But your (Wiccan?) beliefs and your political views are doubtlessly connected. Each person has values and first principles, and those are in dialogue with their religion and their political ideology. I am my religion because I believe that it's true, and I hold my political views because I believe that they are true. They're both inseparably part of who I am, how I live my life and, yes, how I vote.

Each of us is only one person... To separate our religious, political, and personal selves into spheres with no overlap is to break ourselves apart. That's the very definition of a lack of integrity.

Aren't you the guy who was here before the election saying Romeny would win in a landslide? Didn't you say polls showed Romney with a big lead in PA and he would win easily? Weren't you the one attacking anyone who didn't agree with your biased opinions which all turned out to be dead wrong? If you lied so many times about the election, why should anyone take anything you say seriously moving forward?

PS - Keep your religion to yourself and I'll keep my opinions about the invisible man you worship to myself. Politics and religion have no place together.

Science has nothing to with faith. Science builds its merit through questioning, challenging its own assumptions, and repeatable testing. Faith, by its very meaning, is unquestioning, unchallenging, and subjective.

George Washington crossed the Delaware (1776). Witches burned alive in Wurtzburg, Germany (1626). Christopher Columbus sailed to America (1,492). Constantine declares Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire (380). After thousands of eyewitness healings and ressurections, Christ himself gets nailed to a tree, sealed in a tomb, and walked out three days later (0).

How do we know any of the above are true, and so why believe any of it?

All of the above are historically documented events, cross-referenced with eyewitnesses who weren't it favor of the above events but testified to them and recorded them nonetheless. Washington, Columbus, Constantine and Jesus all made many enemies bent on their destruction and willing to write down their thoughts. It wasn't all just zealous selling by their supporters.

Is history more science than art? Does faith in historical records fall short of faith in scientific theories? If science has nothing to do with faith, Morgan, then why trust in any theory which cannot be duplicated in a laboratory? Can humans create a living cell from nothing? No. So why place your faith that all life evolved from chemicals and heat coming together? Science, by its very meaning applies methodologies to test theories. Why waste time methodically testing a theory unless you have faith in a positive outcome? Drug companies run 80,000 expensive clinical trials a year, on faith.

I say study all religions, all history, all sciences.

Yeah and in 2012 Obama beat the Mormon Mitt Romney despite people like Jack Minster telling us that Romney would win in a landslide. You claim to "study all religions, all history, all sciences" yet spent months lieing on the Patch and making up fake stats to support your lies. Nobody is buying your right wing BS buddy.

Hit the road Jack and don't ya' come back no more, no more!

I agree - study and absorb all of it. The difference though, in your examples, is that all of those other historical events are not supernatural events. If George Washington was reported to have walked across the surface of the Delaware river, or to have parted it so his army could pass through, it'd be a different discussion. That, and our history is documented by historians instead of priests after the 16th century, minimizing denominational bias.

On your other points, well, we can create living cells from raw matter - it was in 2010:
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-05/21/worlds-first-living-synthetic-cell-created
Even without that, it's the process of learning through the scientific method to understand the world more fully - if we can't do it now, that doesn't mean we won't someday. I don't have any 'faith' in science, because it doesn't require me to 'believe' in it for it to prove itself. This often seems to be a hang-up for the religious in discussions of science. I don't have 'faith' in science - it is demonstrable, like a math equation. I don't have faith that 2+2 is 4, it's that it adds up to 4 every time we do it. Religious phenomena, as in the Bible, is written expressly as beyond human understanding - a flaming bush that never burns away, a dead man rising from his grave - to express the need for faith to explain something greater than human comprehension. Science, conversely, seeks to extend the limits of human comprehension.

The inventors call it the world's first synthetic cell, although this initial step is more a re-creation of existing life -- changing one simple type of bacterium into another -- than a built-from-scratch kind. Have faith. Maybe someday they will create life from scratch.

Has science extended human comprehension and answered your morality questions, right from wrong, how are you supposed to live? My point was to the arrogance of some science and scientists in proposing you give "faith" in them, as Hawkings has, that there is no God. He has astrophysical evidence pointing to defense of his theory. Really! 2+2 = no God? That math just doesn't add up.

To your rebuttal that studying the historical records of the paranormal including cross-referenced records from eyewitnesses who were also detractors, how would that investigation differ in methodology from investigating other historical events? To use your math example, 1 eyewitness is hearsay, but 12 plus 10,000 = 10,012 eyewitnesses, plus 30,000 converts who were not eyewitnesses but happened within the first few months of the alleged event, spreading through Europe and converting Rome itself within 3 centuries - is historically unprecedented, before or after. Worth a deep dive, in my opinion.

How can you prove Washington didn't walk on water?

Science is great and wonderful, no question, and to many it compliments their understanding of those supernatural forces it cannot explain.

It's not faith that they will - they either will or they won't. Science doesn't answer moral questions, and I wasn't implying that it did. It's not that 2+2=No God, it's that it requires God for 2+2=5 (which is, again, the basis for the supernatural metaphors in the Bible).

As for the history, if you want to take a particular religious text written by religious scholars to reinforce their religious doctrine as a factual record, that's up to you, but for (I think?) pretty obvious reasons that's not a very solid basis. There's no reason to prove or disprove that Washington walked on water, because there is no basis to assume he, or anyone, ever could.

The New Testament events described in the four Gospels and letters of Paul are not metaphors, I disagree with your use of that label. If you haven't read them, let me give you an example. Paul's follower, the physician Luke: "it seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in consecutive order, most excellent Theophilus;"

Not many people had writing skills in that society and even fewer had camcorders.
This wasn't a bed-time story. It was intended as a factual statement for the official Roman record. And thanks for your permission. I do believe it.

I'm pretty sure every religion ever has been presented as the factual, non-metaphorical, account of history. That doesn't make them accurate or non-metaphorical, though.

That's why "Religion", is man's attempt to get to God, Kevin.

By that standard, what doesn't have a sordid history? I'm proud of the history of the United States, which has been far from perfect. Even looking at myself, the word flawed would be an understatement, but I don't curl up into a ball of self loathing.

So, you didn't read what Chaput wrote?

Religion plays a large role in current events, so study of comparative religions fits very well into Social Studies (or whatever they call it these days). At the college level, it fits well in Human Psychology.

Is it? Every major ideological position is used to justify wars. In the United States, we prefer to fight for "liberty" than for Religion. The Soviet Union fought for "Communism."

Usually these things are only justifications trotted out because they provide for better rhetoric than talking about border and trade disputes. Can you think of a war that was actually about religion? I'm sure there might have been one at some point, but I can't. They're almost all about land, money, or balance of power.

FWIW, Nate Silver was only right by coincidence. He built a model based on a bunch of polls that were based on faulty data, but the faults just happened to cancel each other out. The polls showed the independent vote significantly favoring Romney (which they didn't), and they showed higher democrat turnout than there was (though they we surprisingly right about the low Reepublican turnout). Their errors almost cancelled each other out, so the state by state results happened to be correct. That was chance, though, not accuracy.

Oh Abraham, Obama won, and yet the posted facts about economic policy (trickle down government failure) remain true, just hanging out there for you or anyone else to unsuccessfully challenge. Facts I posted that Clinton now fully regrets his 40% tax bracket and derivatives regulation that started the whole recession (but he sure campaigned hard for Obama, hmm, in exchange for what, since the two disagree on economic policy?) JFK was a Democrat, and I posted his policy speeches which matched Romney-Ryans. Still facts, Abraham.

Now we'll see how raising tax rates and 3% Obamacare surtax on 1 million small business owners affects the unemployment numbers and doctors accepting Medicare patients, etc. Maybe I'll blog a monthly Obama Administration report card, posting the numbers. Unfortunately of the 3 million people who decided the course of our nation's renewal and recovery over the next 4 years, only a few would read my blog. And might still vote for bad policy-makers again in 2016. I can't control that. Just as you cannot change facts.

But at least some people can read report cards and CVs and make sound informed decisions, and for my elected geographic area of responsibility, no guilt here. Mission accomplished.

http://perkiomenvalley.patch.com/blog_posts/romney-ryan-enjoy-big-win-in-trappe

3 million decided it for 300 million. That's all that happened. No sweeping referendum here. Congrats to Team O on yet another successful sale.

It's a pretty big logical jump to assume that all the polls were faulty - or that it was pure luck - when, in total, they very nearly perfectly predicted the election.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/10/which-polls-fared-best-and-worst-in-the-2012-presidential-race/

Gallup and Rasmussen have some serious 'splainin to do. Looks like many of the large supposedly non-partisan pollsters took a beating.

Morgan, the polls went right. They were wrong about turnout, and they were wrong about the independent vote. Their data was, on every front, wrong... And they were wrong about Obama's margins in the states, too. But, Nate Silver weights the most left leaning poll (PPP) the heaviest, and so, when the Democrats win big, he's right. He was wrong in 2010... And he'll be wrong in any election that isn't a solid Democrat win.

If you look at the poll internals, it's clear that the polls were garbage.

1) I'm no big "fan" of Nate Silver but he has called the last two election cycles nearly perfectly. In 2010 when he predicted a huge Republican victory led by the tea party, Fox News and the right wing loved him. The simple fact is he looks at the data in an unbaised manner and makes a prediction based on probability, not political preference.

2) Please click on Jack Minster's name and look at the long, long list of posts he made prior to the election. He spent 8 plus hours a day posting nonsense about how Romney was going to win in a landslide. He made up lies, slandered people, and created his own reality in a vain attempt to trick himself that the majority would actually support an empty suit like Romney. Now his latest line of BS is that Obama only won by "three million" so therefore it isn't a real victory. What a loser! This guy and his elk actually hurt their own cause because their lies are so stupid, it turns off anyone with an IQ over 70 that isn't a racist or a religious kook! Keep up the good work Jack.

Even Republicans who have an ounce of common sense realize the math don't lie:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2012/11/09/the-elections-biggest-winner-arithmetic/

Total "popular" vote Obama 63,204,940 Romney 59,505,017 difference 3,699.923

Yes Richard-filth, you can keep getting banned and blocked by Patch editors everywhere due to your personal attacks and uncivilized posts which violate the agreement terms, and keep changing your handles to ever more unrecognizable versions like the current "1" - but your filthy spirit betrays you. Snuff out the light and the truth, eh Richard? Tell everyone who you really are if you have the courage. Stalker weirdo.

Sorry Jack I have NEVER been banned from this or any other site and I would invite the editor Tom to confirm this if you would like. Consdering you have posted 100s if not 1000s of BS posts here often replying seconds after someone challenges one of your lies, I think you are the stalker here.

You may want to look up the term "projection".

Jack, time will tell about the economy and the ACA. Obviously, we have very different views on what those outcomes will be.

The fact is Obama won and Romney lost - whether by 3 million or 3. The fact is that in the last six presidential elections, the Republican won the popular vote exactly once. The fact is this year every incumbent Senator was re-elected while every right wing tea party associated senate candidate lost (including Tom Smith here in PA). The fact is the Republicans held on to their house majority, but Democratic house candidates won more votes in total - thank you gerrymandering.

The fact is, the white vote dropped again. This time by 4% from 2008. This is not the USA of a few decades ago and we're not going back. This is a far more diverse and colorful USA. If the Republicans keep making statements about the 47% and blaming their electoral losses on gifts to minorities and young people, they will continue to lose. It's fairly simple math.

As for Nate Silver fmrRPRez, he didn't get it right by coincidence - the polls just didn't happen to "cancel each other out." In fact, that's the whole idea! That's the brilliance of Nate Silver. It's called statistical science.

"Nate Silver weights the most left leaning poll (PPP) the heaviest, and so, when the Democrats win big, he's right"

Silver weights polls based on historical accuracy, though, not partisan bias. The reason the poll that favored the Democrats is heavily weighted is because it was historically accurate, as you may have noted by the election results, which also favored the Democrats.

Morgan, that "accuracy" is a matter of pure coincidence. Polls have not been terribly accurate in recent elections. PPP was most accurate in '08 because PPP always leans democrat. Rasmussen was most accurate in '10 because it leans furthest for the Republicans. That's hardly a mathematical achievement. Somebody was bound to be most right, and since polls generally stay close to the middle, it's probably going to be the most extreme poll on one side or the other.

And, if you look at PPPs data, it was wildly wrong, and that carries into Silver's analysis.

Um, I don't know how to respond to that. You do not appear to understand how polling, much less Silver's meta-polling, works on a fundamental level. That's just completely incorrect.

PPP, for example, polled that 46% of voters in Colorado would vote for Romney on 11/4 and 46% of Colorado actually voted for Romney. They polled Florida 50/49, exactly what it was. Polls, much less single polls (and especially not nonpartisan firms), aren't ever perfectly accurate (PPP's Iowa poll had an extra 2% for Romney that didn't materialize), but the premise that it's pure chance and that an extremely divergent poll ends up looking accurate and therefore polling is basically meaningless is just not how statistics function in the slightest.

I understand well how polling works. In college, I worked for two different polling firms, one of whom is one of the major ones. The end result that the polls come up with is rather irrelevant to the accuracy of their data. They weigh their polls based on expected turnout demographically. If that weighting is wrong and the candidates' performance within the subgroups is right, the poll will have the wrong results. PPP had Romney well ahead among independents, and that didn't materialize. They overstated, however, Democratic enthusiasm, and those effects just so happened to counteract each other enough to make the polls "right."

PPP's president was out bragging about how his company had the right "hunch" about turnout, and that that's why they got the election right. The "hunch" isn't a matter of good data... it's mostly a good guess. What he didn't mention, though, was that their hunch was actually considerably off. Had they known that Obama would get fewer votes than McCain got in '08, their polls would have given Romney the win.

While those are certainly weaknesses of an individual poll, the broad picture of weighted polling was extremely, overwhelmingly, accurate. For what it's worth, Independents did shift towards Romney - Obama lost about independents from his 08 numbers in almost every state - and Romney won Ohio Independents by 10%.

http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2012/11/14/infographic-of-the-day-obama-lost-independent-voters-in-all-swing-states-minus-nc/

http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-romney-independent-vote-polls-moderates-election-2012-11

I get all the learnin' I need directly through my tin foil hat.

Jack: It is often said that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Consider your own example of George Washington crossing the Delaware. Is this implausible? Is there good reason to believe that crossing the Delaware exceeded the technological limitations of the time? Is there anything in the account to suggest that such a voyage was unlikely? If not, then it's a solid candidate for the history books.

However, claims about walking on water, raising the dead, and so forth are in clear violation of everything we've discovered over thousands of years of human history. Does this mean it didn't happen? No. But it does demand considerably more evidence than more mundane claims, such as George Washington crossing the Delaware.