Poll for Atheists and Agnostics...
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BANNED
Member # 4
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written Friday, May 30 2003 18:44
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I'm most definitely not a Christian. Deacam- That's good for you, now go screw a blender, or something. Myself? I'm an atheist, raised by Easter/Christmas Catholics. -------------------- We're all amazed but not amused By all the things that you said you'd do. You're much concerned but not involved by Decisions that are made by you But we are sick and tired of hearing your song, Telling us how you are going to change right from wrong, 'Cause if you really want to hear our views, You haven't done nothin'. Posts: 6936 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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Member # 165
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written Friday, May 30 2003 18:49
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You were raised by Easter/Christmas Catholics and grew up to become an Easter/Christmas atheist. Do I receive the blender offer too, oh thoughtful one? :mad: -------------------- desperance -- je me souviens arena -- et je me souviens de vous Posts: 2449 | Registered: Monday, October 15 2001 07:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 48
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written Friday, May 30 2003 19:32
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quote:The "one nation under God" part in the Pledge of Allegiance is disputable because it is, after all, a later addition. Besides, if you don't believe in God, you can simply ignore that part (i.e. you can say "one nation, ... (pause), indivisible"). And even I, as a Christian, believe that it is wrong to call non-believers as unpatriotic. I mean, they should at least try to understand why people decide to not believing in God before preaching to non-believers (besides, there are always friendlier ways to preach to non-believers without openly condemning them, i.e. saying something like "you will all go to hell if you don't believe in God," etc.) This is similar to making the same mistakes of the missionaries in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart. (In case you didn't read it, this novel was a story about a Native African tribe which breaks apart after the arrival of European missionaries. In the story, the missionaries made the mistake of saying "your gods are gods of wood and stone" without knowing the natives' tradition.) quote:I personally don't. Theoratically, Christians can enter heaven even if they don't try to convert non-believers. It is true that many Christians would (at least partly) try to preach to others, but I doubt that they do it as an attempt to get a "better position" in heaven. In fact, if anyone thinks "I preach Christianity to others because I want a better position in heaven," that person should NOT go to heaven. quote:Speaking of "setting the universe in motion," let me give you an old example: when scientists discovered Pluto in 1930, they found out that the combined mass of Neptune and Pluto is not enough to counter some strange behaviors of Uranus and the "unbalanced gravitational forces" in the solar system; they therefore theorized that there must be a planet X. None has yet been found. (You don't have to believe this, but you can say "God makes sure that gravity works 100% of the time :) ") quote:Genesis 1:3: "And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light." Doesn't that match with the "suddenness" of Big Bang? :) quote:I personally would say: "If God has ignored us, humans should have gone extinct already." Then again, this is up to your judgment. -------------------- "Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they are doing.-Luke 23:34 Posts: 329 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00 |
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BANNED
Member # 4
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written Friday, May 30 2003 20:05
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You can go screw a blender, if you really want to... (The Landover Baptist gig is a joke. I pity the fool who doesn't figure this out real fast.) -------------------- We're all amazed but not amused By all the things that you said you'd do. You're much concerned but not involved by Decisions that are made by you But we are sick and tired of hearing your song, Telling us how you are going to change right from wrong, 'Cause if you really want to hear our views, You haven't done nothin'. Posts: 6936 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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Member # 165
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written Friday, May 30 2003 20:10
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I can't believe in an active God. Stalinism and Naziism and all sorts of assorted goodies of that kind wouldn't have come to be had there been an active God. -------------------- desperance -- je me souviens arena -- et je me souviens de vous Posts: 2449 | Registered: Monday, October 15 2001 07:00 |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 147
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written Saturday, May 31 2003 05:26
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As far as the prophets go- some I like. Generally the older ones, who wrote less. They're very rarely quoted except by preachers of apocalypse because they were either farmers with a near maniacal hatred of urban life or rabid demagogues. They're good to read because a) the prose is readable, whereas the early stuff must have been written in a time with a lesser vocabulary or the writers must have been semi-literate b) flawed characters are more interesting and c) Isaiah sends me to sleep and I don't like the message of books like Ezra. Christianity itself isn't hypocritical, although occasionally contradictory. The various Christian churches are, but I for one believe they're absolutely different things. Posts: 1000 | Registered: Thursday, October 11 2001 07:00 |
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Shaper
Member # 496
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written Saturday, May 31 2003 09:56
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What people choose to do with blenders in the privacy of their own homes is surely their own affair, its own reward and punishment. I, for one, avert my eyes, having simply no prurient interest in that direction. Posts: 2333 | Registered: Monday, January 7 2002 08:00 |
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Agent
Member # 1359
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written Saturday, May 31 2003 12:43
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quote:Hmm... Probably just an anomaly in space-time. I expect that in the future somebody makes a time-machine and goes back to watch the Big Bang, only to find that it was actually their time-machine which caused it. It's almost ironic enough to work. -------------------- ~ §øСüm ©ÿªñ¡Ðë ~ Mission Ridge -- All Your Snow Are Belong to Us. Posts: 1277 | Registered: Monday, June 24 2002 07:00 |
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Infiltrator
Member # 1823
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written Sunday, June 1 2003 02:44
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quote:Before the Big Bang there was no space time, and in any case, no laws of physics for it to create an anomoly of . Anyway, what caused the anomoly? -------------------- Riot Shields Voodoo Economics It's just business Cattle prods And the IMF I trust I can rely on your vote Posts: 530 | Registered: Sunday, September 1 2002 07:00 |
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Warrior
Member # 341
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written Sunday, June 1 2003 03:54
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I heard somewhere that one explaination is that the universe caused its own beginning. I think the idea is that the universe begins with the Big Bang, expands, then something happens that causes another Big Bang, and the cycle starts over. -------------------- "This stolen joke proves I have a sense of humour!" "This tired old proverb proves I am profound" "This hyperlink to someone who doesn't know me proves I am popular!" Nothing like a bandwagon. Except maybe irony. Posts: 159 | Registered: Monday, December 3 2001 08:00 |
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Shaper
Member # 496
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written Sunday, June 1 2003 06:31
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This sounds like a theological discussion to me. Tell me, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, if the Creator wills it? No, not that one! (EDIT: Reminds me of the old joke: Three wise men from the East went to see the Madonna. It was one of her first performances.) [ Sunday, June 01, 2003 06:32: Message edited by: X ] Posts: 2333 | Registered: Monday, January 7 2002 08:00 |
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Infiltrator
Member # 1823
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written Sunday, June 1 2003 08:09
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Wasn't this already a theological discussion anyway? -------------------- Riot Shields Voodoo Economics It's just business Cattle prods And the IMF I trust I can rely on your vote Posts: 530 | Registered: Sunday, September 1 2002 07:00 |
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Infiltrator
Member # 2669
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written Sunday, June 1 2003 09:10
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It doesn't matter, you're all figments of my imagination. The internet is the culmination of the sollipsistic idea; finally, there is no longer the need to physically interact with anyone. Thus, the universe ends every night when my computer gets turned off and the big bang happens every time it gets turned on. -------------------- ... Posts: 647 | Registered: Wednesday, February 19 2003 08:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Sunday, June 1 2003 09:11
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No, this was a religious discussion. That's the same thing, only less civilized. —Alorael, who believes the universe formed because it can only exist with observation. Thus, the almost infinitely small probability that it would come into existence caused it to come into existence. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 147
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written Sunday, June 1 2003 10:28
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I heard something to the effect that space-time is a sphere and a sphere has no centre, so there need not have been anything to start the Big Bang. I didn't follow it at all, since a sphere clearly has a centre. Posts: 1000 | Registered: Thursday, October 11 2001 07:00 |
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Member # 165
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written Sunday, June 1 2003 11:16
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An infinitely large sphere has an infinitely large center. -------------------- desperance -- je me souviens arena -- et je me souviens de vous Posts: 2449 | Registered: Monday, October 15 2001 07:00 |
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Post Navel Trauma ^_^
Member # 67
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written Sunday, June 1 2003 11:17
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I think the idea here is that the universe is like the surface of a sphere (but with an extra dimension). The centre of the universe is then not in the universe. -------------------- Grammar wenches beware: This is the house that the malt that the rat that the cat that the dog that the cow that the maiden that the man that the priest that the cock that the farmer kept waked married kissed milked tossed worried killed ate lay in. My Website desperance.net - Leave your sanity at the door Posts: 1798 | Registered: Thursday, October 4 2001 07:00 |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 147
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written Monday, June 2 2003 11:03
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So long as I get the milk and post every day, I don't worry about it. If the paperboy is attacked by a wormhole, I'd be the first to investigate but until then I figure that anybody who wants to find the centre of the universe should just ask directions. Posts: 1000 | Registered: Thursday, October 11 2001 07:00 |
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Apprentice
Member # 2581
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written Thursday, June 5 2003 14:51
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Yow. Interesting chain of thought... Einstein may have once said something somewhat like "God does not play dice with the Universe". On the other hand, things like Heisenburg's Uncertainty Principle and the nature of a good deal of quantum-physics type particles sort of seems to belie this. The point is that things are measurable and quantifiable up to a point, and then they start getting screwy. Does this mean that we just can't measure them yet, or that we can't measure them at all? Why not? If we reach a point where something can no longer be split in two, or even examined, where does that leave the things made up of it? Science is fun. ;) (Oh, for the record, I am a pseudo-Christian myself, preferring to leave the proselytizing and "missionary work" to others, if they go in for that sorta thing... I go to a west-coast Quaker church, who are basically fundamentalist christians who believe in strong community spirit, equality of everything (men, women, racial, economical, etc.) and leadership by committee and consensus. My pastor is a woman, which I enjoy immensely just because it seems to irritate the snot out of a certain sort of person that I think I don't exactly have to call by name.) -------------------- Stuff? Don't mind if I do, thanks. This may, in fact, be a long, rambling post without much bearing on the topic of the thread. Consider yourself warned. Posts: 32 | Registered: Monday, February 3 2003 08:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Thursday, June 5 2003 15:38
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I suppose there are fundamentalist Quakers just like anything else, but somehow I can't picture it. The Quaker philosophy itself more or less precludes rabid, exclusive faith. —Alorael, who wouldn't let anything surprise him, though. If there can be fundamentalist atheists, and there most definitely are, there can be fundamentalist anythings. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Thursday, June 5 2003 15:55
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quote:Good question. You can't measure them at all beyond the accuracy allowed by the uncertainty principle; even being able to predict something you're not allowed to predict mathematically or from a theory is disallowed. If this weren't true, it would violate various basic physical principles. (As a result, it's impossible for a particle or field to remain at zero energy, by the way; zero is an exact value. Consequently, even in a hard vacuum particles will constantly pop in and out of existence.) -------------------- I believe there are 15 747 724 136 275 002 577 105 653 961 181 555 468 044 717 914 527 116 709 366 231 425 076 185 631 031 296 protons in the universe, and the same number of electrons. -- Sir Arthur Eddington Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Apprentice
Member # 2581
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written Thursday, June 5 2003 20:57
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Alorael: Ahem. It seems I misspoke- the phrase "fundamentalist" was, in hindsight, a bit of a lexographic error. In essence, I meant something more like "generic Christian" than "bible-thumper". I do know a couple, shall we say, hardcore literalists, but I'd prefer not to characterize myself as one of them. The basic goal of my church is similar to the original Quaker premise of "more God, less church" and has only moderately changed over the years with the acknowledgement of the fact that most people do somewhat enjoy music in a church service and that having a semi-permanent pastor reduces the need for random individuals to compose sermons. We'd like to put the connection to God and philosophy foremost and leave the establishment and institutionalism (heh, if that's even a word) behind. I find something rather refreshing in that. The Excuse: Quantum physics is so weird and interesting at the same time... My theory, as unresearched and random as it is ;) , is that we still merely lack either the technology to measure quantum uncertainty- that is, that our perceptions of reality are lacking in some certifiable dimension- or that there's some strange further behavior going on that we don't yet have the rational capacity and data availability to describe. So, then, the "impossible" task of either sharpening our perceptions to see where and how these things happen simultaneously, or broadening them enough that we can fully integrate them into context. Of course, how we'd go about doing either thing I haven't the faintest clue... but that's why I'm not a physicist. :P (As a random, somewhat self-centered aside, I wanted to be a physicist for a very long time as a kid, but I just never had the stomach for all the math it takes. Got kicked out of college calculus three times, so I gave up and changed to Computer Science/Business. ;) ) -------------------- Stuff? Don't mind if I do, thanks. This may, in fact, be a long, rambling post without much bearing on the topic of the thread. Consider yourself warned. Posts: 32 | Registered: Monday, February 3 2003 08:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Friday, June 6 2003 00:15
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quote:'Fraid not. That's what I thought too at first, and what most physics students think when they come up against the concept of uncertainty, but it just doesn't work that way. (Caution: physics ahead. I've tried to explain myself as well as possible, but honestly, this isn't really my area of expertise either.) Perhaps the best demonstration of quantum mechanics is the "double-slit experiment". Put two slits close together and pass photons (light particles) through them onto a screen. Because light has a wavelength, and waves can interfere with each other, we'll see an interference pattern; a large number of light and dark bands on the screen. Now, here's the trick. If you make sure that only one photon can pass through the slits at a time and record where on the screen light is detected, you'll see the same interference pattern building up as before. It's as if the photon is interfering with itself. Just to change this from a physical oddity to something downright infuriating, if you try to figure out what's going on by detecting which slit each photon is actually passing through, regardless of the method of detection used, you find that each photon passes through one slit. Unfortunately, something else happens as well: the interference pattern goes away. Instead of the pattern of light and dark bands you saw before, once you start looking at the system you get photons passing equally through the two slits to form only two bands on the screen. If one is of a religious inclination, I can imagine that it would seem very much as if God was trying to mess with one's mind with experiments like these. Still not convinced? Here, apparently, is a mathematical proof of the uncertainty principle: http://world.std.com/~sweetser/quaternions/quantum/uncertainty/uncertainty.html I don't understand a word of it, but apparently it relies entirely on the mathematical properties of particles, not on physics. -------------------- I believe there are 15 747 724 136 275 002 577 105 653 961 181 555 468 044 717 914 527 116 709 366 231 425 076 185 631 031 296 protons in the universe, and the same number of electrons. -- Sir Arthur Eddington Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Apprentice
Member # 2581
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written Sunday, June 8 2003 10:06
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Dual-slit experiments are really quite fascinating. They bring up what may in fact be the crucial distinction in particulate physics- the exact difference between a wave and a particle. These sort of techniques, as well as collaborating evidence from particle acceleration tests and some radiography tests, seem to say that pure forms of energy, such as photons, are more concisely neither a wave nor a particle, but rather like a cross between the two. On the one hand, light is very particle-like in terms of its interaction with most sorts of matter. Refraction, for instance, is easily calculated and conforms to what you'd expect of a particle. The photoelectric effect argues strongly for the presence of some sort of quantum packet of light energy. Otherwise, though, light seems to be very wavelike. Colors of light, as expressed as wavelengths, seem to be based generally on how high-energy the radiation in question actually is. Furthermore, the dual-slit experiment cements the notion that light does in fact exhibit wavelike characteristics in the distortion patterns. From what I understand, current theories place light as a sort of serpentine particle which behaves mostly wave-like but exhibits "solid" characteristics. What we see as a photon is more akin to a slice of the continuous wave, or perhaps a particle with such a large amount of innate vibration that it becomes a semi-solid wave. When we capture a single photon, its wave structure is temporarily suppressed and pools, if you will, into the single particle. Alternately, you could suggest that light just likes messing with the concepts of Newtonian physics and confusing the heck out of everything else. ;) Then again, we're still pretty hazy on a lot of quantum mechanics. From what I know, we're still not even 100% sure why energy expresses itself only in quanta in the first place, but there's definitely progress being made. (Oh, and my math knowledge trails off after elementary calculus. Quaternic equations, regardless of whether or not they're expressed polar-ly, are a bit out of my league as well. :P ) [ Sunday, June 08, 2003 10:10: Message edited by: Chintznibbles and Stuff ] -------------------- Stuff? Don't mind if I do, thanks. This may, in fact, be a long, rambling post without much bearing on the topic of the thread. Consider yourself warned. Posts: 32 | Registered: Monday, February 3 2003 08:00 |
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Post Navel Trauma ^_^
Member # 67
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written Sunday, June 8 2003 13:26
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quote:It's not just things like photons. Electrons have wavelike properties as well (you can do the double-slit experiment with them, and I've seen a simpler experiment where they show wavelike properties). I also have a vague memory of reading about an experiment where a virus acted like a wave. Heavier particles have shorter wavelengths, which makes them appear more particle-like. (Note that my knowledge of quantum physics is pretty much confined to questions like "a particle is trapped in a 1-D infinite square potential well", and I have some hazy idea of what an operator is, but not really) -------------------- Grammar wenches beware: This is the house that the malt that the rat that the cat that the dog that the cow that the maiden that the man that the priest that the cock that the farmer kept waked married kissed milked tossed worried killed ate lay in. My Website desperance.net - Leave your sanity at the door Posts: 1798 | Registered: Thursday, October 4 2001 07:00 |