Oh, so Mario B is a teenager? That explains lots of things!

Mario B;825998 wrote: In the atheist world there is no good and evil, so I never understood their righteous indignation...? As a matter of fact, evil and good is a religious concept! For all I know no scientific method has ever proven that there is no GOD , or that there is no life after death, on this issue both atheist and theist are guided by faith, A LEAP OF FAITH! and that's why this discussion requires humility from both sides of the fence. The scientific method has never proven that Loch Ness Monster doesn't exist yet that doesn't mean one should suspend judgement on whether or not it exists. The same goes for any other being whose existence isn't supported by scientific evidence. Suspending judgement on God's existence on this basis is epistemologically impractical - and that's acknowledged by most of today's respected theologians. But if your opinion of morality not existing in atheist's world and it being a religious concept is anything to go by, I doubt you've done any reading on the matter.

NGONGE;824973 wrote: ^^ Baah! Sample, Shmable. These guys wasted their time proving this theory of theirs. They should have read Nabi Ibrahim's story; he proved the same thing long before. Analytic thinking does indeed undermine belief but, surely, someone with an analytical is not going to stop at the first instance of doubt in his belief and would rather carry on through the valleys of doubt and hills of certainty his entire life. Why else does god instructs us to look, ponder and marvel at his creation! I don't know whether to take you seriously or not, to be honest.

*Blessed;824983 wrote: I'm not really interested in the detail to be honest or this constant debate about faith. It just seems a bit fraudulent of these researchers to make that sort of generalisation when they haven't been clear about the research process. What do you mean by 'they haven't been clear about the research process'? I had no luck tracking down the original paper, but I would be darn surprised if they didn't outline the research process at the start of the paper and provide all the relevant statistics.

Losing Your Religion: Analytic Thinking Can Undermine Belief A series of new experiments shows that analytic thinking can override intuitive assumptions, including those that underlie religious belief - Marina Krakovsky (Scientific American). People who are intuitive thinkers are more likely to be religious, but getting them to think analytically even in subtle ways decreases the strength of their belief, according to a new study in Science. The research, conducted by University of British Columbia psychologists Will Gervais and Ara Norenzayan, does not take sides in the debate between religion and atheism, but aims instead to illuminate one of the origins of belief and disbelief. "To understand religion in humans," Gervais says, "you need to accommodate for the fact that there are many millions of believers and nonbelievers." One of their studies correlated measures of religious belief with people's scores on a popular test of analytic thinking. The test poses three deceptively simple math problems. One asks: "If it takes five machines five minutes to make five widgets, how long would it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets?" The first answer that comes to mind—100 minutes—turns out to be wrong. People who take the time to reason out the correct answer (five minutes) are, by definition, more analytical—and these analytical types tend to score lower on the researchers' tests of religious belief. But the researchers went beyond this interesting link, running four experiments showing that analytic thinking actually causes disbelief. In one experiment, they randomly assigned participants to either the analytic or control condition. They then showed them photos of either Rodin's The Thinker or, in the control condition, of the ancient Greek sculpture Discobolus, which depicts an athlete poised to throw a discus. (The Thinker was used because it is such an iconic image of deep reflection that, in a separate test with different participants, seeing the statue improved how well subjects reasoned through logical syllogisms.) After seeing the images, participants took a test measuring their belief in God on a scale of 0 to 100. Their scores on the test varied widely, with a standard deviation of about 35 in the control group. But it is the difference in the averages that tells the real story: In the control group, the average score for belief in God was 61.55, or somewhat above the scale's midpoint. On the other hand, for the group who had just seen The Thinker, the resulting average was only 41.42. Such a gap is large enough to indicate a mild believer is responding as a mild nonbeliever—all from being visually reminded of the human capacity to think. Another experiment used a different method to show a similar effect. It exploited the tendency, previously identified by psychologists, of people to override their intuition when faced with the demands of reading a text in a hard-to-read typeface. Gervais and Norenzayan did this by giving two groups a test of participants' belief in supernatural agents like God and angels, varying only the font in which the test was printed. People who took the belief test in the unclear font (a typewriterlike font set in italics) expressed less belief than those who took it in a more common, easy-to-read typeface. "It's such a subtle manipulation," Norenzayan says. "Yet something that seemingly trivial can lead to a change that people consider important in their religious belief system." On a belief scale of 3 to 21, participants in the analytic condition scored an average of almost two points lower than those in the control group. Analytic thinking undermines belief because, as cognitive psychologists have shown, it can override intuition. And we know from past research that religious beliefs—such as the idea that objects and events don't simply exist but have a purpose—are rooted in intuition. "Analytic processing inhibits these intuitions, which in turn discourages religious belief," Norenzayan explains. Harvard University psychologist Joshua Greene, who last year published a paper on the same subject with colleagues Amitai Shenhav and David Rand, praises this work for its rigorous methodology. "Any one of their experiments can be reinterpreted, but when you've got [multiple] different kinds of evidence pointing in the same direction, it's very impressive." The study also gets high marks from University of California, Irvine, evolutionary biologist Francisco Ayala, the only former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science to have once been ordained as a Catholic priest, and who continues to assert that science and religion are compatible. Ayala calls the studies ingenious, and is surprised only that the effects are not even stronger. "You would expect that the people who challenge the general assumptions of their culture—in this case, their culture's religious beliefs—are obviously the people who are more analytical," he says. The researchers, for their part, point out that both reason and intuition have their place. "Our intuitions can be phenomenally useful," Gervais says, "and analytic thinking isn't some oracle of the truth." Greene concurs, while also raising a provocative question implicit in the findings: "Obviously, there are millions of very smart and generally rational people who believe in God," he says. "Obviously, this study doesn't prove the nonexistence of God. But it poses a challenge to believers: If God exists, and if believing in God is perfectly rational, then why does increasing rational thinking tend to decrease belief in God?" Any takes on the last question? I've found the article in this week's edition of Scientific American and thought it was interesting.

kingofkings;823903 wrote: You have commited the stupidest form of invalid reasoning and yet you have the guts to use a facepalm!

Mario B;823897 wrote: ^^Damn, I didn't know this atheist was also a secessionist! What are you on about? I was neither talking about Somaliland nor atheism.

kingofkings;823873 wrote: nigga it's somali because the somali people say its somali. Great logic there, I must say! I'm totally convinced now!

Miskiin-Macruuf-Aqiyaar;823864 wrote: And it is Soomaali. Whatever one wishes would not change the fact it is Soomaali. If I recall, the last time we had a conversation like this you epically failed to produce anything supporting this view and relied on a non sequitur whereby you pointed out that I've misspelt the name of a Somali poet once (which, ironically, I didn't) and thus I must be wrong, lol. Anyway, getting worked up on 'Somalian' when the word is not used in pejorative context any more than 'Somali' is borders on being idiotic.

KingsOfKings, what are you laughing at? Somalian is as valid as Somali; consult any good dictionary. According to the second ediction of the OED, it's been in usage since 1948, so a mere dissatisfaction with it won't be enough to invalidate it. Peace & bariis.

NGONGE;823171 wrote: They say that a wise man knows everything but a shrewd man knows everyone. In my own experience, this saying has not been truer than in the ten days I spent in Hargeisa City recently. Open a history book of Somaliland and go to the MEN section; in the chapter named “men that know everyone” you are likely to see only one glowing name filling the page. Don’t be surprised if it’s a name you too recognise. He may have many names and aliases, he may be called by lots of different nicknames but he still remains the same man, Jacaylbaro! Kipling might be one of the few people to have not met Jacaylbaro but some argue that Kipling was a far seeing man and I’m inclined to agree with that argument. For who else was he talking about when he wrote that “IF” poem? It is as if the poem was written to specifically describe him or, to use the Somali equivalent, Jb waa ragiida. For example: Jb told me a story about him and an uncle of his sitting in the house in the midst of the bombardment of H town. A rocket landed close to the house and he (as a young child) flinched. The uncle berated him and told him to stop being a coward. A few seconds later, another rocket landed on the house. But this time, the uncle (sadly and literally) lost his head whilst Jb survived. If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; Whilst I was with the man, we usually spent our time visiting various eating establishments or lazing outside coffee shops. The waiters knew him, the regulars knew him, the shoe polishers knew him and, to my utter surprise and fascination, even one intoxicated glue-sniffer knew him! On a different occasion, when we happened to visit one of the main hotels in the city where the old men, politicians and foreigners congregate, I ended up beginning a mental game with myself. The game involved counting how many minutes would pass before Jacaylbaro would be approached and greeted by yet another “new” person. The shortest time was two minutes by the way. Still, I had a wide smile on my face when, as we walked around the lobby of the hotel, I heard someone calling Jacaylbaro’s name; it was the biggest name (allegedly) in SL after the president himself. My smile, of course, wasn’t out of respect, excitement or nervousness about such a meeting; I simply remembered the glue-sniffer. If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much: If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son! It’s a rare and valuable skill to be able to get on with all manner of people whilst always keeping a smile and being able to carry the conversation, regardless of the topic. It’s also no mean feat to garner the respect and appreciation of all. Jb, I doff my hat to thee my friend. You’re the bus of busses. What an unbelievably banal abuse of a wonderful poem!

Mortgage says hello!

Che -Guevara;822603 wrote: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=99gaMOJ5FR8 " frameborder="0" allowfullscreen> It was pleasure to watch Messi crying! It's the 8th time he fails to score against Chelsea. On the other hand, for Fernando Torres it's his 8th goal against Barcelona. Good stuff!

nuune;822589 wrote: ^^ Naga daa dee, sxb, you can't win any finals by playing in your own half for the whole 90 minutes, 95% of the ball was with Barca for the whole game, standing in your own half and trying to defend, or staring each other is not football sxb, getting a small lucky at the end saved you guys, and saved Torress who was out of form. Waxaas team ma ahan, and I mean it, aniga maba necbi Chelsea, but that Drogba ayaa Chelsea ka dhigey the worst club in any standard, get rid of that sagaaro. I'm amazed people appreciate attacking football and somehow criticise defensive football. Barcelona played an attacking football that was quite frankly embarrassing to watch. They must have taken the ball inside the box at least fifty times and failed to have a shot. It's like these guys are trained to only score passes. In my opinion, creating endless triangular passes and walking the ball into the box and not having meaningful shots at the goal is far more boring than 'parking the bus', as it were. The better team won.

nuune;822580 wrote: Torres just saved Chelsea from disaster and humiliation, he saved Chelsea, he saved the club, he saved the manager, he saved the fans from switching to other clubs, he saved himself from being dumped, he saved everyone, thanks to Liverpool who nurtured him over the years. What? Chelsea would still have gone through even if he missed it!

Bluelicious;822123 wrote: These professional basketball players spent alot of time away from home. With that being said it means temptation is everywhere and its big temptation since there are always basketball groupies who throw themselfs at them everywhere they go. It doesn't matter whether their girlfriends or wifes are beautiful and intelligent at the end of the day their sexual urges over power them then the faithfulness of the love of their life so they cheat on their girlfriends or wifes. Which woman would want to always spent alot of time on her own and always be constantly moving from place to place unless she is only after his money and is a golddigger. Many women who date professional basketballers are golddiggers. People only tend to focus on the bright side of basketball but basketball has also a dark side where not alot of people know about. Many basketball players are male whores. There was a basketball player I don't remember his name anymore and he claimed to have slept with more then 20,000 women while being on the road in his basketball career. These girlfriends and wifes are of no use for them. Interesting stuff! Cheers!

sharma-arke451;820466 wrote: ileen ninyo mararka kale waad iska yeyeshaa,,,,,,,, Hehe! You thought I didn't have a heart?

If you use Chrome - the best browser there is - you can simply install this extension: StayFocused. I know lots of students use it around exam time. With this you can limit the number of minutes you wish to spend on sites which you feel you are addicted to. It automatically assigns a total of 10 minutes per day to all the sites which you feel you use too much -- you can change this 'before the day begins', so to speak, but I find the 10 minutes pretty well calculated. It's far better than trying to stop it altogether, as with this you can go to the concerned sites two or three times a day without wasting that much time getting 'your daily fix', as it were.

Bluelicious;821864 wrote: Playing professional basketball and having a girlfriend don't go together. What do you mean?

I send money to 70 relatives - Cisse.

Saleebaan.

Can it see through people's clothes? If not, I'm not excited at all.

Don't you have a job or something, Xaaji?

I want to cry. An amazing woman! May she rest in peace and love.

Shinbir Majabe;820337 wrote: Chelsea 1-0 Barcelona :D :D