http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-coffee18-2009may18,0,7483815.column.
from the los angeles times.
read this over coffee.
I drink coffee occasionally. I prefer to cold brew it and make a coffee concentrate that I refrigerate. The refrigerated concentrate stays good for up to a week. To make a cup I boil some water and add enough concentrate to it to give me the desired strength. Cold brewed coffee is easier on my stomach too.
Dave
hmmmm ....
Oompa, no telescope in existence can resolve enough detail to view Earth sized planets orbiting other stars. Even Jupiter sized objects are difficult to detect. The interstellar distances involved are enormous.
That is not to say that non-stellar objects do not exist. There is plenty of evidence for that in the abundance of "dust" clouds visible in our galaxy, some of the best known being visible in the constellation Orion. According to astronomers, our solar system got its start in one of those regions of interstellar gas and dust.
Of course, "dust" in space can refer to sizable chunks of rock, comets, and asteroids. If there is enough of it in the right place at the right time, the dust coalesces into moons and planets. If there is enough hydrogen, then stars can form.
I've always enjoyed the science of Astronomy. I even built a 12" Dobsonian telescope once.
Dave
hmmmm ....
^^^ Sounds a bit like Scientology to me ^^^
hmmmm ....
Has life evolved on other planets? Highly probable. Almost a certainty.
Has multicellular life evolved on other planets? Very probable.
Has vertebrate animal life evolved on other planets? Probable.
Has endothermic vertebrate animal life evolved on other planets? Quite possibly.
Has mammilian animal life evolved on other planets? It is possible.
Have primates evolved on other planets? Possible, but not likely.
Have intelligent bipedal primates evolved on other planets? Again, possible, but very unlikely.
Have intelligent bipedal primates with advanced civilization evolved on other planets? Probably not.
Have intelligent bipedal primates with space faring capabilities evolved on other planets? Very improbable.
Do intelligent bipedal primates of the third planet of the star called Sol think that all intelligent beings that may evolve in the Universe will look like them? Hubris?
Dave (intelligent bipedal primate, Earth, Solar system, Milky Way, Local Group, Virgo Supercluster, Universe)
did you ever experience caution or an uneasy fear when being introduced to a brother with a beard?.
for years everytime i met someone introduced to me as bro so-and-so who might have a beard (and there weren't that many times), my here-comes-trouble radar turned on.. .
i would be very cautious in talking to this brother.
In all my years in the Truth (TM), beards were a no-no, unless, of course, one was an older sister in the congregation.
Since leaving I did grow a beard, but it's not really my style. I do have a mustache, though, and mid back length hair. I think I'm going to start braiding it.
Dave
http://www.cnn.com/2009/living/05/15/bible.critic/index.html.
he was also interviewed about a month or so ago on npr..
Not that I've tried very hard to do this but... can anyone link themselves back to any of the people cited in the Bible?
It can be interesting to look into one's ancestry on the internet. Unfortunately, the major sites charge fees that I'm not willing to pay. I do know my paternal ancestors go back a few hundred years in the United States and were originally immigrants from Germany. My maternal ancestry is a bit more varied in that it includes German, English, and Dutch. On both sides of the family there are a lot of unknowns, especially my paternal grandmother who was adopted.
Now the interesting thing about ancestry is that at some point in time in the past one theoretically has more ancestors than there were people alive on Earth. Each generation back doubles the number of required ancestors. For example, everyone has 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great grandparents, 16, 32, 64, 128, and so on. By the time you reach 20 generations back you have 1,048,576 ancestors. 40 generations back gives you 1,099,511,627,776 ancestors. If we allow 4 generations per century, then it is possible to imagine that 40 generations back only takes us to around the year 1000. Was the Earth's population even 1 billion people at that time, let alone 1 trillion? How does that work?
Either we're related to a whole lot more people than we imagine, or we are incredibly inbred! The truth is probably somewhere in between. When someone claims royalty in their ancestry, it is no big deal, really. Some royalty were quite promiscuous and had lots of children out of wedlock, children who had no legal claims to fame, but were descended from royalty nonetheless. Could we be descended from "Biblical" characters? Who knows?
Dave
Here's another one - Satan in South Park!
wilson, a pal of best-selling atheists richard.
dawkins and christopher hitchens, made the stunning announcement last month.
that he has now returned to faith by becoming a follower of jesus.
Well, I read the article in question. It got tiresome when he trudged out the old complexity arguments. That's fine if you're preaching to the choir. It got really irritating when he did the "Hitler and morality" bit. Waste of time.
Dave
the bible talks about hell, jesus spoke of burning in hell, but the witness claim there is no hell......can someone please explain their reasoning...same with heaven..
Without your physical brain, do you have a consciousness? If you take hallucinogenic drugs, you alter the chemistry of your brain and experience altered states of consciousness. If you experience a stroke or other brain damaging event, your mental functions may be impaired. If you grow old and your brain deteriorates as a result of Alzheimer's, then you permanently lose memories and mental abilities. When you die, your brain ceases to function. Your consciousness will cease to exist forever because the brain and body that produced it will cease to exist. It is as simple as that.
Dave
i know weird scenario.
but would you lie to help someone?
for example, would you bribe a guard to let him out?
Telling lies to the government, even if it is corrupt, is a really bad idea. It would make better sense to follow all possible legal channels to free a wrongly imprisoned person. Doing otherwise could land you in prison too.
That is a poor analogy anyway. Unlike most prisoners, especially those who may be innocent of their convictions, it appears as though the majority of Witnesses like their mental "prison." At least they certainly don't see it as such. Each person holds the key to his own mental freedom.
By staying in the organization, are you really and truly showing others the "way out"? I don't think so. You need to get out yourself. Your nominal participation won't get others to quit. Your subtle (or not) questioning of the WTS will eventually make you the object of a JC for apostasy. At the very least they will mark you and shun you from within.
What makes you think you are personally responsible for "freeing" others? Anyone with an internet connection is a few clicks from all the damning information they need to make their own choice. The biggest thing you could do to help others would be to Quit. Right. Now. The more people leave, the more those left lose the social network that keeps them tied to the WTS.
Dave
