Religous debates and questions [2]

An empirical theory for the origin of the universe? I am not aware of one. Or are you suggesting multiverse theory can be denied by observation?

Anyone can explain the occurrence of an event by presupposing an infinite number of alternative occurrences; they don't have to invoke science.

I am not quite sure where you are coming from, but I agree with you in principle. We should be open to all possibilities and apply reason.

The only useful theories science has concerning the origin of the universe are:
1. explosion from a point = expansion everywhere
2. Cooling from an extremely high temperature provides relative distribution of hydrogen and helium, plus original ratio of photons to mass.

Multiple universes are sort of on the plane of religious origin theories: intellectually satisfying but ultimately not useful for explaining anything.

I wasn't sure where you were coming from, but broad statements are easy to respond to. Not as much fun as wildly opinionated specific assertions ("my typewriter is god").

I dont know where either of you is coming from. I lost the plot 1 page back.  

Halfy,

I am joining the party late and have literally only read the last few posts so might have been covered but..

Isn't the multiverse theory linked to quantum string theory? I thought this is where explanation of where the matter/energy for the big bang came from has some legs in terms of energy bubbles from one universe somehow appearing in another and causing the effect that we call the big bang.

Cant remember where the string theory bit goes here as I don't really understand that and it was a long time ago that I read that theory (guessing something to do with how energy/matter it gets from one universe to the other).

there's so much hair brained stuff going on in advanced theoretical physics that hasn't yet been accepted that I don't really bother to keep up with it.  Eventually one of these theories will tie together enough stuff with experimental evidence that people will begin accepting it.  String theory seems to have the potential to tie things together (smooth pun) but the mathematics has so many options that there is no single prediction, and the predictions unique to string theory tend to be untestable for the near future.  At the moment, string theory is the dead marshes of physics.

This guy breaks down the whole string theory thing pretty well.



{{{It still doesn't make any sense to me or, I assume, most other people without years of advanced math and physics education, but I'm still in awe of us his a capella audio layering. }}}

Halfwise I will try to think of something contentious and we can actually argue about something...

OK here is something I wrote earlier. Regarding new world orders, the abolition of millennia old institutions, and anything else generally proposed herein by the tyrant among us;

Law of itself is not going to solve anything. We will sooner degenerate into law abiding sexual addicts than become a better, safer, and freeer society. Child abuse is one thing (probably the most evil thing one can think of). Underage homosexual abuse is another (the majority of the aforesaid corruption). Sexual abuse of teenagers another. Sexual manipulation by corporations another. Has one looked at the stats on any of that? Or the uniquely contemporary family arrangements in which a child is orders of magnitude more likely to be abused? And what has an organisation's views on gender difference or exclusive homosexuality (a uniquely human phenomenon) got to do with any of this?

I am thoroughly disappointed myself with what has been allowed to develop over the last 50 years. However this is not a realistic evaluation of those people within or controlling the organisation. I also agree that they are the single most responsible organisation for providing a safe environment for children (based on their higher moral claims), but for someone not to respect this authority and still target them without recognition of the wider epidemic is equally hypocritical. The west has been getting all too comfortable turning a blind eye to crime against humanity. From where does this evil originate? Do people wake up one day and decide it is a good day to ruin someone's life? We are more sensitive than we imagine. If you are going to start anywhere you start with explicit dehumanisation (objectification). To tolerate such is not only social suicide, but ritualistic blood sacrifice. Billions of conceived homosapiens have been terminated, hundreds of thousands prostituted, millions abused. For the sake of what? Some lawyer's misinterpretation of freedom of religion?

It is time to invoke the sixth book of the Lord of the Rings.

and anything else generally proposed herein by the tyrant among us - Richard


 

Australian humour obviously...

Eldorion wrote:This guy breaks down the whole string theory thing pretty well.



{{{It still doesn't make any sense to me or, I assume, most other people without years of advanced math and physics education, but I'm still in awe of us his a capella audio layering. }}}

that was Friggin' Awesome!  

richardbrucebaxter wrote:Halfwise I will try to think of something contentious and we can actually argue about something...

OK here is something I wrote earlier. Regarding new world orders, the abolition of millennia old institutions, and anything else generally proposed herein by the tyrant among us;

Law of itself is not going to solve anything. We will sooner degenerate into law abiding sexual addicts than become a better, safer, and freeer society. Child abuse is one thing (probably the most evil thing one can think of). Underage homosexual abuse is another (the majority of the aforesaid corruption). Sexual abuse of teenagers another. Sexual manipulation by corporations another. Has one looked at the stats on any of that? Or the uniquely contemporary family arrangements in which a child is orders of magnitude more likely to be abused? And what has an organisation's views on gender difference or exclusive homosexuality (a uniquely human phenomenon) got to do with any of this?

I am thoroughly disappointed myself with what has been allowed to develop over the last 50 years. However this is not a realistic evaluation of those people within or controlling the organisation. I also agree that they are the single most responsible organisation for providing a safe environment for children (based on their higher moral claims), but for someone not to respect this authority and still target them without recognition of the wider epidemic is equally hypocritical. The west has been getting all too comfortable turning a blind eye to crime against humanity. From where does this evil originate? Do people wake up one day and decide it is a good day to ruin someone's life? We are more sensitive than we imagine. If you are going to start anywhere you start with explicit dehumanisation (objectification). To tolerate such is not only social suicide, but ritualistic blood sacrifice. Billions of conceived homosapiens have been terminated, hundreds of thousands prostituted, millions abused. For the sake of what? Some lawyer's misinterpretation of freedom of religion?

It is time to invoke the sixth book of the Lord of the Rings.

I honestly can't figure out what you are trying to say.  It looks more like an open ended question of "What's better than we have now?", not an assertion to argue about.

From a letter to Christopher Tolkien (positioned at Manchester RAF - 29 November 1943);

"My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs) - or to 'unconstitutional' Monarchy. I would arrest anybody who uses the word State (in any sense other than the inanimate realm of England and its inhabitants, a thing that has neither power, rights nor mind); and after a chance of recantation, execute them if they remained obstinate! If we could get back to personal names, it would do a lot of good. Government is an abstract noun meaning the art and process of governing and it should be an offence to write it with a capital G or so as to refer to people. If people were in the habit of referring to 'King George's council, Winston and his gang', it would go a long way to clearing thought, and reducing the frightful landslide into Theyocracy.

Anyway the proper study of Man is anything but Man; and the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity. And at least it is done only to a small group of men who know who their master is. The mediævals were only too right in taking nolo episcopari as the best reason a man could give to others for making him a bishop. Give me a king whose chief interest in life is stamps, railways, or race-horses; and who has the power to sack his Vizier (or whatever you care to call him) if he does not like the cut of his trousers. And soon down the line. But, of course, the fatal weakness of all that - after all the only fatal weakness of all good natural things in a bad corrupt unnatural world - is that it works and has worked only when all the world is messing along in the same good old inefficient human way.

The quarrelsome, conceited Greeks managed to pull it off against Xerxes, but the abominable chemists and engineers have put such a power into Xerxes' hands, and all ant-communities, that decent folk don't seem to have a chance. We are all trying to do the Alexander-touch - and, as history teaches, that orientalized Alexander and all his generals. The poor boob fancies (or liked people to fancy) he was the son of Dionysus, and died of drink. The Greece that was worth saving from Persia perished away; and became a kind of Vichy-Hellas, or Fighting-Hellas (which did not fight), talking about Hellenic honour and culture and thriving on the sale of the early equivalent of dirty postcards. But the special horror of the present world is that the whole damned thing is in one bag. There is nowhere to fly to. Even the unlucky little Samoyedes, I suspect, have tinned food and the village loudspeaker telling Stalin's bed-time stories about Democracy and the wicked Fascists who eat babies and steal sledge-dogs. There is only one bright spot and that is the growing habit of disgruntled men of dynamiting factories and power-stations; I hope that encouraged now as 'patriotism', may remain a habit! But it won't do any good, if it is not universal.

Well, cheers and all that to you dearest son. We were born in a dark age out of due time (for us). But there is this comfort: otherwise we should not know, or so much love, what we do love. I imagine the fish out of water is the only fish to have an inkling of water. Also we have still small swords to use. 'I will not bow before the Iron Crown, nor cast my own small golden sceptre down.' Have at the Ores, with winged words, hildenasddran (war-adders), biting darts - but make sure of the mark, before shooting."

-- J. R. R. Tolkien

So much entertaining stuff in that letter.
Tolkien the anarchist!
"There is only one bright spot and that is the growing habit of disgruntled men of dynamiting factories and power-stations"- he'd get arrested under terrorism laws for that opinion now!
Although my favourite line is the one ending- '..talking about Hellenic honour and culture and thriving on the sale of the early equivalent of dirty postcards.'  

this reminds me of the time Sheldon tried to teach physics to Penny.  

I recall reading that letter before.  You can see shades of Tolkien's political beliefs in the social organization of the Shire.  I'm doubtful of its real-world applicability, though.  After all, the Shire only "works" as a society because Hobbits "usually ... kept the laws of free will, because they were The Rules (as they said), both ancient and just" (FOTR, Prologue) to the point that Frodo is believed by the other characters when he claims that "no hobbit has every killed another on purpose in the Shire" (ROTK, The Scouring of the Shire).

You make a very good point. The hobbits, especially Sam obeyed because they wanted to. And being a Messianic Jewess as I am, Catholic, I think I know the two scriptures that he is basing this on. One of them, which I love, says that God never forces people to do anything But like any household or city or kingdom, if you break the rules set forth to protect you and others, be prepared. You will reap what you sew. You can shake your fist at God but you are the one who allowed it, practise it or did not stand up even if it meant your death for those that you cherished or those that came after.
I think too he used the scripture "Come , let us reason together. that is God inviting man to enter ones prayer closet and hear the still small voice of the Father talking with you about a matter.
I remember reading about a prophet that was particularly close to the Father and the people wanted a human leader, one they could see, instead of the angels going before them, Christ had not come as a human yet, the King had not come. They looked at the other nations and felt they were missing out. So God relented and chose Saul who was the handsomest most meek person and a head taller than anyone else. The prophet wept and wept but God said for him not to feel bad, for it was not the prophet the people had rejected, but God. And he let them have their way and it was a living nightmare.
The shire and those in it represented those who just lived in quiet or not so quiet peace, and did none harm. Sam represented the common man who knows about the King and is respectful, but does nothing in particular to honor him on purpose, but his way of life is honoring though he may be a tad not zealous and such.
The elves study him and learn much and are there for others to go to and know secrets for God says if we draw close to Him HE draws close to us.
The ones who go and save the people who don't even know about it are like the Jesuits who are the shock troops and who often are tortured and imprisoned trying to give the poor people the means to stay alive and live.
We had a dear Father,Father Domingo who was from the Phillipines and had nine siblings. He walked to a monastery at fifteen and begged to serve God. He served in a scary place, was tortured and in a dark prison for a long time such as Tolkien describes Sauron consigning prisoners to that stood up to him, but never wavered and never felt sorry for himself. I loved him so and he sang and sounded like Harry Belafonte and finally from all done to him he contracted a rare and fast cancer. Everyone got together and the money was found for him to go home and see his mummy and siblings and die in joy, just as Bilbo looked after the dwarves , because in the end they wanted to

Actually the way Tolkien tells the whole tale, it seems exactly like on the Saturday , the day before the Christ is risen from the dead.Those of us who can , stay up all night at the church. The history of the world is told and the Scriptures are read . It is the Silmarillion, The Hobbit and the Lord of The Rings combined.

halfwise wrote:

Eldorion wrote:This guy breaks down the whole string theory thing pretty well.



{{{It still doesn't make any sense to me or, I assume, most other people without years of advanced math and physics education, but I'm still in awe of us his a capella audio layering. }}}

that was Friggin' Awesome!  

Clayton-Ashley bought a recording studio, it has all the same stuff but is made to fit in a corner of your room etc, and he and Travis were recording and then they wondered what the dwarves would sound like, close to what ethnicity and such and decided to make a song and layered I think ten times, they are still not finished, but they added tall grasses rustling and the sounds in the mountains, rain etc and it was so awesome! I wonder what Tolkien would think of this, maybe some machine that would horrify him? 

I was reading a piece on CNN about creationists putting u a billboard in some silly tittat with some equally silly atheist billboard stickers, when I came across this stat-

"In June 2012, Gallup's latest findings showed that 46% of Americans believed in creationism, 32% believed in evolution guided by God, and 15% believed in atheistic evolution."

That surely can't be right!   There can't be more Americans who think the earth is only 10,000 years old and was made in 7 days than believe in all the masses of evidence for evolution? (with or without a super being)

Those numbers are way worse than Pew's from 2009.  Gallup has not had a very good track record lately, so I'd be more inclined to believe Pew (both are big-name, widely-cited polling organizations, but Gallup completely blew the 2012 election).

http://www.people-press.org/2009/07/09/section-5-evolution-climate-change-and-other-issues/

I tried to find comparative figures for the UK- closest I could find was a poll conducted for the Guardian newspaper with a polling group of 2000 people.
It found that 10% believed in 'young earth creationism' and 12% believed in some form of intelligent design.

Does that some form of intelligent design category mean "old earth creationism" or does it include "theistic evolution", ie god created the world and has watched over it but evolution works the way scientists say it does.  Theistic evolution and intelligent design are really two quite different things but I'm curious because otherwise that would put the UK figure at 22% against evolution which is not that much lower than the US number according to Pew.

From the context I'd assume the intelligent design means though who still think a God created it all but that he just sort of started it going and its been unfolding as science claims every since.

I am surprised though the figures are as high, particularly if you consider that according to figures released by the Church of England in 2010 that attendance has fallen to 923,700, or  1.5% of the population.

However in the census from 2011 there were 33.3 million people in England and Wales claiming to be Christians. (That is a fall of 4 million form the previous decade).

My assessment  of the discrepancy would be to say there were still lot of people who believed in something, but very few left who still believe in religions.

leelee wrote:
Clayton-Ashley bought a recording studio, it has all the same stuff but is made to fit in a corner of your room etc, and he and Travis were recording and then they wondered what the dwarves would sound like, close to what ethnicity and such and decided to make a song and layered I think ten times, they are still not finished, but they added tall grasses rustling and the sounds in the mountains, rain etc and it was so awesome! I wonder what Tolkien would think of this, maybe some machine that would horrify him? 

See if they will let you post it when done, Leelee!

Pettytyrant101 wrote:From the context I'd assume the intelligent design means though who still think a God created it all but that he just sort of started it going and its been unfolding as science claims every since.

I am surprised though the figures are as high, particularly if you consider that according to figures released by the Church of England in 2010 that attendance has fallen to 923,700, or  1.5% of the population.

However in the census from 2011 there were 33.3 million people in England and Wales claiming to be Christians. (That is a fall of 4 million form the previous decade).

My assessment  of the discrepancy would be to say there were still lot of people who believed in something, but very few left who still believe in religions.

I think most people can't be bothered to think it through, so just go with what they were told when young. Everybody's told the religious stories when young, almost nobody is reared on stories of evolution.