Doom3world

You don't derive your morals from a book. "I think god wants me to do X" is just an imaginative projection based on what you assume his/her feelings are. The ability to visualize the feelings and experience of another is generally present in all people. It's a prerequisite for normal social interaction and it doesn't suddenly vanish when you choose to be atheist or even if you believe in evolution.

... and written and interpreted by fallible men.

So I say again, projection. I fail to see how evolution being true or not would change this. You don't need a god or evolution to be true to know that actions have consequences. And if you choose to live amongst the rest of human kind, consideration for others is required. Without a god or afterlife there may be no final judgment but that does not mean you aren't accountable for your actions in life.

If a god was ever at the helm, who is to say he still is? Whether the universe is his creation or otherwise, we're able to reasonably predict events because the universe is governed by laws. If god exists, he can be described mathematically or he's taking a nap and we're on autopilot.

Whether a god exists or not a cataclysmic event is no more likely than it ever has been. Death is inevitable. Who cares if it's at the hands of an asteroid or a car crash? Don't be scared.

I'm not going to put my head into this age old discussion about wether God exists or not, because God exists in the eye of the beholder.

But I do want to add 2 cents:

Things are not black and white.
Rather try to add the option in this debate that there are more than two options available (it's not just creationism and evolutionism). E.g. A universal consciousness; we are all part of the same consciousness; things are made by design, each and every single organism is but one facet of this design. Not by some deity that is removed so far from humanity as God is. But everything together, one primordial soup of consciousness and matter intertwined.

When I read the bible, and I read the words 'God is within all of us' that's how I interpret it. And you'll find those words in nearly all the holy scriptures of the world. Each and every single organism in the universe is there, because it chooses to be; all part of the same universal consciousness.

When I was about 12 years old, my father told me about bits and bytes, it's when I learned what the word 'digital' meant. I was fortunate enough not to have predisposition or notions of 'god or not', and I formulated my own theory about existence. I still believe this theory is the most feasible of all theories I've heard since then. And it's super simple.

I asked myself this: What is the core building block of matter? What is the smallest thing imaginable, which property does it have? What is the first property that anything that exists has? I formulated that the first property that defines anything is whether it exists or not. After hearing my dad going on about 0's and 1's I figured that this can be compared to the first property of anything. That first property is whether it exists or not. It's just like a bit, either it's 1 (it exists) or it's 0 (it does not).

That leads me to believe that everything is equal, everything exists, in that regard we are the same as a spec of stardust, a piece of gold and horse's poop.

The first things we lowly mortals need to understand is humility; that's what the bible says.
And on the topic of 'understanding' God. I can only say, you sometimes do not need to know the path in order to walk the path.

My "God" what the fuck happened to this amazing topic ?!?!

KC Clark: I respect your freedom of speech and such..... and in case you find a way of transmitting signals faster than the speed of light, I personally promise you to find and deliver you a crowd of chimps that will worship any God you want them to....

wal: I like the way this topic started and would like to continue smart-assing on what other options we hypothetically have to overcome this universe's increadible distances in our search for knowledge.

I guess we all agree that due to Einstein's theories accelerating anything larger than a couple of electrons ends up in a indefinite mass (if I remember correctly an electron flying at 99,99% of the speed of light weights roughly 5 Kilogramms, originally 9.10938215(45)×10−31 kg. So a human would end up at the weight of an entire planet. And even if we somehow magically could overcome this barrier (which we won't) the speed of light would still not be fast enough to effectively communicate with other civilizations within the life span of a human. So as far as I see it the only real alternative would be hyper speed of light signal transmission. I have absolutely no clue about that beyond the pseudo star trek subspace tech. At least electrical signals eliminate the mass problem at the speed of light. So if someone here could enlight me if there is any kind of real scientific research on hyper speed of light signal transmission happening at all .. and if not .. why?

Eventually I'll split the topic later today to roll back the thread highjacking.
What name to you want for the new topic?

It's happening. I just read an article about it...

http://www.physorg.com/news166779852.html

I protest! I'd prefer it to be changed to the more politically corect "Creation vs. Evolution vs. Both".

thx rich .. that indeed is interesting research work !

I wanted to post this yesterday but I got disturbed and had to save it. I need to get a pc sorted soon. It's annoying doing this at work. Bloody guests! They always want something. Fuck off, I'm busy!

There's plenty of evidence for the big bang: Galaxy red shift, background radiation uniformity and the general theory of relativity at least. Just as there's tons of evidence against the diarrhoea written in that silly book you like so much. I wouldn't live long enough to list them.

What?

I don't think you're quite ready to be explaining, or even quoting scientific principles just yet. Learn to breath before you try to fly. You still haven't said anything that refutes evolution. The order of reproduction and specifically selective mutation, trumps the chaos of entropy. I think you've misunderstood the concept of entropy. Life isn't orderly. It's probably the hardest thing in the universe to predict. Besides, order and chaos are subjective. The universe is just as simple as it's ever been. The rules would have to start breaking down before it could really be considered chaotic.

You don't know the first thing about true science. Without the ability to theorise, how would they know what to observe and test for

No, it's complete bullshit. It's just that religious people such as yourself can't seem to tell the difference. Okay this really is the last time. Tell me where you get lost. The giraffes with the longest necks were more likely to reproduce because they were able to reach higher and feed themselves better. This meant that each generation had a tendency to be the offspring of the giraffes with the longest necks from the previous generation. This means that the average neck length increased with each generation.

Sorry, I tend to drift off when I'm talking to brainwashed parrots. Great catastrophes tend to speed up evolution.

That says it all. How do you know the difference between right and wrong if evolution is true? Evolution is true! I think you mean how do you know the difference between right and wrong without being told? It's called morality and it's something that religions don't really care about.

This always makes me laugh. Why would God get tired and need a rest? And that's the wrong type of simple!

Then why quote the fucking thing?

Saying stuff like that is why sane people think that you lot should be locked away in a padded room. It was inspired by Christ and manipulated by the Romans. We'll never know how much of what Jesus really said made it into the bible, but I seriously doubt that he claimed to be the son of God. He'd have been laughed at. He'd probably be horrified at what they turned him into.

There is accountability. You have to live with yourself and your actions. Only people with a severe problem would need to believe in God in order to do the right thing. Besides, how does whether or not it leads to accountability have any baring on whether or not it's true?

Neither idea is scary. One idea makes the biggest assumption possible, while the other presumes that if there's no reason to invent something to explain something else then it's probably better to assume it's bollocks until proven otherwise. Even if there is a god, why do you assume that it's yours? Hurtling through space at 60,000 mph relative to what? The universe doesn't need anyone in charge, it takes care of itself. It's very orderly. Gravity's in charge because the overall mass determines the fate of the universe.

You think it's arrogant to assume that there's no god, but not arrogant to assume that there is? Let's assume that if we don't know, then it probably doesn't exist. Otherwise God would have to share heaven with the tooth fairly and leprechauns. To think that you know there is a god you'd have to have at least a few screws loose. Outside space, time and matter. That's a neat trick. He loves to hide doesn't he? How can something that exists outside of reality be considered real? If there is a god then it could conceivably exist in a higher dimension, but I doubt that and I don't think religious people would like that idea either. Because they don't want their fairy god father to be quantified. They want it kept well away from logic and common sense because the almighty fatigue prone one doesn't do well when it's put under any kind of fair minded scrutiny.

That's not thinking!

What, something into which you can read whatever the hell you like? No offence BloodRayne.

I do!

How would that be any different to this?

I'm trying very hard to take you seriously and frankly I think I deserve a meddle for my efforts so far, but please do me a favour and drop the braindead religious logic. If you make a claim then you should be able to back it up. Otherwise anyone could claim whatever they want and expect to be believed. If they claim something really silly then they wouldn't be taken seriously so why should you be?

I'd modify that thinking slightly. If it doesn't exist then it can't be a 1 or a 0. A 1 would represent part of a string whether it was closed (matter) or open (energy), and a 0 would represent one unit of space-time (planck length).

I know. It's depressing but at least it's getting split. That article went over my head. I'm not really sure what they're trying to accomplish, but I don't think it's faster than light communication. The constant speed of energy obviously applies to any signal sent and there's no way I know of or can imagine to get round this. Even wormholes don't really allow for faster than light travel as such because you're using the curvature of space-time to shorten the distance. I don't fully understand worm holes but I don't think they have event horizons. That would be one way of doing it but there'd be no way out. Worm holes are impractical even if they are possible though. When you reach the event horizon of a black hole you get frozen there from the perspective of anyone on the outside. It's exactly the same as approaching c (you create your own event horizon every time you accelerate), you would be infinitely time dilated at c/event horizon. If you were to go faster than c then you would be travelling backwards through time. The reason you can't do that is because c is the speed of time and time is just the relative movement of mass, so the whole concept of moving anything faster than this is self-contradicting, although it works with any value for c. Black holes are no different if viewed from the outside. I don't think there is any way to travel faster than light. As I said earlier though, this doesn't stop people one day travelling at relatively high velocities and exploring the galaxy or other galaxies, or even other groups and clusters because you can travel as fast as you like. You're always static remember, and time always moves at c. The universe will kindly shorten the distance in time and in whichever direction you accelerate. That's how movement really works.

That quote is now my new sig.