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I too watched the debate and was impressed by both John McCain and Rudy Giuliani. I didn't think too much of Mitt Romney, he didn't seem to stand for anything. If I were a Republican in the US I would vote for Giuliani, and possibly McCain, none of the rest of them impressed me at all. It says something about the field when a television actor is being seen as a strong contender. One thing the debate confirmed in my mind is that there is no place for religion in politics!

Giuliani is the guy... period. No-one else comes close.

I agree John. The mayor is looking good. I don't think he can get enough support from Republicans unofrtunately, he's just too liberal for most.

Romney looks good and sounds desperate. He'll do anything to get elected and I don't trust that.

McCain, I agree, had a good night in the Manchester NH debate, but his support for Bush on the war (in fact he's even more pro-war than Bush) is unelectable. I think McCain no longer believes what he says on the war but is stuck with his view and frightened to flip flop.

Chris, what's wrong with an actor running for president? Reagan?

Alison, I guess there is nothing wrong with an actor running for President. I just think in such a crowded field already that the talent required for a good president should already be there. Giuliani is the best candidate, but I doubt he will win the nomination.

Rudolph Giuliani cleaned up the mess including the high crime rate in New York City as mayor left by his predecessor, Mayor Dinkins. His taking command during the 9-11 attack was just the icing on the cake but to those of us who watched him all along, it came as no surprise. He is tough on criminals, whether they are street thugs, mafiosos, or international menaces as are the tyrants in rogue governments he will be dealing with in places like Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, and Cuba.

For me he is on the right side of every issue so far. He said he might have to use military force to deny Iran nuclear weapons and this might include an American nuclear first strike. He is not opposed to using force to keep order, he's one hell of a sherrif. One issue where he will have an enormous advantage over McCain which is very important to Americans right now but may not be widely reported in the foreign press is the issue of what is to become of the estimted 12 million illegal aliens in the US (50,000 of them are Irish.) McCain co-sponsored a bill with Ted Kennedy which many conservatives view as a sellout. The unspeakable word anmesty keeps getting tossed around and President Bush is on the hot seat with conservatives for this one too. Giuliani may not find favor with the Christian right with his "pro-choice" (legalized abortion) stance but he will gain much more in the center than he loses on the right with it IMO. So far I like what I hear from him. I also wouldn't feel comfortable with someone who was once a prisoner of war as commander in chief of the US armed forces. You never know when he might go berserk. I wouldn't want to be in Vietnam with a President McCain with his finger on the nuclear button.

My bet at the moment would be Romney against Clinton with Romney winning.

Should Thompson enter the race it will be a toss up between Romney and Thompson (slight edge to Thompson) and against Clinton Thompson would win.

Just my opinion - time will tell!

Regards,
Michael

Note to William: Care to offer another good book to the winner of the prediction race?

Good to see that some right-wingers in the USA are backing off from the creationist camp. Huckabee says, "I don't know. I wasn't there." Maybe someone will tell him that Moses was not there either. By his own reckoning, the account that Moses gives in Genesis was recorded some 800 years after the event.

Looks like one of the wheels has fallen off the creationist band-wagon. Hallelujah!! (excuse my poor arabic)

Les Reid; the problem with lumping people together, putting them in a box, and pasting a label on it is that sooner or later a lot of people who don't fit the stereotype of that label get put into that box by mistake. Therefore, I put people each in their own box with their own label. You should see the one I put you in.

A simple question for big bang theorists : What was there on the day before the big bang ?

Ian Hall- A simple answer: we don't know for sure, but probably a contracting universe rather than an expanding one.

Your point is?

Mark wrote: "Therefore, I put people each in their own box with their own label. You should see the one I put you in."

Dear, dear, what a low level of argument we have sunk to! Not even grown-up enough to be considered puerile.

And here was I hoping that some creationist would respond to the point that Moses was not there at the "Creation", according to his own account. As a Humanist, I regard the story in Genesis as mere folktale, but I thought that some posters here might want to claim a higher status for the reports of Moses. But if his story is not an eye-witness report and he gives no sources, then it is hard to see what that status is. Entertaining fantasy, perhaps?

Les Reid,

Talking about responding to points in the blog, you haven't responded to my query regarding your condemnation of IP Jnr. As far as I see it you can't say its wrong for him to say that homosexuality is wrong whenever you as a humanist do not believe in absolutes like right and wrong. Or am I wrong?

Re 8 and 11.

I agree Mark. Huckabee is not a "right-winger" more a moderate Republican but of course the term was being used in a pejorative rather than in its political sense. But then as you know from previous discussions peas can indeed be very mushy.

Huckabee seems to have come up quite a bit based on his last performance.

Regards,
Michael

John , my point is that the big bang is not a credible explanation for the origin of all things . To put it simply if the big bang caused us what or who caused it ? And to go further who caused the causer ?

Re 14

And to go further who caused the causer ?

Ian: We are stuck with the same question with regard to a Creator

Regards,
Michael

PS Is anyone having trouble posting to this blog. About half of my submissions are rejected with the message "You are not allowed to post"?

Re post 12. Rubberduckie wrote: "As far as I see it you can't say its wrong for him to say that homosexuality is wrong whenever you as a humanist do not believe in absolutes like right and wrong. Or am I wrong?"

Yes, you're right - you are wrong.

Humanist morality is based on the facts of the human condition and what we know about planet Earth and the species which inhabit it. Thus, for example, it is wrong to drive drunk because you might kill or injure another human being. It starts from the same assumptions as most moral codes, legal codes and moral philosophy.

The alternative is a morality based on the likes and dislikes (so far as we can guage them) of some unseen and unknowable spirit in the sky. We are lucky that such a morality does not actually obtain. Otherwise we might be faced with the death penalty for heresy, homosexuality, witchcraft, etc, as was the case when religious morality was in control.

The big bang theory is certainly more credible than accepting a literal interpretation of a creation myth. I also believe it is better to honestly say 'I don't know' rather than (my)goddidit!

I believe that the current thinking on the cause of the big bang puts it down to a singularity.

If you want to know more ask Peter Klaver who is an occasional poster here and a physicist.

Actually those who believe in biblical accounts of creation and the creator also believe that God is a self-existent , uncreated being.
You may not believe that- that is your privilege but the point I have highlighted is a problem not for us but for those big bang theorists whose first article of faith is - there is no God , there is no self-existent , uncreated being who has life in himself .

Ian,

the problem is that there is not a shred of evidence to back up the Biblical view of creation(the same is true of Hindu, New age Raelian, Chinese etc etc creationism).

Hi Ian

"Day before the big bang"

As far as i understand the theory, time only came into being with the big bang.

what do you mean "before" the big bang?

You say scientits have articles of faith related to their science, what do you mean could you give me an example? As i understand it Scinece seeks to answer the question HOW things work not WHY they are hear.

Even if we could explain the universe as a closed system (some high dimentional space-time closed shape) it dosen't help one bit to answer the question why is it here.

as i see it, science and religeon are different. they both are important, and have different purposes. they dont have to be enimies.

Les Reid, it frightens me when you agree with some of my positions such as being what is deceptively labeled a "humanist" (sounds too much like humanitarian, atheist will do just fine thank you.) It's enough to make me question my own beleifs.

The Constitution only restricts candidates for President of the United States to being at least 35 years old and having been born in the US. It doesn't say anything about requiring him or her to have a functioning brain. Isn't America wonderful? Of course there are those who would change that, they'd like to see the "Governator" become the "Presinator." Hasta la Vista...Baby!

About 27 years ago, seeing what a mess there was in the White House, I was thinking about running my dog for President, but I let the whole idea go because she was getting up in years and I was afraid the strain of the campaign would be too much for her. Now I have two dogs and both are over 35 years old....in dog years. Perhaps I'll run them as a complete ticket. That would really be a first, both a female president and vice president.

On a different site I found two links related to the GOP presidential debate. Some are in denial about more than just evolution. Read about Sam Brownbacks views on gravity here:

As a Pastafarian I almost thought we needed another parody religion. But ridiculing had already been taken care of by parody news site The Onion, even before the debate:

Hello Ian Hall,

Your question of what happened the day before the big bang is somewhat similar to rubberdukies question on the Ali G thread ('where does matter come from') so I'll copy-paste my reply there to here. Basically Dylan Dog already answered it when he said it's good to admit you don't know something. That keeps you thinking, searching for the answer. Or as I put it:

"The short answer would be 'I don't know, the origin of the universe is some way away from my area of physics'. But if you asked people more knowledgeable than me in that area and kept asking them follow-ups like 'Where did that come from, what caused that to occur' etc, then at some point they too would say they don't know. Or they would say that they don't know YET, but that they are trying to find out. Just as there were many things that were not understood at some stage (and frequently assumed to be the hand of some god(s)), but that are very clear right now thanks to advances in science."

I would also like to echo am's statement that while time may seem a simple enough concept for us, it becomes much less clear as you go into some of the more exotic areas of theoretical physics.

Ian Hall- Sorry I didn't see your response until now. You said:

"John , my point is that the big bang is not a credible explanation for the origin of all things . To put it simply if the big bang caused us what or who caused it ? And to go further who caused the causer?"

But from the existence of these questions and the absence of conclusive answers it does not follow that we are any less sure about the fact of the big bang. Just because you have questions about what happened before the big bang doesn't mean we're not scientifically certain that the big bang occurred. The evidence for the big bang is overwhelming. How does a lack of understanding the cause of something lead us to rationally conclude that it didn't happen? It simply means that we have many unanswered questions about it, questions that we're attempting to answer by the same scientific method we utilised to procure our knowledge that it occurred.

To that end, there is much research taking place worldwide, some of which is turning up some interesting evidence. Using quantum theory, for example, some scientists are suggesting that the universe may have contracted before it expanded (and it's still doing so, as astronomers have been observing for years).

Thanks to all for their respective answers to my simple questions . While as a Christian fundamentalist I believe that In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth it is good to discuss these matters with those who differ .
Incidentally , would my scientifically minded respondents agree that the first act of creation would have caused what we might describe as a fairly big bang ? Or am I just being mischievous ?

Ian #25- "Incidentally, would my scientifically minded respondents agree that the first act of creation would have caused what we might describe as a fairly big bang?"

It's certainly a valid way of looking at it! But be eager to feast on the science, lest people like me think that truth is not your supreme concern. The minute you reject scientific discovery in favour of your preconceived theology, you abandon your soul's search for truth and feed it prejudged doctrine instead. That would be a shame. Instead, allow yourself the honesty of being prepared to have your beliefs change in light of the newest evidence.