries are on the Path to Atheism It seems like the religion in the U.S. is a juggernaut that will be nigh unstoppable in the next decade or two. It's seemingly impossible to get elected without being openly and devoutly religious. George Bush claimed to receive divine commandments on how to perform his job. President Obama has made sure his church attendance receives plenty of attention too. Some question his sincerity, but no one questions that this is the politically smart thing to do. George Bush famously said that Islam is a religion of peace despite all the evidence to the contrary. 40% of U.S. citizens are strict young earth creationists. There are constant efforts to insert religion into our schools. It's clear that religion has quite a hold on the minds of America. It's not all bad news though. Even in America Atheism is on the rise. People claiming no religious affiliation constitute the fastest growing religious minority in many countries throughout the world. Americans without religious affiliation comprise the only religious group growing in all 50 states; in 2008 those claiming no religion rose to 15 percent nationwide, with a maximum in Vermont at 34 percent.