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Starcraft is pretty ballin'.

Fuck yeah Zergs.

"Missing link"? In what sense are you using that term?

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

"Missing link" is really just another name for "transitional fossil(s)", which are intermediary fossils between one species and another that shows transition between the two; the term is used frequently by the general media in a number of related ways, but its use is frowned upon and avoided by the scientific community for being misleading and technically inaccurate.

When you're saying "we haven't found the missing link yet", you are, even if unintentionally, making one of two claims:

1. "There are no transitional fossils at all", which is a pretty ignorant statement to make, at least without using the proper terminology and discrediting an immense amount of scientific findings, as the number of transitional fossils found is pretty significant:

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

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html

2. What I think is much more likely is that you're using the term "missing link" in a sense more related to transitional human fossils and the supposed lack thereof. In which case, several "missing links" (because there is no one singular "missing link", as you seem to be implying) have been found:

http://www.slate.com/id/2218838

http://www.proof-of-evolution.com/missing-links.html

Or you could be attaching a completely different meaning to the term, which you'll have to specify. Either way though, you're either using confusing terminology and/or your understanding of evolution could use some improvement.

Maybe so, but then that law isn't perfect; it's outdated at best, and can't be applied to our current social reality.

Personally I find that many passages of the Bible contain content that is at the very least questionable. The Bible also contains a number of very nice and admirable moral guidelines, but that doesn't mean we can completely ignore the undesirable passages.

It all comes down to whether you think that God is truly as perfect and loving as he claims he is, and that as such any moral choice he makes will always be better than yours. It's faith, just like any other aspect of the religion.

Also by making claims like "well at the time the rules made sense", "you have to consider the historical context", "people have edited/twisted the bible to fit their own ends" etc, you are basically admitting that while the book may have nice rules and ideas, it is not a "perfect" book like many christians say it is, at least not any more.

There is not much doubt within the scientific community about evolution's validity. Think about this for a second. Evolution has to be one of the most widely hated scientific theories of all time. Nobody wants it to be true. So why has it gained such acceptance? Because of evidence. It has been subjected to rigorous criticism for over a century and has passed it with flying colors.

The only things that are up in the air regarding evolution are very specific details that require a lot of knowledge about biology to understand what the discussion is even about.

There are still a few more general issues that probably could be cleared up about the whole thing:

1. there is a difference between "evolution" and "common descent". Evolution just equates to a change in the gene pools of populations over time (which is an empirically proven fact). Common descent is just basically taking that premise a step further, saying that we all evolved from a common ancestor, but it still has evidence behind it. Even if you could prove common descent wrong, you wouldn't discredit evolution.

In addition to this, common descent and evolution are both different from abiogenesis and the Big Bang. Evolution explains the current diversity of life and the mechanisms behind it. Nothing more. Obviously abiogenesis and evolution are linked, but even if you could prove one wrong you wouldn't discredit the other.

2. I should point out that no scientific fact or theory has a 100% acceptance rate. That goes for just about anything really. While the majority is not always right, the fact that there is a subdecimal amount of people (among scientists who are actually specialized in areas relevant to evolution the rate of people who don't believe in evolution is lower than 1%) who do not believe it does not mean that it is not true either. When a number of experts agree on something, you should at the very least take it into consideration.

3. to say evolution is "just a theory" is technically correct, but in most cases the people who say this don't have any idea on what the word "theory" actually means to science.

Let me illustrate this for you: Einstein's theory of gravity replaced Newtons. Did apples suddenly start falling upwards because of it? No. Theories definitely change, evolve, and go under a process of correction, and the theory of evolution is no different. But the fact of evolution is true and isn't about to change any time soon.

If we're not capable of understanding God, we have no true way to understand if his actions are truly for our greater good. You just have to faith in his good intentions, like you're supposed to have faith regarding everything else about him.

As for the belief in creationism itself...well, it's not an empirically sound belief, but I'd be lying if I didn't understand why people believed it.

All the same it's important to understand that science's goal is finding the truth, regardless of how ridiculous it might seem. Many scientific discoveries and facts actually go against any form of common sense we might have.

At the end of the day, nobody said the world had to make sense. It is what it is and no amount of believing otherwise will change that.

I'm not sure if I fully believe in evolution (well, naturalistic evolution anyway) all the same, for personal reasons; in terms of my actual beliefs I would probably classify more as an agnostic deist or pantheist, I'm not sure. However, in saying things like "it hasn't been proven" or "it's just a theory" or "lots of scientists doubt it", I'm just lying to myself.

"I don't know how it happened, so it must be God".

It doesn't really work that way. Also, a very small chance of recovery is still a chance. Given millions of people it's bound to happen sometime.

Complexity does not equal design.

...we got lucky? I dunno what this is supposed to prove.

I don't think I'm allowed to link it because the thread I found about it has links to the ISO. But if you google "Portal-PSP", you can find it pretty easily.

Finding a truly "objective" news source is pretty much impossible. Newspapers, news channels, radio stations, etc, are run by people, who by nature have opinions that they want to express, and they will, even if unconsciously, report news in such a way so as to validate their viewpoints. If you were in their position, try as you might, you probably won't be able to give a 100% accurate report of the facts...

...although, with enough effort, you could be better than them. Finding a moderately reliable source is not outright impossible, but nowadays it can be kinda sticky to find out what's true and what isn't.

If you have speed issues with Firefox, Chrome is a godsend. Makes a world of a difference. At least for me.

Oh and speaking of which, for anyone who uses Firefox, you might be interested in this: http://www.palemoon.org/

Supposed to be 25% faster than regular firefox and it keeps all your addons and bookmarks when you install it.

So happens that it is. I've been watching it recently. Despite being noticeably flawed, I'd consider it a (not so) guilty pleasure.

You can record your own sound effects and apply them to the level/individual sackboys and sackbots. So you probably won't have to worry about that.

Digimon stopped being relevant after Tamers.

Movie looks generic and stupid.

It's pretty hard for me to take Death Note seriously these days. It's a good anime/manga, granted, but...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0ocfBIwsgg

...yeah.

First season of Geass was a guilty pleasure for me. It was enjoyable but kind of homogay.

Then R2 came along and it became incredibly stupid. Only really good part about it was the ending.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russel's_Teapot

Just thought I'd toss this in here. You're right though, metaphysics is out of science's jurisdiction.

I thought it was okay. I enjoyed the first one more.

Uh, statistically, the vast majority of the earth's populace is religious, whether they believe in a personal omnipotent god or something completely different. What are you talking about?

Anyway I'm not sure what I'd classify myself as now in terms of religious beliefs, but on the whole I think the scientific method is probably the best thing we have for establishing truth claims at this point. It's by no means perfect, and there's no such as absolute certainty of anything, but at least it actively tries to explain the universe according to what we can empirically verify and finds ways to put that knowledge to good use.

"God did it" isn't a particularly helpful explanation of things, it's a subjective assertion which could be true, but even if it, is it doesn't get us very far. An entity like that prevents investigation and further learning by its very nature. As it stands, to science, that explanation is worse than false; it's useless.