Atheist Manifesto

yes but people who find such living acceptable in my eyes are part of the problem and i feel are a threat to those still sane with regards to how humans should exist. a little abstract maybe but i feel strongly about things like this it is all very troubling. the problem as im sure you know is that most people are extremely stupid and easily manipulated by the powers that be the future will be very bleak before it gets better at least as far as im concerned.

bicycle racer said:

yes but people who find such living acceptable in my eyes are part of the problem and i feel are a threat to those still sane with regards to how humans should exist. a little abstract maybe but i feel strongly about things like this it is all very troubling. the problem as im sure you know is that most people are extremely stupid and easily manipulated by the powers that be the future will be very bleak before it gets better at least as far as im concerned.

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I guess I actually agree completely on both. Because of this some people want to do things to change. Personally I just want to move to the middle of nowhere and attempt to be left very alone. I have a child who has 4 more years of school that keeps me from this now. I would not mind living with others in near proximity, but living in SoCal has me questioning if I could actually find more than a handful of like minded fools.

yeah me too in my optimal situation i would have access to a city village town center whatever but would live at least 5 to 10 miles from others except maybe a few select like minded individuals. some people crave technologically advanced 'easy city life' those are as i mentioned people i feel are a threat to mankind. not so much based on there conscious lifestyle choices but on there weak minds. stupidity to me is the greatest of all threats. extreme maybe but i dont think so.

Hayduke said:

I am glad you asked: "Declining Fruit and Vegetable Nutrient Composition" HortScience, 2009; 44:15


Very true. The compassionate Human in me says of course I would not want famine leading to the death of millions. However, the Biologist in me says, ABSOLUTELY!

Better millions than hundreds of millions...the resulting population explosion has been and continues, with few exceptions, to be exponential. Birth control was and still is the problem, and the Catholic church still does not get it.



I do not know about general light laws...I know that suburban communities do not want anything vertical as that kinda defeats the purpose. In SoCal there are light restrictions for the observatories as light interferes with the telescopes.



Useless resources is an oxymoron.

Actually I do not think that the human virus should break out of the earthly host, though if say 2/3rds tried and failed...no harm no foul....leave me the keys to the mountain retreat!



I agree. I also think that we are working harder to be able to afford all the things that are supposed to make are lives easier (work less). And why is it that we value work as much as we do? To me leisure is far more valuable.

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http://hortsci.ashspublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/44/1/15

Well, there's the abstract...

And yeah, it appears that the high yield, high growth (more plant mass) crops have some minerals at lower concentrations than lower yielding plants.

Makes sense when you think about it though. A plant that is bigger is going to have a lower concentration of whatever nutrients it absorbs, and as it can only gather nutrients from a limited area it is going to have to make do with what is there, so the bigger the plant, the lower the concentration if the area being tapped by its roots remains the same.

Hayduke said:

Useless resources is an oxymoron.



I agree. I also think that we are working harder to be able to afford all the things that are supposed to make are lives easier (work less). And why is it that we value work as much as we do? To me leisure is far more valuable.

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On the first sentence, well I suppose if its useless it's not a resource, but I was thinking of mercury inparticular. A neurotoxin that is only used in CFLs, and that is incredibly damaging to the environment. The greenest technology available is LED Lighting... though I heard that some researchers managed to build a incandescent that was more efficient than a CFL.


The second, true that, but one has to compensate the farmer for the time that they are being forced to use to work their fields, and thus one needs to produce something of value to be able to eat.

Either that or grow one's own food, which is probably a lot more difficult than it sounds, and expensive. I do not own the tillage to plant my own crops, or raise my own poultry or meat animals.

And then there's the vehicle that I bought for a chick that I'm stuck making payments on... didn't even get laid out of that CF...

So, C'est la vie, and alas, I am enslaved by my own past naivete (for just under 4 more years...), and the government, but I'm trying to avoid getting started on the government...

TheBrutalTruth said:

http://hortsci.ashspublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/44/1/15

Makes sense when you think about it though. A plant that is bigger is going to have a lower concentration of whatever nutrients it absorbs, and as it can only gather nutrients from a limited area it is going to have to make do with what is there, so the bigger the plant, the lower the concentration if the area being tapped by its roots remains the same.

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True about the limitation of making due with what is there. But as for a larger plant having lower concentrations of whatever nutrient or mineral just because it is larger...As long as it is present, this probably is not the case, as long as you are not comparing young small plants to old large plants, then by % it would be lower in the larger but older plant.

So the issue is two fold and separate.

First, modern farming techniques of intensive plantings with little or no rotations while adding only the limiting factors to plant growth (NPK)...soil has fewer minerals available, so little is taken up by the plants.

Second is the use of yield boosting nutes creating plants that also uptake less other minerals, even though they are available.

Both conditions could exist for some crops making the problem worse.

Also, I do not know, but it is likely, that plants that are selected for higher yields are also lower in nutrition...possible tripling the effect.

Just to take a step back...

I love that a thread originally meant to convey the ideas of non-religion has evolved to such topics as actually philosophizing about the way humans are meant to live and the problems we have caused by meandering away from the meaning in life and essentially the embrace of greed and corruption that has polluted our host Earth.

I wonder if religious discussions ever venture this far with intellectual thought.

How wonderfully bright, simple, and smart the world would be without religion. Our species does not need to debate over the purpose or the correctness of life. Instead, we should debate over the methods with which we live and how to make these methods more friendly to our host ecosystems. Oh, the potential.

Welcome to the club. I told my grandma I knew I was an atheist at the age of 4, she had a good laugh. Told me she wished she realized the BS and lies that young before wasting so much time with church.

i realized i was not religious and would not be very young and was an atheist for the early years of my life. i have matured as a human gained much knowledge and have had experiences since then which made atheism seem as lost to my eyes as religion.

turtleblood said:

Just to take a step back...

I love that a thread originally meant to convey the ideas of non-religion has evolved to such topics as actually philosophizing about the way humans are meant to live and the problems we have caused by meandering away from the meaning in life and essentially the embrace of greed and corruption that has polluted our host Earth.

I wonder if religious discussions ever venture this far with intellectual thought.

How wonderfully bright, simple, and smart the world would be without religion. Our species does not need to debate over the purpose or the correctness of life. Instead, we should debate over the methods with which we live and how to make these methods more friendly to our host ecosystems. Oh, the potential.

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Not necessarily, a great many scientists believe in a higher power, maybe not the church's higher power, but a higher power nonetheless.

Of course, I believe in a higher power as well, I just don't like the dual scams of organized religion and government. Both of which are built upon the premise of being there when you need help, and usually aren't... unless you are at the bottom, and then they want to help hold you down not help build you up.

TheBrutalTruth said:

Not necessarily, a great many scientists believe in a higher power, maybe not the church's higher power, but a higher power nonetheless.

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I suppose it depends on who you include as "scientists". I still think the statement is a huge exaggeration.

I believe in a higher power also...the Sun.

Lets all pray to the law of gravity!

einstein was known to in no way be an atheist i would say hes a scientist. most quantum physicists are not atheist though steven hawkings is atheist. it seems when you get to the higher levels of quantum physics most are not atheist its almost impossible in my eyes to study the workings of the universe and be atheist. someone can be intelligent in one way but lack critical thinking in other aspects of life. as with most things the truth lies somewhere in the middle in the grey.

Einstein, I'd say, was at least a weak atheist(his view on a 'personal god' and religions in general are quite clear, he regarded them all as childish superstitions). He has some funny quotes on religion. Though most scientists seem to stick with agnosticism(which is basically the same as weak atheism), which is more than fair.

Any scientist who claims otherwise is probably not worth listening to. As they've failed to apply the scientific method.

He clearly stated he did not believe in a personal god, souls, heaven/hell, divine miracles, or any sort of god which plays any role in human life, fate, or destiny. Not that "I'm unsure of whether there is/are god(s) or not", which is true agnosticism. That's not even close to what Einstein ever said.

One could say... that God to Einstein was Nature. Laws of the universe, matter and energy(existence), and spirit(thought, actions, morals, ethics, etc.).

He even claimed belief in Spinoza's God(which is not really a god at all, but a philosophy): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinozism

TeaTreeOil said:

Einstein, I'd say, was at least a weak atheist(his view on a 'personal god' and religions in general are quite clear, he regarded them all as childish superstitions). He has some funny quotes on religion. Though most scientists seem to stick with agnosticism(which is basically the same as weak atheism), which is more than fair.

Any scientist who claims otherwise is probably not worth listening to. As they've failed to apply the scientific method.

He clearly stated he did not believe in a personal god, souls, heaven/hell, divine miracles, or any sort of god which plays any role in human life, fate, or destiny. Not that "I'm unsure of whether there is/are god(s) or not", which is true agnosticism. That's not even close to what Einstein ever said.

One could say... that God to Einstein was Nature. Laws of the universe, matter and energy(existence), and spirit(thought, actions, morals, ethics, etc.).

He even claimed belief in Spinoza's God(which is not really a god at all, but a philosophy): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinozism

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Exactly right, Einstein did not believe in a personal God that intervened in human affairs, let alone the God of the bible...

Even if he did, that wouldn't mean anything about if God does exist or not. Exactly how saying he doesn't believe in God doesn't say anything about the existence of God. That's just one mans opinion.


Also, I would completely disagree with the statement that most (or even a majority percentage) physicists believe in God. (the way Einstein perceived God is not the same as what regular people refer to God as). Plenty of tests have shown that the higher the education level of an individual, the less religious they tend to be. Do you have any evidence to support that statement, BR?

bicycle racer said:

einstein was known to in no way be an atheist i would say hes a scientist. most quantum physicists are not atheist though steven hawkings is atheist. it seems when you get to the higher levels of quantum physics most are not atheist its almost impossible in my eyes to study the workings of the universe and be atheist. someone can be intelligent in one way but lack critical thinking in other aspects of life. as with most things the truth lies somewhere in the middle in the grey.

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To believe in quantum physics takes faith. It is all very difficult to test, and therefore for me hard to swallow. I am not saying that they are wrong about everything, I just think that a lot of physics will in time be proved wrong.

This is why I questioned the "scientists". Many fields that fall under the umbrella of science, are more pseudo-science and philosophy...Psychology using the emergent field of neurology to justify itself as anything more than several similar, yet all conflicting ideas (not theory!) on human behavior. The guys who make the "It's not creationism...it's 'intelligent design'" propaganda videos that are commonly distributed by the pre-med students to the real biology students, always have some weird title like Prof of BioSociology or they are Physicist of some shade or another.

My physics professor was Mormon and had like 8 kids.

i said nothing about personal gods or religion in any way and the scientific method you speak of you should know from previous posts that im not religious or naive as to the ways of the world. that said i stand by my statements and have read books written by einstein years ago he was a much more creative abstract thinking man than your average scientist. i think we as humans read the same words in different ways to suit what we prefer and is comfortable for our beliefs be it atheist religious or in between. im very science based but i have had my own observations and experiences i was not raised religious and was atheist for the first 20 years of my life i see my previous beliefs as childish now. there are some things that are absolutely unexplainable regarding the universe and will never be this is what leads highly intelligent individuals to be able to reconsider things regarding the complexities of our situation as humans. put simply faith is silly some things i know but cannot explain in words the human spoken language makes it impossible. i strongly think spiritual understanding or awareness is genetic as much as any other skill in life either mental or physical. peace

bicycle racer said:

i said nothing about personal gods or religion in any way and the scientific method you speak of you should know from previous posts that im not religious or naive as to the ways of the world. that said i stand by my statements and have read books written by einstein years ago he was a much more creative abstract thinking man than your average scientist. i think we as humans read the same words in different ways to suit what we prefer and is comfortable for our beliefs be it atheist religious or in between. im very science based but i have had my own observations and experiences i was not raised religious and was atheist for the first 20 years of my life i see my previous beliefs as childish now. there are some things that are absolutely unexplainable regarding the universe and will never be this is what leads highly intelligent individuals to be able to reconsider things regarding the complexities of our situation as humans. put simply faith is silly some things i know but cannot explain in words the human spoken language makes it impossible. i strongly think spiritual understanding or awareness is genetic as much as any other skill in life either mental or physical. peace

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What kinds of things are you talking about?

"Just to take a step back...

I love that a thread originally meant to convey the ideas of non-religion has evolved to such topics as actually philosophizing about the way humans are meant to live and the problems we have caused by meandering away from the meaning in life and essentially the embrace of greed and corruption that has polluted our host Earth.

I wonder if religious discussions ever venture this far with intellectual thought.

How wonderfully bright, simple, and smart the world would be without religion. Our species does not need to debate over the purpose or the correctness of life. Instead, we should debate over the methods with which we live and how to make these methods more friendly to our host ecosystems. Oh, the potential."

TheBrutalTruth said:

Not necessarily, a great many scientists believe in a higher power, maybe not the church's higher power, but a higher power nonetheless.

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Huh? When did I say anything about scientists or their beliefs? And this "great many" you speak of... most of them don't have all-too "scientific" degrees, like Hayduke said. Plus, even if you consider these pseudo-scientists just as valid as the rest of the scientific world, they still only make up a tiny fraction of the scientific community... and I mean tiny.

turtleblood said:

"Just to take a step back...

I love that a thread originally meant to convey the ideas of non-religion has evolved to such topics as actually philosophizing about the way humans are meant to live and the problems we have caused by meandering away from the meaning in life and essentially the embrace of greed and corruption that has polluted our host Earth.

I wonder if religious discussions ever venture this far with intellectual thought.

How wonderfully bright, simple, and smart the world would be without religion. Our species does not need to debate over the purpose or the correctness of life. Instead, we should debate over the methods with which we live and how to make these methods more friendly to our host ecosystems. Oh, the potential."



Huh? When did I say anything about scientists or their beliefs? And this "great many" you speak of... most of them don't have all-too "scientific" degrees, like Hayduke said. Plus, even if you consider these pseudo-scientists just as valid as the rest of the scientific world, they still only make up a tiny fraction of the scientific community... and I mean tiny.

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Wow, way to show off your lack of intelligence, or sophistication by insulting some of the greatest minds that this planet produced. Einstein, Oppenheimer, and so on and so forth.

Go be blinded by your bigotry some where else.