Allow me to clarify.

Skybird, you know you exist, regardless of whether anyone else has proof of your existence.

God, should he exist, knows He exists in spite of those who refuse to acknowledge this and any contrary arguments put forth against this would not alter that.

Using Buddhism, a religious philosophy, to back up your refutation of my statement that everyone lives by faith in at least one respect of their lives does seem a bit queer in itself.

As for "triggering an aggressive reaction", well, that's not justification for poor manners and lack of respect. Reason and argue like a rational adult all you want but try to restrain your passion or it will be your undoing.

Avoid making assumptions as well. I do not "own" the truth, be that whatever each perceives. My statement about everyone knowing the real truth in the end has nothing to do with espousing any particular philosophy. It was a very straightforward and simple statement into which you read a great deal.

As for myself, I must point out the hypocrisy of your own remarks. I merely stated arguments of logic, not religion or theism. Yet you feel free to insult and criticize me for sharing my viewpoint and how offensive it is to you that I have done so in public while you, apparently, feel it is your right to very publicly state your own beliefs or lack thereof. If I must keep mine private, then do be so kind as to shut your own mouth as well.

C'mon, Subman, no way Skybird is young. Just look at all the stuff he's done in his life! World traveller, clinical psychologist, college professor, samurai sword sensei, veteran warehouse worker, Buddhist priest, not to mention a self taught expert in such disparate subjects as world politics, global warming, military affairs and American society, heck, thats not even including probably a dozen other subjects he has opined on over the years.
Now that extensive experience set would take, at least, 50-60 years for any single person to gather, so stop dissin the man. At this rate he might be our President some day, maybe even President of the world! :yep:

Give it a rest you two. :roll: This thread was about Al Gore and not Skybird.

If all the people of earth burned wood and no fossil fuel they would have to reproduce a whole bunch of new growth trees to do it. Thus pulling the co2 back out. On the other hand. Burning fossil fuels that have been stuck in the ground for millions of years have no recipricating level of co2 removal.

Nonsense I have no 'faith' in science whatsoever.

I don't believe in god because like the tooth fairy and Santa Claus I see no convincing evidence for its existance unlike science which provides evidence.

This is a common mistake; science is not a 'secular religion', its not down to belief; its an approach to the universe which relies on quantifyable and testable evidence or hypotheses.

There is no equivalence between science and faith.

There is as much evidence for god as there is for a giant teapot orbiting the galactic centre......more infact.....that teapots exist is a testable fact.

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

Now you disprove the teapot theory....it knows it exists even if you try to deny it.

I see your point but those trees certainly wouldn't be grown first, so if we're as close to the "tipping point" as some claim surely such a move would put us over right?

Neither is it about Skybirds often repeated religious beliefs or lack thereof so why don't you tell him to give it a rest as well?

My statement was in reaction to yours. Not some ideology sporting a new form of energy consumption with wood burning as the way out.

However.

84 % of U S emissions of co2 are the direct result of burning fossil fuel which has no return method. The US alone pushed out 20 % of total co 2 emmissions globaly while only containing 5% of the worlds population.

Source EPA:

http://epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/co2_human.html

Well that's odd. I read the entire page you linked and don't see where it says that Neon.

http://epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/images/ES05.gif

Little orange pie chart thingy showing 84 Percent.

and

Ah, I see now, thank you.

So what do you think Neon?, should we take away everyones electricity and/or cars to make up for this 20/5% disparity or go the direct route and just kill off 95% of our population?

You gave it as an undeniable fact that God exists, and I perceived your generalization as being haughty indeed. You minimized everybody not believing in God, and raised the impression you think such a poor being necessarily believes in something of inferior rank and quality, but still does believe in SOMETHING. And that is not necessarily so. That'S why I did not refer you to buddhism in general, but the specific item of atman and anatman, but I think you have not understood the point of it: that it indeed argues that it makes no sense at all to believe in a self if that self is illusory and bound to the realm of what is passing by, and is transitory. This kind of self people tend to see as the real "self", and it makes them believing, and mixing up ego and their true inne self, the first of the two again being just an illusion created by the transitory world. This is atman, of which people think it is their true self, and to which neurologists and psychologust refer to all the time as well. It is the Western condensate of the body-soul-problem. But the true self people yearning for to become aware of, is all this not, but is beyond, and only by giving up to keep your atman alive, you can realise that, which is a bit paradoxical because it compares to an eye trying to see itself - it is not possible for the eye to see itself. Not before the eye manages to leave itself behind, and go beyond itself, it can step back and have a look at itself, so to speak. Same is true for anatman and Atman. As long as you stick with your atman and play all the tricks of life in order to care for it, which includes typical religious practices, you cannot realise your "self". You need to focus on the "non-self", at least in theory, because in practise the tighter your grab for it the more is escapes between your fingers. Its not about what you shpould do, but what you should let go, without even wanting that letting go. If man wants to become aware of his self, he must no longer care for it, and must not even desire not to care for it: he must oversee himself, forget himself, and no longer being himself, leaving all that behind. In other words, as I repeatedly said: self-realisation is only possible at the price of self-transcendence.

This I linked you too just to counter your minimizing generalisation, not to propagate buddhism. Buddhist models of consiousness and how the elements of perception are working together to create our self-awareness and what we consider to be the world in our brain, and how the creation feeds back on ourselves, simply is by far the most complex and complete model of psychology I know of, beating everything western psychology has to offer.

The thing on manners you better listen to yourself. I perceived your attitude in which you wrote your posting before as extremely haughty, and very typical for a certain kind of people considering themselves "religious" - and being very proud of it. As if that is no contradiction!

the general tone in the context of your posting, and the complete posting in itself, speaks differently.

What you consider logic - was statements of believing something, not knowing something. Sorry. and that you did so in a gesture of minimizing those not agreeing with you, did not make it any better or less haughty.

This is what you said:

Actually, those who discount God merely have their faith placed in Self, Science, Money or some other material thing as their god.
Everyone believes in something. You take many things on faith without even realizing that's what it is.

And that I took queer, really. It backfired on the latter two passages, which with plenty of good will maybe and eventually could have been understood as staements of whoch you now claim they did not represent your relgious ideas at all.

Just as a bird in the deep forest exists whether you're aware of it or not, God knows He exists.
No matter who's right, we'll all know who's wrong in the end.

As long as there is not something getting lost in translation, I am not surprised that i take your comments queer.

If you think I still get something totally wrong in what you said or mean, let me know.

haha read this. http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/NASA:_Ol...tinues_to_melt


Climate change is real. get over it man and stop being stubborn for stubborns' sake.

Well thats just peachy. Sea Demon and I are arguing over two different things at the same place.:roll:

Seeing as we're being silly I think we should kill off 95% of the worlds population using high-impulse thermobaric weapons.