Lateralus

I used to wear shirts and other smart gear most of the time. I still have the clothes, and still think they look nice, but I just don't see the point in wearing them anymore. I'm not trying to impress anyone, jeans and a top will do me just fine.

Kim by Eminem has a very special place in my heart.

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/featu ... hens200701 Hitchens is the man.

The Pogues (anything really, but Streams of Whiskey would be a good one) and George Thorogood (One Burbon, One Scotch, One Beer and I Drink Alone).

What do you mean by historical fiction? Alternate history? If so, Fatherland would be the obvious choice.

To call it a theory is correct yes, but to say it's just a theory derides it in a way that's really not necessary. It's a theory in that it's a model that fits the evidence fairly neatly. Nothing will ever be more than a theory in that sense. For something to be scientific it has to be falsifiable, so to call the God hypothesis a theory is incorrect.

How is this a cop-out? It's a position one would take, much like "God is real," or even "God can exist." Yet you continually capitalize the term, implying a very specific conception of god. :lol: Announcing that "any or none of the models of the universe could be correct" seems rather obvious, wouldn't you say? [/hide] Soz to double post like this instead of on one...but before i left, i just wanted to say, There is still much debate even over the BBT itself, it can hardly be agreed on at all even by the scientist who understand it the most. Lastly, it state that it is still a theory that is still being developed. In the science world itself, a theory is stated as something that is NOT proven, but just accepted as being true. But if it is not proven, how can it then be stated as fact and put over religion? Wouldn't religion and BBT and evolution all be at the same place since none have actually been proven, even if all have some evidence? Even some of the things used to arrive at conclusions for BBT are using other theory's!! This just seems somewhat weird to me. If I could just butt in, there are a few points I want to make. First, it's worth getting the scientific view on the BBT correct. It's not true that there is significant debate that the big bang is the best model; most cosmologists accept it as such. [1] Sure, there may be some debate about the details and some problems to iron out, but there is no other alternate model which explains as much of the evidence as well as the big bang. Religious ideas weren't formed when we knew about cosmic microwave background radiation and the red shifting of galaxies, so they're not going to be able to cut it with modern science when it comes to explaining the evidence we find. Added, religious ideas don't adapt to the evidence like science does, and they can't be empirically tested. Religious ideas are based ultimately on faith and personal conviction while scientific theories are based ultimately on the objective empirical evidence available. While it's true that in science a theory is not something which in it's entirety is proven, good theories do contain many facts and some of their main tenets may be treated as facts by virtue of overwhelming evidence. I'm not sure exactly how cosmologists treat the main tenet of BBT, but from what reading I've done it seems it's treated as good as a fact. It's also worth realising that the main purpose of a scientific theory is to serve as an explanation and to make predictions to be tested to further our understanding. They're not half-baked ideas yet to be proven. ... Well see, My problem is that it's not KNOWN for sure. and isn't that the whole problem people have with religion? They say it's not KNOWN for sure. Sure there are facts behind the THEORY, but there are facts about religion that are just undeniable, some that science itself even verifies. Why then, being theory, which is comparable to religion "theory," can someone put it higher than any other "theory's" so to speak. The fact of the matter is that it can still be wrong, especially when you get into the technicalities of it which are very hard to speak on seeing as we have never actually been able to prove any of it. It's not always useful to be completely emphatic in what you're trying to say. Dogmatism is never really useful, but when speaking scientifically it's just a shorter way to say things. For example, if you drop a stone you can't be certain that it's going to obey the laws of gravity and hit the ground, but it would be useless to question this every time you dropped a stone. Nothing can ever be a fact if you view things in this way. The amount of supporting evidence is what gives one theory more weight than the other because it decreases the likelihood that it's incorrect.

There have been some great Depeche Mode remixes. If you like them (which everyone should) then I think you would like the remixes too.

I never have classically scary dreams with zombies or any other nightmarish cliches, but I do have some very dark dreams. Recently I dreamt I was a Marine who had been captured, but the captors just took my rifle and let me go. The rest of the dream was me crying - And I mean really crying. It was as if it was my mother they had taken - to a few of my Marine buddies because I missed my rifle so badly.

I never had to do Shakespeare at school, which could explain why I don't hate him. I think he's fantastic. The Merchant of Venice is probably my favourite of his plays.

Marines are taught to be killing machines, it's no wonder that they might end up so insensitive.

I've done the Tour Du Mont Blanc a few times, and nothing has ever cleared my head so well. For those who don't know, the tour is a walk around Mont Blanc, which is the highest mountain in Europe, and the route goes through France, Italy and Switzerland covering a distance of around 170km. This year I'll be doing a walk around the Matterhorn in Switzerland, which I hope will be as rewarding.

As yes, the typical stereotype of a person who's developed their opinion on what they saw on the news. Can you even count the amount of Muslims you know on one hand? He did say large minority. I think we can agree that there's too many psychopathic Muslims, even if they are a minority. How so? Just because they're the only Muslims seen in the news? The media thrives on stereotypes and feed off the fears of radicalism. Thats what makes people watch the news: to rationalize and/or clarify their fears. From what the media portrays, it seems like every religious crime involves Islam. I don't understand what the difficulty here is. Are there not enough psychopathic Muslims, or just the right amount? Of course there's too many. Even if there was one suicide bombing psychopathic Muslim then that's still too many. EDIT: I don't want to do this, but it's unfortunate that I feel like I have to: I'm not racially biased in any way. The fact that I'm talking about Islam is because it's the relevant topic. I feel as if it's difficult to criticise Islam without being viewed as ignorant.

As yes, the typical stereotype of a person who's developed their opinion on what they saw on the news. Can you even count the amount of Muslims you know on one hand? He did say large minority. I think we can agree that there's too many psychopathic Muslims, even if they are a minority.

I'm learning to play the harmonica too. It's really hard.

Why would the Higgs Boson be any different from any other elementary Boson, or any other elementary particle for that matter? I don't think there's any suggested subdivisions of any of them.

I'm going to have to learn to speak French because I absolutely have to live in Paris for at least a few years. In my experience the Parisians really hate you if you can't or won't speak French. At some point I'd also like to live in Manhattan.

The Misfits - Where Eagles Dare Feeling punky today.

Irony at it's best Explain? You assumed infinite regression (edit due to possible misreading). My statement made no assumptions and was pretty much on the money. Also 'infinity' can occur in nature. Black holes have infinite density for example. Can you prove it? Prove what? The infinite density? It's just theoretical of course, but it's what happens when you divide by zero. A huge amount of mass compressed into zero volume singularity (black hole) equals infinite density.

Irony at it's best Explain? You assumed infinite regression (edit due to possible misreading). My statement made no assumptions and was pretty much on the money. Also 'infinity' can occur in nature. Black holes have infinite density for example.

You're just rambling, really.

But dude, he's a genius! It's times like this I regret picking this username, it would be a shame for anyone to think I was one of 'those guys'. It would also be a shame if people allowed the fanatics to ruin Maynard's reputation - He is a very good lyricist.

I would consider religious faith to be a barrier to curiosity. If you trust in dogmatic scriptures then there's really no reason for you to investigate anything. If by religious faith you mean standardized churches then I agree with you; however, belief in God by itself does not have to impede natural curiosity. Of course I agree; I mentioned scriptures quite purposefully. Deism doesn't really trouble me at all, but if you have a book that says "This is why this happens and believing otherwise is disagreeing with God" barriers obviously start to appear.

I would consider religious faith to be a barrier to curiosity. If you trust in dogmatic scriptures then there's really no reason for you to investigate anything.

The same laws are in place throughout the United Kingdom and I agree with them completely, even though I am a smoker. Why anyone would want to go beyond this I'm not sure. Ban smoking inside public buildings, ban tobacco advertising, put health warnings on packets and tax the hell out of cigarettes, but if I want to smoke a cigarette in my own home why should anyone be able to stop me?