194 comments

• Comment Link Friday, 29 March 2013 10:58 posted by pat

  I enjoyed the show but don't understand the voting. Couldn't the "victory" be rigged simply by many people claiming to be undecided in the initial vote, when in fact they are not?

• Comment Link Friday, 29 March 2013 08:02 posted by Jake

  This was a great debate. I felt like the Con side came into a hostile audience though.
  
  I personally liked the point that was something to the nature of "You cannot disprove God anymore than you can prove a thought."

• Comment Link Tuesday, 26 March 2013 09:07 posted by Dan

  I have a few comments.
  
  This was the most emotionally charged debate I've ever come across on iq2. Both sides have emotional reasons to push their side.
  
  I would also like to put forth that I have personally seen a tangible, real & verifiable miracle. (young man cured of aids with no real treatment, he was born HIV positive & now tests flat 0)
  
  Best argument from each side (in my view):
  
  Theists
  Science has no power to say anything about God because God is not bound by it's rules & he operates in realms that cannot be consistently observed.
  
  A-theists:
  When one does scientific experiments one must not expect the likelihood of miracles in order for scientific findings to have any reliability.

• Comment Link Saturday, 23 March 2013 21:52 posted by Alex

  @John Stark while I do believe in G-d, I have to comment that your argument is based on the assumption that G-d does actually exist, and is therefore moot.

• Comment Link Saturday, 23 March 2013 21:49 posted by Alex

  I would like to say that I was very disappointed during the debate when the question regarding out of body experiences was not answered.
  
  One can find the most compelling experiences from patients who were pronounced dead but miraculously came back to life. The question is, what does it mean to be pronounced dead? If thoughts and consciousness are related with brain, nerve, and electric signal, then how could a legally dead person, that is to say that their brain and therefore conciousness has shut down, experience anything at all?
  
  I believe in G-d; however, I do not think that everyone has to. I only think things that are wrong should be corrected and things that cannot possibly be answered correctly can not possibly have a correct answer.

• Comment Link Saturday, 23 March 2013 20:07 posted by Kai Jones

  I agree with the believers of God or theologians. When something is concrete and truth it stays the same forever. God and the story of us remains the same and does not change based on trends and opinions of the times and zeitgeist.
  
  Not only can science provide no proof of anything, it cannot seem to make it's mind up.
  
  One minute it is this idea, belief, and theory, and then next, it is another idea belief and theory, and all presented as if it is fact, but it isn't because fact is concrete and remains the same for all to see and know.
  
  Science is blind people in darkness and are like the ignorant and blind witch hunters that had no proof of people being witches, but insisted that they were and contradictingly did things to people in the name of God that God says not to do.
  
  They do not see that the old testament along with the whole bible from begining to end is the story of how sin came to be, God making aware to mankind the existence of his sin by laws that were given to show humans their inability to love and follow basic principles and instructions, and the happiness that they should now have having their sin erased through the sacrifice of a sinless body taking the place of sinful ones that were bound for destruction because God is love, and perfect love and harmony, and evil is contrary to who he is and what he created life to be, and will be destroyed as rotten fruit is discarded and good fruit is kept and eaten.
  
  The creator God created man and all life perfect and to live forever. Evil is what a life form became and so disconnection from the perfect condition of health with no disease for eternity, man died physically and became susceptible to disease and illness that was inherited with his sin.
  
  The creator of the inherited perfection of love good and eternal life and perfect health which is who and what God is, creates life that way and can give it to a person that has lost it because it is who he is, how he creates when he creates things in his image, and is a giver of life and is good and never a deliverer of death or evil, hence the creator performing what science calls a miracle which is God doing what he does, giving life and perfect health.
  
  It is not feasible to a person who has accepted their notion of what life is, to believe that, and neither is it feasible for a person who 'believes', that what we see, is all that there is, and their conclusions, are the only ones that make sense to them as if they are detectives of logic, yet however, are ignoring the revelation of God and creation and sadly and foolishly, believe that if anything is done, it can only come from nature, and from the mind, discovery, and hands of a man alone, without any pre and former revelations from God, or any instructions from him.
  
  Mankind see's himself as great but it is based on selective views and not on the views that prove that he is not great and in fact, is a orchestrator of chaos, and all his ideas are based on his own reasoning, and not truth and fact.
  
  That is why we have a world of 'divided' opinions and ideas. If there was one truth to mankinds greatness would not man have the same mind all over the world to create harmony love, peace, and oneness of mind cooperation?
  
  Science is ideas and assumption that are thoughts and views that change like fashion and trends.
  
  In fact science is based on trend and not concrete fact that last forever and can never be disputed.
  
  Ideas, hypothoses, and theories are eventually considered outdated, and deemed primitive, and obsolete, by predecessors all the time, and that is what science is, and all that it is.
  
  A belief and views that caters to human 'vanity' based on his admiration of himself because of abilities that come from God that lead him to believe that he can live without God and sustain and rule and lead himself without any guidance, and input from God.
  
  The technology, and creations of his hands during a 'particular' point in time becomes the popular and accepted idea of that day, and time, and what he uses to further his impressed with, and vain view of himself, but it is soon seen as outdated and obsolete later by people who think in their vanity that they are more advanced that the previous generation and generations.
  
  Never coming to one point of knowledge, but claiming instead to have better ideas than the last bundle of ideas.
  
  Scientist do not agree and Science cannot make it's mind up! One minute researchers say and studies show and say that something is good for us, and the next minute they say that it is bad, and recant former claims, that they insisted on, and present as facts using the term 'studies show'.
  
  Ideas, beliefs and assumptions based on 'no' knowldege is what science in itself is.
  
  If we has facts and concrete knowledge of all things then science would not exist and need to exist. Science exists because mankind is 'searching' for answers (because he is blind and does not know, because he has rejected God's truth) and so the 'existence' of science itself can and is defined my the definition and phrase 'not knowing' and so are searching'.
  
  So by that very definition science cannot claim, or refute, 'anything' because it is full of theories and 'momentary reasonings' that are later replaced by other theories, and reasonings due and based on a blind and or, 'science' mind and view, and it exists because man has formulated his own 'belief and defintion' of what is, and why it is there, and it exists, and is on a search because he doesn't know, but he doesn't 'know' because he has rejected what God has already shown and told him, and us'.
  
  It reminds me of the expression: "no matter how much things change they remain the same."
  
  'Progress' and 'evolution' is a delusion brought on by the disbelief of God.
  
  Mankind is sadly blinded by (the devil Revelation 12:9) his own sin and technology and sees 'advancement'.... yet human nature, and war, and greed and corruption and barbaric acts and crimes are committed toward one another daily, since the begining of what God has shown us from the begining, ... that explains sin, and why it exists.
  
  Cain and Able, the Roman and Egyptian Empires, and all other Empires that people foolishly think that we don't 'resemble' because of what they believe is a time 'difference', not realizing that on a scale of eternity the begging and the Roman empire was just yesterday!
  
  A mankind, and all generations, plunging head first into destruction, because they foolishly believe that yesterday is not linked to today on the scale of time and eternity.
  
  As things get worse, 'technology' and the vanity of each new generation that believes that it was better and is more 'advanced' than the previous, ignores the reality and signs that it in fact 'isnt' and is blinded by the admiration of the work of their hands, and the vanity that comes with it, while they make the same mistakes of the past, and worse, but due to vanity and technology they don't see it.
  
  Science wants to have it both ways. They want to tell you that their ideas, hypotheses, and theories are fact, but when they are proven wrong, they immediately use the escape Clause= 'it is "science" and so it was always just a 'theory' to begin with, because that is what science is, a searching for knowledge'.
  
  And yet by doing so, are admitting that they never really had any facts, while they were claiming their theories to be fact, and even teaching them as such!

• Comment Link Tuesday, 12 March 2013 20:23 posted by Anju

  Neftali: if you think that all of the scientists, activists, corporate leaders and politicians who have publicly recognized, acknowledged and shown the significant, real threat that global warming represents to the earth are part of an international, liberal conspiracy theory. In order for such a conspiracy theory to exist, there would have to be some substantial motive for such a plethora of people to come together and create such a hoax. Why would so many people across so many spectra of expertise come together to further such a conspiracy theory? What would they possible have to gain?As for your citation to the disagreement between the EPA-Department of Energy, there is bound to be some disagreement and measurement discrepancies with a new area of science. Their disagreement does not prove global warming untrue and your implicit conclusion otherwise shows your lack of logic to all readers of your post. I also find it humorous that you appear to bash liberals in the first paragraph of your response, but then cite to two government agencies that are socially perceived as liberal (especially under a democratic administration) in the third paragraph of your response to bolster your argument (or lack thereof). Talk about having one's cake and eating it too I could simply dismiss your entire post as part of some conservative conspiracy theory to post Internet comments, articles and blogs in an attempt to create a counter-discourse that attempts to refute the veracity of global warming (please note my sarcasm), but instead I will urge you to get your head out of the sand and wake-up. Read a book that's not written by Bill O'Reilly or Michael Savage for a change. Vapid nay-sayors with hollow arguments like yourselves will only be to blame when our human-wide response to global warming comes too slowly to counteract the damage being done to the earth that future generations will inherit.-Jack

• Comment Link Tuesday, 12 March 2013 20:08 posted by Ashley

  Everyone:I will try and break this down at a very simple level.(1) I hope we can all agree that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. That means that as carbon dioxide increases in the atmosphere, the atmosphere gets hotter because carbon dioxide traps heat radiated from the sun. (Like a greenhouse in the sun, or a car with the windows rolled up on a hot day carbon dioxide acts like the rolled-up windows, trapping the heat).(2) I hope we can all agree that petroleum (oil and gas) and coal are made up of carbon.(3) I hope we can all agree that burning coal, oil and gas creates carbon dioxide as a byproduct (it comes out of the smokestacks of power plants and out of the mufflers on vehicles, etc.)Now it might get a bit tougher for the doubters to follow (4) The petroleum and coal that we have been harvesting and using for energy took tens of millions of years to form. Over a period so long that it is hard to comprehend, plants sucked carbon dioxide and, through photosynthesis, created oxygen and carbon, which it stored in the form of wood and plant matter. As those plants died and collapsed, they were covered up by other plants, or oceans, or rock over millions of years and put under tremendous pressure, which squeezed the dead plants and animals (carbon) into coal and petroleum (depending on the environment of formation, sometimes coal and sometimes petroleum).(5) The earth, over a period of roughly 5 billion years, has slowly and gradually evolved into a very balanced, delicate system where everything has a niche and everything is roughly in proportion to create a sustainable, dynamic, complex system. When species don't fit in, they become extinct and another species evolves (or perhaps two or three species) to take that one's place.(6) In the 150-200 years since the industrial revolution, humans have used carbon-based fuels that took roughly 300 million years to create. That's 200 vs. 300 million. Using these fuels releases carbon dioxide (locked into the coal and petroleum over millions of years) back into the atmosphere. Humans' rapid release of 300 million years worth of carbon (which was slowly, gradually stored by the earth) has created rapid changes to the earth's atmosphere and eco-systems. The earth simply was not designed to respond to such quick changes.As the planet's most intelligent species (and the species causing this dramatic climate change), we have a responsibility to work cohesively and intelligently to try and slow (it's already too late to reverse) this process as much as possible.For more information, read Fieldnotes from a Catastrophe or Beyond the Limits.

• Comment Link Tuesday, 12 March 2013 19:48 posted by Ricardo

  It depends on the level we are talking about. People like Stephen Hawking even think Einstein's Theory of Relativity can be improved upon because it is an approximation and does not meet the observations exactly. There are still questions about the differences between quantum physics and relativity. There are still things in the quantum world that remains mysterious such as entanglement. There are new species being discovered all the time which open a new light into the time period of evolutionary occurrences. And so on. I wouldn't label any of these total failures. More of a narrowing down to the truth.

• Comment Link Thursday, 28 February 2013 12:48 posted by Kelly

  Change is the hallmark of the universe as we know it. Stars, planets, galaxies are created out of a fog of energy, and to say that life can't have been created out of the interplay of forces and particles as well is arbitrary. Primitive man created gods to explain phenomena they didn't understand. That process continues, and there's no basis for declaring today what it might or might not be able to explain tomorrow.