maluba

In studying world religions, both contemporary and historical, one thing hits me over the head time and again... although the content of the religions is different, the certainty of belief held by the practictioners of each religion is about the same.

it seems that every practioner KNOWS WITH CERTAINTY that their beliefs are true and correct.

but if you step back and see how similar they are in this... how this is a common trait of all... doesn't it become increasingly obvious that none of them can be so sure, if all of them are?

someone can read about the ancient greeks and then say, "they believed in so many gods. that's so wrong. everyone knows there's just one god." but... there were/are tons of people who look at them and say, "they only believe in one god. that's so wrong. everyone knows there are 3."

so how do the religious reconcile this? how do they allow themselves to be so swayed by their own faith, and so unconvinced by all others. Please no WORD OF GOD answers

Some weather sites, like Yahoo! Weather for examle, give a "feels like" temp that's often much higher or lower than the actual temp. I'm wondering what it takes for water to freeze. If Yahoo reports that it's 35 degrees out, but that it feels like 26, will water freeze? Does the temp have to be below 32? Or just feel like it's below 32?

I was supposed to tape Oprah for my wife today, but I messed up and taped the wrong thing. Can anyone get me out of the doghouse telling me where I can find today's episode online?

Here's which episode was on today:

http://www2.oprah.com/tows/pastshows/200606/tows_p...

In the movie, Al shows a graphic that illustrates CO2 ppm over time. It looks kind of like this:

http://whyfiles.org/211warm_arctic/images/1000yr_c...

He then paraphrases one of his science professor's answers to the question, "Why does it cycle up and down, up and down, every year?"

The answer is that most of Earth's landmass, and thus most of Earth's CO2 burning plantlife (80% i think he said) is above the equator. For the six months that this hemisphere is in winter, there is much greater CO2 concentration. When that half is in summer, all those plants thrive and breathe up much much more CO2. So, he says, the Earth effectively takes a giant breath each year.

But as I see it, if most landmass is above the equator, so are most people. And we breath out CO2. Don't we more or less "cancel out" the plants? Shouldn't that half of the year see much more photosynthesis but also much more oxidation? Does it seem like this north/south idea explains the fluctuating?

We have a gas furnace that usually works just fine. There is an intermittent problem that surfaces occasionally, and it seems to come up on the coldest days. Maybe the amount of use it gets on colder days worsens the problem... I'm not sure.

When the thermostat triggers the heater, I can hear it click on, and I hear the heater start to rev up. It gets to the part where I usually hear the big "WHUP" of the gas inside igniting, but it doesn't happen. Instead, the whole system just kind of... winds down and turns off. Very disappointing.

It sometimes helps if I take the front panel off and gently shake all the wires and connections a bit. I'll put the panel back on and try it and everything will ignite and heat wonderfully. But when it's happening a lot, this only fixes it the first few times. After a few times, even this won't work. At that point, a whack to the side with my fist will usually get it working. If not, we just wait an hour or so until it comes on.

On the season 2 episode when Dr. Bailey was on maternity leave, there was this totally dippy and "warm and huggy" replacement who did her job for a while.

What was that actress' name?

What was the deal with the last scene in that movie? I get that he went to the future. I get that the apes had evolved and taken over the world in the future. No problem there.

But when he got back in his ship at the end, and he came back in time... back to NOW... and he crashed on Earth... why did he find that everyone was all apes NOW, and even the Lincoln Memorial had an ape's face on it.

What???? Why????