First paragraph: I think in the Yankees/WS analogy, that God is actually the World Series winner since that's the unknown.....and the teams represent our various "guesses" as to what god could be. In that case, belief in a team of 5-year-olds would be dishonest just as belief in a book that is contrary to what we know of in our world. In our world, there's nothing that would suggest that 5-year-olds stand any chance against grown major league players just as there's nothing in our world that suggests that people are able to walk on water and become resurrected from the dead. Hence the dishonesty.

Regarding the bacteria: Claiming that small seedlike entities caused disease isn't an extraordinary claim and while we can't automatically accept that as our truth just based on that claim, I have no problem with accepting that as a possibility because it's at least reasonable given what we DO know. It wouldn't be unreasonable to suggest that small particles that we can't see cause disease. That wouldn't be a dishonest position to explore since nothing serves to contradict that idea.

I think the bacteria example is similar to the position of deists that believe a god created the universe that no longer interferes with things. It's an unverifiable claim right now, but at least it's not dishonest. It's completely different than actually claiming something CONTRARY to what we actually know, like that god helped you find your keys.

Yo Hagana....to your first paragraph: To play off of your analogy of the Yankees and the World Series, it would be the equivalent of someone simply believing that the Yankees would win the WS without researching the chances the Yankees really have of winning it. It could be that the Yankees are made up of little league 5-year-olds and they're playing against actual major league players.....anyone that believes that the yankees would have a chance at that point would be being dishonest with themselves when they know full well that they would get their brains beat in. They can't possibly think that the Yankees have a chance, but they are trying to convince themselves that they do because it makes them feel good. See the parallel I'm trying to draw?

To your second: I realize that there exists the "reality" that we CAN know and the "absolute reality" that actually IS. When people had no clue about bacteria thousands of years ago, their collective reality was whatever best answer they could come up with at the time, and people I guess agreed that demon posession was the best explanation for sickness. As our understanding of our world changes, our reality changes, since our reality is nothing more than our best understanding of the world we live in.

And no, just because something doesn't readily manifest doesn't mean it doesn't exist in "absolute reality". The perfect example of this is the concept of god. God does not manifest in our "collective reality", so it's not even worth entertaining since how else would you even remotely know about such a thing unless it actually did manifest itself anyway?

The bacteria example isn't the same as the god hypothesis since no one brought up the existence of a bacteria or virus as a possibility. What would have driven someone to make such a claim back then? How could someone come up with the idea of a virus if they didn't have any manifestation of it? Maybe they had some obscure guess that resembled a virus, but until we're able to verify that one actually exists, there's no point in entering it into our reality as if it DOES exist. Sure, I'm all for the exploration to find more answers, but we can only deal with what we DO know. It wouldn't have made any sense for people back then to deal with bacteria as if it were real when they had no evidence for its existence. Everything they would have come up with would have been a total guess if not for any manifestation? Same with god right now.....everything we claim to know about god is a total guess, and it doesn't do us any good since everyone has different guesses......let's hold off on acting like god is a reality until we find some sort of manifestation.

Hope I gave you enough ammo to clear things up or respond back.

Hey shant, thanks for the post.

Since you only covered the bullpen, I'll just take them one pitcher at a time.

Damaso Marte pitched in 25 games for the Yanks last season with a 5.40 ERA. He's got a 3.29 career ERA which is pretty good (but only three sub-3.00 seasons in his 9-year career),and I would trust his Yankee numbers at this point rather than looking at how he did with the White Sox or Pirates. The guy has serious control issues averaging a walk every other inning. Not someone I'd call solid.

Brian Bruney is more of the same. Put up solid numbers last season in part time work, but ha worse control issues than Marte. In a full season with the Yanks in 07, he put up a 4.68 ERA in 58 games. Had a 1.82 in 32 games this season. I don't expect him to be as bad as 07, but thinking he'll be anywhere near a 2.00 ERA isn't reasonable. He's definitely got some promise, but he would have a lesser role on Tampa Bay or Boston, and that's saying a lot more about where their bullpens are.

I actually like Edwar Ramirez. He put up great minor league numbers, but got shelled in 07, and put up a 3.90 ERA last year which is a step in the right direction, but there's no way you can say the guy RIGHT NOW is "very good". His potential tells us he should be, but there's no way you can say he gives the Yankees a good bullpen when he's got a 5.07 ERA in 76 games so far with the Yanks.

Jose Veras was an average bullpen pitcher in his first full season. He's not a young guy (28 next year) and while he very well may improve on his 08 performance, his minor league stats aren't very impressive (3.91 ERA and 1.42 WHIP). He's another guy with control issues that has put up either average or below average stats with the Yanks.

Dan Giese is yet more of the same. He's actually worse since he's a career minor leaguer who just got his first cup of coffee at 30 in 2007. He was an average bullpen pitcher last year with a 3.53 ERA. He did well in the minors and has really nice control numbers, but there's no reason to think that he's going to turn into Papelbon, Okajima, Balfour, or J.P. Howell.

All of these guys have been average to below-average so far in their Yankee careers and while there's a lot of potential, given that they haven't been studs off the bat, that makes their bullpen a major question mark going into the season, and I wouldn't even try to call them "very good" right now based on the numbers they've put up so far. Just what criteria are you using to call this bullpen "very good"?

You posted a link to Baseball Prospectus as if whatever they say is gospel when Joe Sheehan is speculating just like any other Joe Schmo out there right now. No one knows how the Yankees bullpen is going to be. All we can do is speculate based on past performance and current data. There's no reason to believe that the Yankees will have a "very good" bullpen at this point, and definitely not any better than the Rays or Red Sox.

Re-reading this, it's almost as if god was reading this post since the Phillies actually won their first World Series since 1980. I mean, that's the only reasonable explanation, right?

I think the percentage of people that believe in a god is closer to 80-90% worldwide, but anyway, my objective with this website is simply to provide a countering viewpoint on topics that have historically been one-sided. I don't write with the intent to change the minds of everyone in that 90%, but to hopefully provide a new viewpoint to people in a world where ideas like those presented on my site are fairly hard to come by.

Let me ask you something though: How do you think I came to understand the world as I have? Of course a large chunk of it has come from my own ideas and interpretation of the things I've experienced, but it also has everything to do with the exchange of information from other people. I read other information about religion or race, and my own understanding of them is changed by it. It's through this exchange of information that made me who I am, and I think it's only fair to continue the sharing of information with others, which is what I am doing with this site.

It's so easy to just say shut up and sit down, but if everyone with something to say was muzzled, I think we'd be in an even worse state right now. The internet has allowed me to connect to people around the world and I have visitors from other countries daily on this site. You can't discount the positive impact that one person can have on the lives of other people, and while I realize from the get-go that I'm not going to change the entire world, but if I can reach even one person and allow them to see things from a different perspective, then I think that's more than worth the effort.

My goodness...such fury!

I guess we should sit down and I can explain to you that there's no way to absolutely disprove someone's concept of god. We can explain how illogical, contradictory or possibly immoral it is, but there's no way to say with 100% certainty that there is no god. Do I believe there is one? No, I don't. But that is completely separate from my understanding that it's entirely possible for a god to exist that we have no way of knowing about. The same goes for whether or not we live in "The Matrix". I can say that there's no rational reason to believe that we live in the Matrix, but that doesn't mean we can absolutely say that it doesn't exist. The only thing we can be near 100% certain with is that we exist...everything else is just our best estimate based on what we're aware of at the moment.

When someone has a feeling or experience, it is up to THEM to demonstrate that it is real, otherwise how are we to distinguish who's telling the truth and who isn't? They demonstrate that it's real by showing some sort of manifestation of their experience.

Of course, that's not to say that what they experience definitely isn't real, but it just means there's no rational reason to believe that they are being honest with us if they don't have any way to demonstrate that their experience is real. Sadly, the only way we can deal with our reality is through sensory evidence, and if you're unable to present any, there's no point in even entertaining the idea or experience as truth. After all, if it doesn't manifest in our world, what's the point in even worrying about it anyway?

I understand what you mean, and I think this has everything to do with the concept of our shared reality. Reality isn't some fixed thing that never changes. It just has to do with the things we know to be verifiable and as close to the truth for us as possible. While we may not know the absolute truth, we are able to figure out what things are at least "more true" than others.

In the case of bacteria back in the day, the closest they were able to come to the truth was to explain away disease through demon possession. Of course with our advancing technology, we can improve on that hypothesis by finding out that there are actually bacteria and viruses that cause disease. I'm near certain that we'll improve on that knowledge in the near future as well.

As my dad likes to say, it's a work in progress. As long as we all realize that nothing is certain and set in stone, it'll all make sense. But our reality exists only as the things we can know and verify as real.

Thanks for the lob : )

By definition, anything that is imaginary is "not real". Real things manifest themselves and we're able to experience some sort of sensory evidence of them whether directly or indirectly.

As Matt Dillahunty explained: "That which does not manifest is indistinguishable from that which does not exist" or something to that effect.

Sure, we react to things differently when it comes to heat, or how spicy a food is, but there is no gray area when it comes to the EXISTENCE of the sun or a jalapeno pepper.

Ha, yeah I have the same links. Not a perfect science yet.