@Sy - I know there isn't a "stupid gene". It was hyperbole as well as a borrowed quote from Dickens. Of course, anyone with a real education would have recognized both.

And, just to be clear, intellectual capacity is partly affected by genetics. I have a 170+ IQ. My dad's is a 160+. My mom on the other hand only has about a 105 and my brother isn't even 100. I got more of my intellectual capacity from my dad's genes and my brother from my mom's. You can also see it when you look at our pictures. At 13, I looked just like my dad at the same age. My brother, however, looks just like my mother's brother.

Another example is my wife, who looks like her mom and has about the same 80-90 IQ and my brother in law (her brother) who looks just like her dad and is a CEO (her dad held a PhD in chemical engineering).

Draug, by your own admission, a 16yo is not cognitively developed enough to form rational decisions, so why would you even give them the the choice to strike it out on their own, no matter how much they protest about being an adult?

I love how this thread has become a serious discussion about maturity by age...

Nor is IQ a particularly good indication of anything other than how you'll score on an IQ test.

"Draug, by your own admission, a 16yo is not cognitively developed enough to form rational decisions"

I did not say that. What I said was their brains are still developing and susceptible to more damage from chemical ingestion than a 25 year olds.

You, however, said an 18 year old is a child. So you must like that children are allowed to vote.

"Nor is IQ a particularly good indication of anything other than how you'll score on an IQ test. "

Agreed to a point. But it is a good indicator that some level of intellectual capacity is carried genetically.

I did not know bo was 18. Notice the regex that amended my statement.

Developing brains are also more susceptible to things other than drugs, such as ads, peer pressure, hormones, etc. If a child is acting like a know-it-all brat, the proper response is not to throw them out into the world completely unprepared just because they think they can handle it.

@ bo_sox48

Okay, I'll bite your troll bait. How do you propose to go about banning guns? Would you ban guns but allow nuclear weapons? How do you uninvent something?

@ Draugnar

"They think they are funny because I find 16 and 17 year olds hot (young women 1/3 my age but still legal in Ohio and Kentucky, the two states I've lived in since 1987 when I got out of the Corps)."

Well, that's a little creepy but not illegal or indicative of pedophilia. In your defense, most 16/17-year-old girls are fully developed physically. Like I said, not condoning you but not criticizing you either.

I actually agree, abge, but I had to make a point against bo's "many 16 year olds as mature as most adults" stupidity.

@gun - Finding a 16 or 17 year old hot doesn't mean I seduce them. I'm happily married. I just happen to find late teen and early 20 something women extremely attractive as any heterosexual male would. I also find I am attracted to women 35-45 and that is the range I would date if I were to find myself single for some reason (I'm 48 just so you know). But I find them attractive for intellectual reasons as well as the physical.

@ Yonni

I should clarify. The big bang theory is not flawed and can be more or less confirmed by simple observation and analysis, but no one has satisfactorily explained whatever predated the big bang IMHO. Anything before the big bang gets very speculative and very philosophical very fast. No one has the slightest idea what occurred before the big bang.

My entire argument is that God and science are not mutually exclusive. I like to think of myself as almost a neo-deist in that respect. Observation and reason, not religious text and dogma, are sufficient to positively determine the existence of God.

Draugs a creepy old fuck, but he's certainly not a pedophile and people really shouldn't call him that. It's a rather disgusting thing to accuse someone of. I'm not sure why people think it's OK.

That's fair GF. I know many people who walk that line. It seems your gripes aren't with BBT but rather what BBT doesn't explain. There's a lot that science can't explain (yet?) and there's no harm in exploring those areas however you like.

He's not creepy for being sexually attracted to women on the tail end of their teen years. Hell, that's *normal* for a heterosexual male. As long he doesn't stare and he stays faithful to his wife, I don't see the problem from a moral standpoint.

@ Yonni

Of course. I'm open to amending my beliefs too. If someone can conclusively prove what happened before the big bang, I will modify my views to accommodate the new information. I was merely rebuking bo_sox's asinine assertion that I'm a backwards redneck who thinks the Earth isn't a day older than 10 millennia.

"Okay, I'll bite your troll bait. How do you propose to go about banning guns? Would you ban guns but allow nuclear weapons? How do you uninvent something?"

Well, first of all, you bit my troll bait in your first post.

Second of all, I wouldn't. It was troll bait.

I hate nuclear weapons, a lot. But they aren't going away, so my best hope is to keep my mouth shut and hopefully they won't get shot at me.

How could a theist possibly have a problem with the BBT, aka the singularity? Does that make them stupid creationists?

My entire argument is that God and science are not mutually exclusive

yes they are

@ssorenn - And for a moment there, I actually thought you had a brain. They are *not* mutually exclusive unless you are a fundie literalist of the Bible. Then yeah, your view of God is not compatible with science and evolution. But the majority of the Christian and Hebrew world take the Genesis story as allegory - a morality and origin tale for and by early man.

in what part of science, is there god or vice versa

the bible,in my estimation was written by people for people

@ssorenn - In what part of philosophy in general is the science and vice versa. They don't have to be in each other to not contradict each other. God is outside the observable natural world. God created the laws of the natural universe that he resides outside of.

Religion is about the search for understanding *why* we exist and *why* the universe exists. Science is the "how"s to its "why"s.

Also, there is a shitload more religions than just the Hebrew Torah and Christian Bible.

Oh good. An argument about religion vs science. This will be productive.

Actually, it's about religions compatibility with science. ssorenn thinks there is no way religion can be compatible. He is a typical militant atheist who thinks his side of the God debate somehow owns science despite some of the greatest scientific discoveries throughout history coming from devout followers of one religion or another.

religion was a convenience created at a time when the unexplainable needed to be explained...at that point no one understood, chemistry,biology,astronomy,and so on, and in order to appease the masses people found deities and gods

now this is my belief, and i don't try to tell people that need or want to believe in a higher power what to think.....if it gets YOU through the day so be it

draug, if you want to believe then good for you

if by chance someone throughout history that was associated with a religion made a discovery,that truly had to do with what we now know as science,the discovery is that persons not their religion