Bryan

Try looking at it this way: an inch is a specific distance between two points. The exact location of these two points is omitted. You can apply that manner of thinking to all abstract concepts, though I don't see how it's particularly useful.

Check out this website: DrHurd.com. I've read The Truth About Addiction and Recovery and The Small Book, both of which take a more volitional approach to addictive behavior. The Small Book spends a great deal of time debunking traditional 12-step programs and how they are flawed for atheists.

An electron is still an electron regardless of whether or not you can determine its exact nature.

You want easy, here's how to do it in python: import random x = random.randint(1,6)[/code]

I don't know if this actually corroborates the story but this is from their website:

The gesture idea is a similar concept to the touchpad on the newer Apple laptops (like the brand-spankin' new PowerBook I'm using right now ). By moving two fingers up or down on the touchpad it scrolls the text on the screen; two fingers to the left is the back button on the browser; two to the right is forward. It works so well, I actually like using the touchpad better than a mouse.

Do they actually have a working prototype of this keyboard, or are those just artist's conceptions of what this keyboard could look like?

All the episodes of Star Trek are in a military context. The medium of exchange aboard a star ship would be different than if you were a normal citizen living on the surface of a planet. Off the top of my head, I don't recall anything specific about the government of the Federation, or if there even is a specific government of the Federation. Don't the individual planets, for the most part, govern themselves?

Check out some of the books from the reading list on Dr. Hurd's website. I found some excellent books about addiction there.

genus - the complex of all the attributes--behavioral, temperamental, emotional and mental-- differentia - that characterize a unique individual source: http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/we...1?s=personality

I am confused as to how you can trick yourself into believing things that you "figure not to be true or unlikely to happen". Are you setting goals that you know that you will never achieve, or just setting extremely lofty goals?

There is only one reality, it is our responsibility to perceive it and interpret our perceptions accurately. Galileo did just this, he looked at reality as it is, and deduced that the common views about Earth were wrong. He didn't make up his own reality. As there is only one reality, there is only one truth. Do you have specific things you believe to be true or were you just giving that as a general example? Your court example doesn't follow, it's a separate issue dealing with the burden of proof in law.

People who say they talk to God are either frauds or delusional (or both). But this topic leads me to another question. On those Christian TV networks, I've seen people faint when the preachers touch their foreheads. Allegedly, they feel the power of God is some crap. Are these people simply faking or is it something similar to hypnosis?

There's a difference between indifference and active support. In a previous post you said, "elling pretty much anything is moral (with the obvious exception of nuclear weapons and the like), and I'd include heroin and cocaine in that without a second thought." Selling them heroin and cocaine would definitely help them perform an immoral action, specifically the action of destroying their mind and body.

It is possible to use marijuana recrationally/socially/moderately (however you want to phrase it). The reason that you've never heard of people using other than to get real high is because most people (especially younger people) are not going to go the risk of obtaining marijuana, transporting it, and smoking it unless they want to get real high. The cost/benefit ratio is way too high for most recreational users. I would imagine that during prohibition, the average drinker consumed a lot more alcohol in one sitting than in times before and after prohibition.