You're arguing with the medieval peasants again. Why don't you argue with people that are alive? No here thinks lightning is the wrath of Zeus, you know.
But 99 thinks the apparent purposefulness of biochemistry implies the existence of a deity, which is a directly analogous form of reasoning.
You're arguing with the medieval peasants again. Why don't you argue with people that are alive? No here thinks lightning is the wrath of Zeus, you know.
But 99 thinks the apparent purposefulness of biochemistry implies the existence of a deity, which is a directly analogous form of reasoning.
No, it isn't. Stop being silly.
The purpose of life? Well, we must start with the premise that existence precedes essence.
RG1951: "As for member "pawnwhacker" - I poke gentle fun at his/her spelling and he/she reacts by pouring scorn on my blitz chess rating. What my inability to play blitz chess has to do with correct spelling I simply cannot imagine."
Piffle. You didn't "poke gentle fun". What you did was hit the quote button and thereby paste my multi-paragraph post and then respond with a cheap one-liner that I had misspelled "paleontology". The word was spelled correctly.
So, I thought I'd ruffle your feathers by pointing out the poor quality of your chess play. It was every bit as relevant as your erroneous cheap shot at me.
Own it, lad.
It was intended as fun, the spelling point and has no relevance whatsoever to my poor blitz chess. You mistook my motives and felt the need to pay me back, any way you could. It occurs to me that, over the internet, it can be difficult or impossible to tell whether somebody is being serious or not. It was not a cheap one liner. You claim that your spelling is the correct one. I have seen the word spelled my way countless times, but never yours until your post.
RG1951: "I have seen the word spelled my way countless times, but never yours until your post."
That's because you are ignorant. As I said, own it. Also, you are just a troll.
You're arguing with the medieval peasants again. Why don't you argue with people that are alive? No here thinks lightning is the wrath of Zeus, you know.
But 99 thinks the apparent purposefulness of biochemistry implies the existence of a deity, which is a directly analogous form of reasoning.
No, it isn't. Stop being silly.
Yes it is.
Specifically, observation of a not fully understood phenomenon and inference that a deity is its cause.
In order for a hypothesis to become something more, it needs to be tested by making predictions. This both demonstrates it has some content and gives it an opportunity to be falsified. Until then, it is absurd to consider a hypothesis a conclusion.
For example, one might predict that bad people would get hit by lightning more than good people. Or that organisms that are given a thumbs up by some authority are better designed at the molecular level than those that are given the thumbs down.
Pawnwhacker,
I have consulted Wikipedia and I note that your spelling is given as an alternative.I would apologise for any offence which I might have given, but this would be to acknowledge that you are a reasonable and sensible person, which does not appear to be the case.
Elroch: "Or that organisms that are given a thumbs up by some authority are better designed at the molecular level than those that are given the thumbs down."
I can think of more than a few organisms for whom I would give the thumbs down.
Pawnwhacker,
I have consulted Wikipedia and I note that your spelling is given as an alternative.I would apologise for any offence which I might have given, but this would be to acknowledge that you are a reasonable and sensible person, which does not appear to be the case.
You don't give it a rest, do you? Even your half-hearted attempt at an apology is an insult. Besides, your spelling of apologize is incorrect. Also "offence" should be "offense". And what would you know about a reasonable and sensible person?
re: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/02/140225-black-hole-big-science-space/
simon-dark-night wrote:
psyopolis wrote:
If enough monkeys were given typewriters would they duplicate your dramatic speech?
Given enough time, yes. With enough monkeys of course. To be honest they'll probably have evovled into us by then (or something like us), who could then be able to read the post and copy it. XD
ADVICE TO simon_dark_knight: LEARN TO SPELL, GROW UP, AND GET AN EDUCATION! NO DOUBT, THERE IS A GOD!!! Warning to atheists on this thread: IF YOU HAVE INFLUENCED ANYBODY THAT THERE IS NO GOD THEN YOU WILL HAVE COMMITTED AN UNPARDONABLE SIN ... THINK DEEPLY!!!
Haven't you had your tea?
I thought the only unpardonable sin was making fun of the holy spook.
Well, just to break the ice...
I happen to be an excellent speller. The reason is too long long and tedious to explain. But I would never chide anyone on the internet about spelling or grammar, as RG1951 (erroneously) did to me or zapped (pompously) did above.
Dunking chair!
You know, concerning black holes...
I am not an expert on the subject. In fact, I'm not so sure that anyone truly qualifies as an expert (probably even more so concerning dark matter).
But here's the thing...
I have often wondered if black holes suck up huge amounts of matter and then, eventually, regurgitate it all as a new "big bang". Perhaps I am too ignorant to know that this is not feasible. So, if anyone has an insight regarding this, I'd like to hear it.
The following is an excerpt from the link that I posted above.
How to Build a Black Hole
Theorists believe the relatively modest giant formed when the first stars in the universe burned through their nuclear fuel and collapsed to form black holes, perhaps a hundred million years after the big bang. Those first stars were probably giants themselves, weighing in at a hundred times the mass of the sun. At that time, says Loeb, "galaxies were up to a thousand times denser than they are today," so their tightly packed cores would have provided a lot of gas to feed the black holes, allowing them to swell.
But that scenario doesn't work for the newly discovered black hole: It's just too huge. "It must have been accreting gas at close to the maximum rate for most of its existence," writes Bram Venemans of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany, in an accompanying commentary in Nature. That's considered implausible because the blast of light from a brilliant quasar tends to drive off nearby gas that would otherwise fall in.
You know, concerning black holes...
I am not an expert on the subject. In fact, I'm not so sure that anyone truly qualifies as an expert (probably even more so concerning dark matter).
But here's the thing...
I have often wondered if black holes suck up huge amounts of matter and then, eventually, regurgitate it all as a new "big bang". Perhaps I am too ignorant to know that this is not feasible. So, if anyone has an insight regarding this, I'd like to hear it.
You are not alone in wondering this. This doesn't take long to get well past my understanding of the physics. Two links I found that may shed some light (punny) on what can happen next in a black hole's life:
http://www.nature.com/news/quantum-bounce-could-make-black-holes-explode-1.15573
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation#Large_extra_dimensions
The short answer to can a black hole form a new 'big bang'? I think no. In order for it to do that at a minimum it would have to absorb all the mass in the universe and then I still don't know if there is a point in the model where this matter could reverse itself into a white hole or a big bang.
As for the super-massive you linked. Cool!
(#3220) ....when I believed that. I was taught it, having had a Presbyterian mother and having heard of Plato. But I lost belief in that.
That's too bad 'cuz your mom was just trying to help you. I'm sure she was, and I do not hold it against her. You should note, though, that people who are just trying to help sometimes do harm nevertheless. Ppl lose touch w/ their youth 'cuz they grow up and start thinking too much. My mother is now a Quaker and does not believe in a personal, theistic God. BTW, when was the last time you watched cartoons ?........ Probably back when Buzz Lightyear of Star Command was still on. Great series. Or perhaps it was some Bugs Bunny/Daffy Duck cartoons--the old ones, I mean.
I don't even know what a soul would be. Oh, I know, it's the essence of you.
Yes, and It's not even close to physical. Have you found out at least that much ? I recognize that souls are advertised as being nonphysical. That doesn't tell me what they are; it only tells me what they are not.
But what does that mean? Or, it's the spiritual part of you. Again, what does that mean? We can, more and more, demonstrate that consciousness arises from the workings of the brain.
Again, it's not physical. Yes, we've covered that. There's still the question of whether anything nonphysical actually exists.
But what would the role of a soul be?
What is the role of the Universe ? Why is it here ? What's your answer ? Gotta love non-answer answers.
It seems to be just something extra that the church would like you to believe in.
The soul was here b4 any church ever was. Yes, I know that's how souls are advertised. The question is what makes it reasonable to think that they really exist?
It seems to be a metaphysical extravagance. And if it is unrelated to consciousness, then what is its point, anyway?
Once again, you're trying to relate it to the physical....don't be fooled. Trying to relate it to consciousness is trying to relate it to the physical? I didn't know you thought that way.
With zero proof (!) you have no answers as to why the Universe exists, how it came to be, where all this matter & energy came from, the Arrow of Chaos (entropy), the Arrow of Time, how life was formed, etc. I mean, zero answers. None. We have huge amounts of evidence for several well-accepted scientific theories. It's true that there remain unanswered questions, and that some will be unanswered when I die. I am not sure why anyone would regard this as reason to discount science as somehow worthless. And what's so simple-basic is that you know down deep that you'll die without any of these ?'s answered. It actually amazes me....and I'm happy to be writing this 'cuz it's brought me to realize that ppl really can be ultra-shallow 'cuz they relate everything to the physical. The same scientists who "relate everything to the physical" also love and laugh and appreciate art and enjoy music and find it meaningful to raise their children to be good and decent human beings. What is "ultra-shallow" about them?
I would love for spirits to exist. I would like nothing better than to be able to believe that....
I feel that you're lying to yourself here....and I won't let you lie to me. So knock it off MW....it's insulting. (1) I assure you, I am not lying here. (2) I value truth highly. I do not lie in these threads at all. (3) You call me a liar on no evidence whatsoever, and *you* feel insulted? (4) I can tolerate a lot, but if you persist in calling me a liar, that will be the end of my communication with you.
I desperately, desperately, desperately want to believe that....
Again, I'm calling you a liar. And again, you're wrong. Why do you find it impossible to take me at my word on this subject? Who *wouldn't* want there to be an afterlife? (Actually, to my surprise, I do know some people who don't want there to be an afterlife. I do not understand that, but I accept it. But I very much *do* want there to be one. Why would you find that hard to believe--so hard that you would call me a liar instead of taking me at my word?) You're a liar 'cuz you've married science without the possibility of divorce 'cuz it's your identity. It defines you....and you think you're hot at it....and that's the pathetic part. It is true that I have a logico-scientific worldview. It is also true that I laugh a lot and love my family and appreciate art and enjoy music and find it meaningful to help my nephews grow into kind, decent human beings. Why do you seem to find the two mutually exclusive?
Now, go watch Dora the Explorer on youtube, or better yet, go to a cricket or baseball game, or go jogging, or something....you know, get out more. And you expect that to somehow make me stop thinking of the scientific method as the way to get at what is true about the world? You expect that to make me abandon logic, reason, and rationality when *thinking*? (I am not a big fan of cricket, although my brother-in-law is. I like baseball and root for the Orioles. I hate jogging but do take long walks--and appreciate the scenery, at least when the weather is nicer than it is now. I also watch woodpeckers and cardinals and sparrows at the birdfeeder outside the kitchen window. None of that has the slightest effect on my thinking logically and rationally about what is and is not really true about the world.)
****
That felt really good - to finally dissect his words. Since he's always doing that stuff to me........ Uh-huh. Especially that bit about calling me a liar for no reason whatsoever. I'll bet that felt really good. It's totally wrong, but I'll bet it felt really good.
Elroch keeps arging with people who, if they existed at all, died at least 500 years ago.
Elroch keeps arguing with ProfessorProfesesen. If he died at least 500 years ago, we should all be very interested in the evidence of life after death that he provides by posting his thoughts in this thread.
Ignore the two fools above...
Now here is something newsworthy! Scientists have just discovered a black hole 12,000,000,000 times larger than our sun!
http://video.foxnews.com/v/4085978050001/supermassive-black-hole-discovered-in-space/?#sp=show-clips