assassin_696

And your expertise in evolutionary biology, microbiology and abiogenesis is what exactly? You're simply quoting some ridiculous figure or statistic calculated using poor science to comfort your notion that therefore there must be a god. Even if the chance of life occurring on any given planet with the right conditions for life is 1 in a billion (and it's probably not that much) then still over a billion planets will have life.

It's funny, that's a complete myth.

What? In my analogy I was isolating the ping pong ball and bowling ball from external forces like gravity. If you're trying to disprove relativity and gravity to find comfort in your religion you will not succeed with that line of reasoning.

No, it's not. My calculator is part of my life, I use it for my maths work and to solve equations. My calculator is not taking me over.

Qu'ran references for: Kill all unbelievers I don't have a Qu'ran so I can't actually verify them myself, and even if one or two are mistranslations, that's a lot of references in a book that supposedly promotes peace for fighting and killing. Here are some highlights. To be fair, the first 13 years or so of Islam was a fairly peaceful religion, until Muhammad left Mecca and flew to Medina. To deal with contradictions in the Qu'ran, Muslim scholars use the principle of abrogation, whereby later texts and teachings override earlier ones. Sadly then, the violent later texts by that logic displace the peaceful earlier ones.

The simple answer is: matter warps the fabric of spacetime, which causes the effects of gravity that we see today. Rolling a ping pong ball along a sheet stretched flat is the basic analogy. If the sheet is flat and there is no other mass acting on the sheet then the ball will travel in a straight line. If we placed a large bowling ball at the centre of the sheet it would create a dip (the warping of spacetime) which the ping pong ball would roll in to, and if we didn't have friction (like in space) the ping pong ball would go into orbit around the bowling ball. See the thing is there isn't a simple answer. With your analogy the ping pong ball would not go into orbit around the bowling ball. It would just hit it. I agree its a very logical explanation the only problem is that you are comparing newtons laws with quantum physics and I might be mistaking but quantum physics don't always follow newtons laws? Correct me please. In truth I don't know a lot up quantum physics. But I do know the basics of a lot of physics. In your response to the first part of your post, that would depend on the trajectory of the ping pong ball. Similarly, a comet aimed directly at the Sun would indeed hit it, but if it was aimed on a trajectory not at the Sun but in an area under the influence of it's gravitational curvature, it might go into orbit. I wasn't comparing Newton's laws with quantum laws. The notion of the curvature of the fabric of spacetime is actually using the laws of General Relativity, devised by Einstein. They are more accurate than Newton's laws. Relativity describes things on the macroscopic scale, and there is heaps of information out there about it if you're interested. Your correct however in saying that quantum mechanics doesn't match well with relativity. Quantum mechanics is a lot more complicated, but it deals with the realms of the very small. Using quantum mechanics to describe the gravitational curvature of stars would be pointless. A marriage of quantum mechanics and general relativity would occur however at the singularity inside a black hole, and the laws that scientists are searching (a marriage of quantum and relativity) would be called quantum gravity. Not much is know about it at the moment, but it's entirely forseeable that it will be fully uncovered in a few decades.

God yeah, and that cheesy theme tune.

Nice contradiction. =D> By your logic then anything that is a part of our lives (inevitably pretty much everything we see around us) is therefore taking over. Right.

Not for me thanks.

The simple answer is: matter warps the fabric of spacetime, which causes the effects of gravity that we see today. Rolling a ping pong ball along a sheet stretched flat is the basic analogy. If the sheet is flat and there is no other mass acting on the sheet then the ball will travel in a straight line. If we placed a large bowling ball at the centre of the sheet it would create a dip (the warping of spacetime) which the ping pong ball would roll in to, and if we didn't have friction (like in space) the ping pong ball would go into orbit around the bowling ball. Gravity is far from an unexplainable effect. And all your causes of God can probably be explained by science, but we won't go into that. By the way XplsvBam, your signature is incorrect and spreading misinformation.

No need to bump things still on the first page.

Boston were and still are one of my absolute favourite bands, and that one thing that completed their sound so perfectly were the harmonic vocals of Brad Delp. R.I.P. , and thank you for the music.

I believe science is the absolute road towards the truth in our world. Science is based around logic, experimentation, reasoning and rationality with that occasional stroke of genius now and again. If we reason that a lot of science has it roots somewhere (no matter how distantly) in maths, then we can say with some certainty that whatever methods we apply mathematical reasoning to, will be truth. I'm not articulating myself as fluently as i'd like here, since this is so close to my heart, but maths is truth, it's fundamental, there are 4 assumed logical eucilidean postulates (assumptions) from which absolutely everything else stems. There are no wild assumptions in maths, everything has its roots in the truth of proof, by whatever method.

Technology is clearly not "taking over". It's advancing, and becoming more mainstream and part of our lives. Is that a bad thing? Essentially no, we remain in control of the technology, to take the old fashioned attitude of it was better in the "good old days" is a naive attitude, technology has done so much for us. In the immortal words of Bob Dylan, "The times they are a changin", and I can't wait to see what new scientific and technological breakthroughs are round the corner.

There's an important difference in vocabularly. Global warming nowadays has generally come to mean the process by which the Earth is warming up as a result of human activity. Climate change is more generally applicable to the periodic warming and cooling of the Earth.

Hallowed Be Thy Name - Iron Maiden I should really get some more of their stuff.

No it's not. :P I know next to nothing about films compared to you, so my opinion is a very uneducated one when it comes to films, but considering there was so much hype around the film before I watched it, it didn't blow me away like I expected it to. Don't get me wrong, it's an amazing film, and would certainly be in my top ten, it just didn't appeal to me in the way that other films have.

Oh I completely agree, but one point that the program made was that denying developing countries fossil fuels to try and curb global warming is prohibiting them from developing. We, in the MEDC's certainly need to invest in renewables and nuclear because we will run out of fossil fuels. I didn't see the AIDS documentary, but the science behind this documentary was entirely convincing and reasonable, and in fact made far more sense than global warming theories and "science" which is based on computer models where parameters are modified to predict global warming. According to the program, if CO2 levels rising were responsible for global warming we'd see an increase in temperatures in the trophosphere first because that's where the heat is trapped on its way out of the atmosphere, followed by an increase in ground temperatures. However, it's actually the other way round, and there's has been little to no trophospheric temperature increase. Even if there was, during the periods when humans began to rapidly industrialise and hence produce more CO2, temperatures actually fell for a few decades, ironically rising again during periods of recessiona and industrial decline. Global temperatures began to rise recently before the industrial revolution. Two points to note: 1. All the scientists interviewed for the documentary joked saying that they wished that had been paid off by large oil companies, when in fact they haven't seen a penny of money from any large corporation. Conversely, there is now huge amounts of money in proving global warming, however poor the science is, politicians want to be seen to be "saving the planet". 2. About Al Gore's film, the fundamental assumption that CO2 changes is linked to temperature which he bases most of his documentary around is plain wrong. There is a relationship, but it is the other way round, temperature increases then CO2 increases.

Don't worry, there will be pole dancers :P Was that a subtle pun about your agility cape emote? :P Congratulations anyway.

It's an overrated movie, but is still fantastic. It's definitely worth a watch, it has some world-class actors and great scenes.

I know global warming has been a frequently debated topic here, and I don't want to discuss things to death anymore than you do, however last night on Channel 4 (UK) I watched a documentary called The Great Global Warming Swindle. I'd always thought the science in favour of man made global warming was pretty firm and accurate. However this documentary showed that a fundamental assumption that nearly all global warming science is made on is fundamentally flawed. I won't go through all the arguments in detail, (they can be found at link) but there are a few points i'll summarise here. 1. There is a relationship between CO2 levels and the warming of the Earth, but it is the reverse to what everyone else thinks it is. As the Earth warms up the seas can hold less CO2 dissolved in it, so as the Earth warms the oceans release CO2, but with a lag time of around 800 years. 2. Therefore, warming is not due to CO2 levels, it's actually changes in the Sun's output. In high periods of Sun activity solar winds disturb ion streams from supernova which cause cloud formation (an important cooling effect), therefore the Earth, with less cloud cover, heats up. The relationship between the Sun's activity and the Earth's temperature were mapped over each other, with a surprisingly close link. 3. The idea of global warming was actually created as a spin story to take the worry off global cooling, and it was then used as propoganda by Margaret Thatcher to help disband the coal unions in the 80's and in favour of nuclear power, she founded the first panel for investigating global warming. Did anyone else see it? I found it very interesting and very convincing, much more so than the science behind global warming.

Defender, you poor deluded fool. To take a different view, even if the Noah's ark story was true (it isn't), the story is fundamentally about your God practicing ethnic cleansing. Discuss.

ROBOSRUS, read the God Delusion, as a start before you so triumphantly wheel out the old "Islam means peace and therefore Islam is a religion of peace" idea. I'm also not going to lock this thread based on the fact that this is simply a set of laws based around someone's beliefs. That is ridiculous, religion deserves no higher respect above and beyond any other debateable laws rooted in politics. To shy away from the cruel and outdated nature of Sharia laws would be hypocrisy in a democratic society.

Yes, because we all know that the allies found vast stockpiles of nuclear weapons just waiting to be launched at every country within minutes. Oh wait a second, they didn't. I don't dislike America in general at all. The places i've visited were very nice and I would visit again without hesitation. However, there are certain aspects of American culture that I do dislike. The Christian fundamentalism, certain government policies, the arrogant few, but generally that doesn't spoil my opinion of an otherwise diverse and fascinating country.

Moved it to M&M, still want it closing?