Weekly Posts, Week1, 2, 3, 4, 5

I ran across google authors on youtube, and found an awesome one with
charles hitchens. He starts out with about a 20 minute recap of his
book, God is not great, and discusses a few things of religion
poisoning our efforts and accomplishments as man in this day and age.
Then he answers questions from the audience

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7205668993419299046&vt=lf&hl=en

Here's another shorter interview of Hitchens, where he talks about the
frustration as he feels many are forced to believe in God. He felt the
timing was right to publish his book with the war, and so much turmoil
going on with distension among the country.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YPmt8TUoX4

Sun Oct 5, 2008 5:13 pm

When Lane talked about how our brains are divided, and how we weren't
able to comprehend anything too complex, I wanted to check out to see
what some other people thought. In this link the argument is we use
our imagination to try to make sense of things we don't understand,
and give a basic interpretation to conclusions we want answers to
(even if they aren't there).

http://novan.com/god.htm


This is a great website, and gives a brief outline of all the lectures
so far. It starts with Einstein being a realist, and stating that
everything that happened is due to another subsequent action. Then
Newton, providing us he outline of the earths rotation around the sun,
and with time and motion you can figure out paths to find speeds, and
start times. But this does not apply to quanta.

http://www.eequalsmcsquared.auckland.ac.nz/sites/emc2/tl/philosophy/dice.cfm

Mon Sep 22, 2008 8:49 am

After starting to read Hitchens book, God is Not Great, I really
wanted to learn more about his history, childhood, and past
experiences. He makes a lot of bold statements, and I didn't know if
he had some bad/enlightening experiences in his past to shape his
character. He was involved in many left sided clubs and organizations
growing up, and has a ton of education, basically in economics,
philosophy and politics. He is extermely knowledgeable of various
religions, practices and political issues. He has been all over the
map in terms of opinions (protested vietnam war, but in favor of
bush's re-election and the Iraqi war. Its a good read, especially if
you are reading his books.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Hitchens


Dawkins is another guy I wanted to know more about. Richard Dawkins is
an evolutionary biologist, and received most of his education from
Berkley. He is against the idea of creationism, saying it is something
we make up in our mind and want to believe. Evolution is a proven
thing, and something that has been observed, just not observed in the
process. Here's a link to his bio:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins

Mon Sep 29, 2008 10:07 pm

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Here's a cool website where you can look at any verse in the bible,
with all the various translations of the books of the bible.

http://www.blueletterbible.org/


Dave also talked about how many religions tend to defend, instead of
falsify their beliefs and teachings ... one of the best known
apologetics Christian books I know of is "Evidence that Demands a
Verdict" by Josh MdDowell. Here's a guys opinion of the book in review..

http://www.islandnet.com/~luree/evidence.html

Sat Sep 13, 2008 3:18 pm

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After reading and watching those you tube videos, I think its
important to really check and see what the definition of religion is
to different people. To that Freeman Dyson guy, religion is just a
community based on ethics and morals, more so than a devine god.

This guy breaks down religion into people with the same interests,
with similar rules, who live similar ways that live a way of life.
Creed, Code, Ethics and Conduct. Religion doesn't have to have faith
in a God, creator, or neither. It could just stand for a group of
people living together with the same interests, laws, morals and way
of life, as described below:

http://www.crosscurrents.org/whatisreligion.htm


The Dead Sea Scrolls are an important part of biblical history,
proving the translation and relevance of the old testement. When they
were found in 1947, they contained parts of Genesis, Psalms, Danial
and about 15 other books of the old testiment. Here you can see
pictures, and learn more about the scrolls

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea_scrolls

Thu Sep 18, 2008 2:34 pm

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