Sign me up. I'll think of something.

I don't know about Ranger school, but it doesn't bother me that women can attend Sapper school.

Do you think females should be allowed in sapper school?

Watching all of the southern members getting butthurt with delight.

I wouldn't use the term positivist. Bad Ayers connotation.

 I think you've made this unnecessarily complex. There is no evidence as far as I'm concerned for the occurrence of miracles. There is an abundance of evidence for the claim that miracle accounts are examples of misapprehension, deception, etc. Suppose now one claims to have experienced a miracle. No prior evidence will support this view and all prior evidence will suggest that it too is a misapprehension, deception, etc.

How many theists have claimed that God is unintelligible?

Here's the video.

Tom, I think you attempt to defend one unsupported assumption by committing to another unsupported assumption. Sure, if one assumes the existence of a divine creator who can perform miracles, then the possibility of miracles is affirmed. But then you task yourself with defending the antecedent assumption, i.e., the god assumption.

I share Hitchens' view on miracles, which is to say Hume's view. In his Fora.tv debate with Al Sharpton, Hitchens said the following with regard to miracles:

"Indeed, I believe people when they say that they have experienced miracles. I believe that they think that they have. I think I'm obliged to credit them if it comes to that as long as they keep it to, if you like, if I can put it like this, modestly as I dare, to themselves...I think it was David Hume who put it slightly vulgarly, this was again about the virgin birth I think: which is more likely, that the whole natural order is suspended or that a Jewish minx should tell a lie? There has to be an answer to this kind of question."

What's more likely in the event one claims to have witnessed a miracle or discerns the testimony of someone who claims to have witnessed one: that such a miracle did occur, i.e., the physically impossible was rendered possible, or the viewer was under a misapprehension? Which is the more sensible supposition? I think the latter clearly is.

[Comment Redacted: DoD - violation of UCMJ, critical of Commander-in-Chief]

That doesn't preclude it from being a religion big guy. As if giving Islam and Christianity the same taxonomy somehow discredits Christianity (its quite capable of doing that on its own, thank you very much). Islam has all the characteristics of a classic religion: belief in and servility to a supernatural being, belief without knowledge of evidence, belief in divine revelation, belief in an afterlife, etc. If it walks like a duck...

Mr. Sullivan should trying forgetting both.

Sounds like classic imperialism to me. No thanks.

Ah, Bob Murphy is among my favorite libertarian anarchists.

"...Finally, after weary centuries of bimetallic disruption, governments picked one metal as the standard, generally gold. Silver was relegated to "token coin" status, for small denominations, but not at full weight. (The minting of token coins was also monopolized by government, and, since not backed 100% by gold, was a means of expanding the money supply.) The eradication of silver as money certainly injured many people who preferred to use silver for various transactions. There was truth in the war-cry of the bimetallists that a "crime against silver" had been committed; but the crime was really the original imposition of bimetallism in lieu of parallel standards. Bimetallism created an impossibly difficult situation, which the government could either meet by going back to full monetary freedom (parallel standards) or by picking one of the two metals as money (gold or silver standard). Full monetary freedom, after all this time, was considered absurd and quixotic; and so the gold standard was generally adopted."

Murray Rothbard, What Has Government Done to Our Money?