You've brought in many other topics and arguments, such as those who use religion for selfish and evil acts. I guess that means this discussion is over for now, unless you really want to go off into those arguments.

I'm also fairly confident that you probably realize that many Christians don't take the literal seven days argument and do believe in the entire theory of evolution...

I would stop there, but you ended your post with "Perhaps not yet..." which again leads me to confusion. If you think science can prove or disprove God, then I think we've gone full circle and are back to the original debate. It's not possible for a closed system (science) to say anything about that system's creator (or lack thereof). I thought you agreed on that point already, but maybe not...

"Further, the existence of a single fact -- someone named Jesus did exist in Roman times -- even if true, doesn't provide proof "

Ok come on now, surely you don't expect me to write pages and pages of facts and evidence on slashdot. Give me some leeway here ... that was *an example* of a fact ... surely you can respect me enough to at least assume I'm being brief for the sake of a discussion. Anyone who thinks Jesus existed and becomes a Christian based on that *sole fact* is a fool. Ok?

"I have a series of books about a talking bear and his friends. The book exists. The stories exist. But is the bear real? I believe that he does. Do you? If not, prove it."

Of course I can't prove that he doesn't exist, just as you can't prove that god doesn't exist. But I can look at the world around me and find evidence that points me strongly in one or the other direction.

I agree this is often a semantics issue on how people use the term "faith". My main problem with this arises when you link religious faith to the realm of "silly things that science can't prove", such as talking bears. Your belief that there is no god is just as strong as someone's belief that there is a god. Defaulting to the opinion that since science can't prove it, let's not believe it, is a lazy position in my opinion. Either there is a god, or there isn't. One of those options is true, and science cannot answer it. It remains for you to investigate the question, look at historical evidence, current people's experiences, etc. etc., to come to the most plausible answer. However, if you choose not to investigate simply because "science can't prove it" ... yes, that is a blind faith position.

I'm curious how you verify that your mother loves you, or that what you did yesterday actually happened. Have you verified that you slept last night, and didn't disappear into the ethos to fly around the city unconsciously? Can you verify that your decision to drive home tonight won't lead to a fatal car accident? Or will you just have faith in your driving, and choose to do so?

This might sound silly to you, but in reality, you make faith/trust decisions every single day that you cannot verify. They are often one-time events, and you use past evidence and your history to make your best judgment given the evidence. This can be said about what you call religious faiths as well ... there is past evidence that their claims could be true (e.g., someone named Jesus did exist in Roman times). You may choose to ignore that or conclude that the evidence is not strong enough, but the debate should then be about that evidence ... your redefining of "faith" and "trust" is really a disingenuous way to discredit religious belief as "something different and not worthy of discussing", rather than having a real discussion about it.

You are describing blind faith, not faith in general. If I wanted to be more direct: you are describing a straw man.

When you posted your comment here, you didn't know it would appear on this page, but you had past evidence that you relied on, and assumed it would work. You had faith that it would appear, and that faith was based on some prior evidence that you deemed worthy. The point of this article is that people don't understand key aspects of science, but have evidence that the scientists haven't led them astray in the past, and so put their FAITH in what they are told. I am willing to bet that you don't know much about quantum physics, but have faith that the theory has some true groundings.

The same is true of most religions. There is evidence that their claims are true (e.g., someone named Jesus did exist in the past, and there is significant evidence that he was executed by the Romans). You may dismiss this or believe that the evidence is not enough to believe in, but those who do believe it are a far cry from the strawman "blind faith" you describe. Have some respect, and realize that you put your faith in lots of things every single day of your life.

Great website addressing just your question at BioLogos. On a base level, they are Christians who believe exactly as you say about evolution. On a detailed level, well, there are lots of details. My understanding is a lot of "real" scientists eventually developed this resource. People like Francis Collins, the guy who decoded the human genome ... currently appointed by Obama to head the NIH, are involved.

Lastly people take risks in the name of discovery and production.

Kind of like all of that awesome energy we get from releasing CO2 as a byproduct? Releasing all that CO2 is a risk we currently take in the name of production.

Your line of reasoning to support this project is perfectly transferrable to someone arguing that it's worth the risk to burn coal and oil instead. The only difference appears to be that you personally support drilling.

You only think the TARP thing was "needed" because somebody told you it was.

How do you know there weren't any banks making loans? To homebuyers? Or to businesses? When the news told you they weren't making loans, did you find out which they were talking about? Were businesses looking for loans in the first place? OR were businesses interested in shoring up their own books before getting more loans? This is all past tense, "were", how do you know businesses want loans now? Home prices haven't gone up, so shouldn't they be in the same situation?

If I sound patronizing, it's because I am. I find that the vast majority of people who state opinions on TARP, like yourself, have no answers to any of those questions. You just think it was good because whoever you voted for told you so.

The parent you replied to actually had rationalizations for how loans and risk work in a marketplace. You should start learning there.

Yes, because the prohibitive cost of textile products is what we desperately need to fix right now.

Averaging is obviously a problem, but the standard number of tests a DUI requires is two. The police take two tests of your breath, and use the resulting number. Done. Hence this averaging error really isn't that serious...

But regardless, what the article doesn't say is that the machines have internal tests on a *known BAC sample* and verify with themselves that they are reading the known number. If the incorrect reading ever comes back, the machine refuses to function. This test is run automatically before every single test on a suspect, it's automatic. So regardless of how crappy the code is, it's kind of a black-box-magic that gets verified, and so you can be confident that the thing works.

Complain about some stupid while loops and if statements, but if it works, it works. No?

Actually your complaint is misguided. You are arguing that there must be evidence to believe something. People who believe in a virgin birth do so without what you would call evidence.

That's fine, but it is entirely different from someone who sees evidence and rejects its implication. "Believing without evidence" and "seeing evidence and believing" are two completely separatable beliefs.

Your linking of virgin-birth-believers to those that reject RNA evidence is totally distinct. Sure, they may be the same class of people, but using one belief to slam the other makes no sense.

Or maybe you're just bitter because you got PWNED by his odd convoluted understanding of what evolution is. He is so far correct on bird flu not reaching humans!

Actually, long lives pollute the planet more than short lives. So do you want less pollution to live longer, or to live longer to pollute more?

You should really figure out what your end goal is first before building straw men.

I'd love to have my own jet plane to get across the country faster too. But I don't have the money to buy it. You see, I stop spending when I'm out of money. $10 trillion in debt, and counting... Sure, let's buy a new shiny train! Weeee!

Why do you want to limit economic improvement to certain people?

I think this is a disingenuous question. Either that, or you have no family, no friends, and don't talk to your neighbors. It's at the core of mankind to form relationships. It easily follows that you want those people who you've formed relationships with to succeed.

I could continue, but it'd repeat what a couple others already said. I find it hard to believe you truly are asking that question anyway.

Well the US has declared CO2 to be a pollutant. So we've already declared the life requirement of exhaling to be a polutant. It's actually a step backward to ban your methane filled booty.