Haaa Haaa0

I voted other. It's really unknowable; there is a growing movement among Atheists, known as the "New Atheist" movement, that revolves around assertion of atheism and the belief that a God-figure is a testable hypothesis. Although I do, somewhat, agree with this, the deeper issue is the nature of a god figure and religion. First, an explanation: The greatest fallback for religious arguments is that God created everything; even disregarding Creationism and the whole six thousand year old cosmos (using Christianity as an example), many assert that what we know as the Big Bang was really the event of creation. They argue such an event requires a cause, and that cause was a God-figure. The Big Bang, in its current theory, rests around a single point of infinitely dense matter suddenly exploding outward rapidly creating the known universe; where would such matter come from? It had to come from *somewhere*, right? This is the problem: something, quite often, comes from nothing. Quantum mechanics has repeatedly demonstrated this. Quite often, it has been observed that electrons and various other sub-atomic particles will simply pop into, and out of, existence. Not be broken down, not get smooshed into tiny bits, just simply dissapear. This has to do with the wave-particle duality of matter, as well as the concept of matter as a probability. So, knowing that matter can and does simply appear,what is there in its absence? Turns out there is a difference between a vacuum and a "quantum vacuum." A vacuum, in the classical sense, is an area more or less devoid of matter, much like space; however, even this contains energy and thus "stuff." A quantum vacuum is a complete absence of everything; a literal void without even background energy. This is the environment into which the universe sprang, a tiny point of matter (much like an electron or quark or what not) that happened to contain enough energy and matter to explode into what we know as our Universe. The consequences of this? No need for a god figure, and the ability for other universes to be created and destroyed purely at random. So, yes, a testable Hypothesis. One which can show a god-figure is not needed. Religion, though, bounces back. The fundamental premise of religion is the need for a god-figure; no matter what, it is possible for a god to make it simply "appear" that way. So, were I about to tear off the mask and stare directly into the face of God (god, gods...whatever), he/she/it/they, being of infinite power, would have no problem simply preventing me from seeing them. Because they are not bound by anything natural, they cannot be tested through natural means, and thus immune to scientific scrutiny. Hence, a god cannot be "dis-proven," nor may one be "proven" to exist, and thus religion shall persist and the nature or existence of a god is truly unknowable. I, however, prefer to stick with the belief there is no god figure(s). *Edit* Looks like everything I said has already been said xD

Just finished Anthem, by Ayn Rand, and Oedipus Rex by Sophocles yesterday. I'm not sure what I'm going to read next, yet, but my new Ipod Touch has the Ibooks app and I can get practically any classic for free... decisions, decisions...

Brilliant, thank you. And I think I'll just leave this account as is, I think I lost my post count on the old one anyway.

First, sorry if it seems like I'm a noob, but I no longer have access to the email account to recover my old Forum ID (Hence the 2 postcount). Second, I attempted to post an image hosted by imgur, and it said I wasn't allowed to post anything from that hosting site. I checked the forum rules, and saw nothing against it...where is that rule located, and why can't we post images hosted by imgur? I think this is in the right thread, if not move it please :)

I wonder if they really are clueless or just grinning and bearing it.