Religion anyone?

plot-paris

you are right, Alan. it is important, that we carefully read the statements of others and respond to them, directly answer questions instead of stating something that has no relevance. we are no politicians after all

about the "anti christian" video of the farting priest, RickW: well, this guy is just so ridiculously funny - someone had to make fun of him. and I think this is one of those guys who are responsible, that many people have an aversion to the christian church.

and the question, why many of the comments here are confronting christian religion... I think the most important reason is that many of us here have grown up in a christian country and the only real contact and confrontation they had was with this religion.
of course I think we could have this discussion with another religion as focus as well.

and one last thought: I think that many of the last posts tried to impress with scientific facts. but I believe that will to as much good to the discussion as Corel's bible quotations.
no offence, Corel, but you will not be able to convince people who believe in science by repeating lines out of a book, hundrets of years old, that are even more difficult to understand when not read in context.
of course it is quite difficult because the different point of views are quite far apart. but I am afraid any other approach than a philosophical won't work here...

Alan Fraser

Tim, are you being deliberately obtuse or what?
What is gibberish about the term "...would require more energy than exists in the universe."

For example, "To accelerate a particle of matter up to and beyond the speed of light would require more energy (according to Einstein's famous formula) than exists in the entire universe." This is a perfectly valid statement that explains why c...the speed of light...is a universal limiter; and why only particles with no mass, such as neutrinos or gravitons can travel at or close to the speed of light.

That phrase that you are getting on your high horse about merely illustrates a state of impossibility. No state can require that much energy, so such a state is therefore impossible. Not a difficult concept to grasp, one would have thought...but apparently we need to make an exception in your case.

Fred Hoyle, the Astronomer Royal, one of the most eminent scientists of his day and the man responsible for the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis...the idea that stars act as factories for the production of the heavier elements...firmly believed that the Big Bang theory was misguided and that the Universe existed in what he termed a "Steady State". Ironically, it was he who actually first coined the term Big Bang.

Note, he didn't dispute that the universe was expanding...he'd done much to prove that it was...he just disputed that it had a beginning, as that would imply a creator....and he was an atheist. Note also that there are perfectly viable models that can explain expansion without tracing it back to an ultimate point of creation. Does that make him an idiot, someone who needs to "..learn some physics", worthy of your patronising attitude and gibes about Special Crystals and Holy Water?

He was mistaken; the Penzias-Wilson discovery of microwave background radiation proved that (probably).

That was my whole point about scientific theory...that very few scientists at the cutting edge are correct 100% of the time...and that anyone with any sense recognises that their theories and hypotheses may be proved wrong, or at least in need of adaptation, at some point in the future.
Your learned and apparently thoroghly researched reaction to this simple point was "Aargh! Nonsense."

The whole Quantum Field Theory relies on purely theoretical particles, some of which may in time prove to be just that...merely theoretical. I am happy for you, that you are so sure about scientific certainty. You seem to be casting me in the role of some religious mystic instead of someone who has no time for Creationist nonsense and the like. Did you read ANY of my comments on this and similar threads, or do you prefer pulling comments out of context and turning them 180 degrees?

I write this:
Sure, we can model it (gravity) mathematically in precise detail
...we can send spacecraft to slingshot their way from planet to planet and end at a destination with near pinpoint accuracy...but we don't know what it actually IS.

You reply with this:
Did you know that Newtonian mechanics is adequate for handling probes to Pluto etc?

Is it really? That's not at all certain. For starters, it doesn't explain the deceleration anomaly of Pioneer 10 and 11 as they passed Uranus...and to which conventional physics (read Newtonian) has no answer whatsoever. Amongst the factors already considered and ruled out are:-
Nominal thermal radiation and plutonium half-life...and
Drifting clocks, general relativity and the speed of gravity.
Clever bugger old Isaac, wasn't he...relativity and radioctive half-life way back then?

But even if it were true, what's that got to do with my statement? It just seems to be some patronising soundbite, like the rest of your response. It still doesn't explain what gravity actually is or how it's propagated.

Like Modelhead, I don't get it. What's your point, other than just being a confrontational smart arse?

The only point I was trying to make in that post you took such exception to you felt the need to quote me multiple times, was summed up in the final paragraph...that the universe is too weird to rule out anything.
Rather more elegantly, at a conference in Brussels in 2005, Nobel Prizewinner David Gross stated "We are in a period of utter confusion...These equations tell us nothing about where space and time come from and describe nothing we would recognise. At best, string theory depicts the way particles might interact in a collection of hypothetical universes...we are missing something fundamental."

Obviously you know better than Nobel laureats in Physics. That being the case, I bow to your vastly superior intellect and now withdraw from this pissing contest.

cornel

Jakob,

You are partially right! Those quotations are apparently out of context, but, those who are interested, can use ‘Bible online’ (if they have no a hard copy of The Bible) for necessary information (for entire text).
In The Tribulation time (after The Rapture), 'things' will be different…!

Regarding “hundreds of years old”, again, you are partially right…!

Why?
Because:
“THE WORD OF THE LORD ENDURES FOREVER "(1 Peter 1:25)

Cornel

Religion anyone?

Who said the Farting Preacher video was anti Christian? I am a Christian and I posted it up. I just think (with my childish brain) that putting this silly guy's sound/video bites with a bunch of fart noises is just plain funny.