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How fast is the Earth moving through space? Not toward or away from Betelguese as in red and blue shifts of that particular star but just how fast are we moving through space in general. Can we look at one part of the sky and see everything red shifted and another part of the sky and see blue shifted and extrapolate the total speed from that (obviously we would need a series of measurements)? Do we know how fast the galaxy is moving, or even the speed that the sun moves around the center of the galaxy? For instance if I'm driving a car east at 60 mph, can we take all those factors, add them together and determine the total speed of me and my car.

One of the fundamental principles of relativity is the fact the speed is relative, which makes it meaningless to speak of something have a speed without also saying what that speed is relative to. The only thing that matters here is our speed relative to Betelgeuse.

Does that combined speed cause a time dialation effect (even a tiny one) on Earth? I know time and mass becomes distorted as you approach the speed of light, but I've never heard how steep that gradient is or if there is a lower limit. Would a hypothetical stationary cup of water cooled to absolute zero experience time differently then a similar cup boiling at 100 degrees (obviously the difference would be very tiny, but would it be there or is there a cut off)?

As a rule of thumb, relativistic effects (time dilation, etc.) can pretty safely be ignored at less than 10% of the speed of light. Here's a graph illustrating how time dilation increases with speed, if you're interested: http://www.thebigview.com/spacetime/tdgraphformula.gif

If the universe is expanding in the sense that there is more space between all particles (this was how it was explained to me: that with each passing moment the distance between all particles increases as the fabric of space-time slowly expands) wouldn't the speed of light be slowly increasing (or decreasing) as well. Would a lightyear 600 years ago be the same as it is now?

The gravitational forces within a galaxy are more than strong enough to counteract the effects of the expansion of the universe, so the distance between Earth and Betelgeuse is completely unaffected by it.

From http://www.thebigview.com/spacetime/questions.html :

While the commonly accepted standard model of matter provides a very good description of the phenomena observed in experiments, the model is still incomplete. It can explain the behaviour of particles fairly well, but it cannot explain why some particles exist as they do. For example, it has been impossible to predict the mass of the top quark accurately from theoretical inference until it was determined experimentally. As mentioned before, the standard model of matter does not provide any mathematical model that allows us to calculate the observed mass.

Never did anybody other than retarded atheists with nothing else to do claim that christians or jews say the earth is 6000 years old.

There are plenty of Young Earth Creationist Christians who believe the earth was created in 4004 BCE, making the earth 6000 years old. By saying atheists all came up with it you're showing your ignorance.

As for political, yes, it has changed the face of politics for good.

Burning witches on the stake was good? The crusades were good? Queen Isabella of Castile forcibly making Jews and Muslims either convert or leave Spain was good? The persecution of Gnostic Christians by the church was good? If you mean religion brought us democracy and liberty, you're wrong there too. Democracy and liberty came out of the Age of Enlightenment which was preceded by the Age of Reason in Europe. Both were rebellions from church authority. Among the Founding Fathers of the USA, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamen Franklin were supporters of Enlightenment, which gave rise to Classical Liberalism, meaning liberty and small governemnt.

Where is compassion without christianity or judaism I ask you?

Compassion is partially what Buddhism is about. Specifically Buddhism is about eliminating suffering. The Four Noble Truths focuses on suffering. Islam too deals with compassion and suffering.

Almost Buddhist.

http://www.thebigview.com/buddhism/fourtruths.html

I'm pleased that you tried to understand what San was saying to you. He is right to encourage you to broaden your horizons with the writings of the modern philosophers (if not an honest study, maybe the Cliff's Notes). It wouldn't hurt to consider the Eastern philosophies either. Depending on your bias, you could say that men lived for a thousand years justly and morally without a "religion" by following the Tao and the earliest schools of the Buddha (philosophies without an underlying faith in the divine, only in the human).

I think it's pretty clear that there is a difference between 'religion' and 'philosophy' -- otherwise one of those words would have disappeared from our language. We would no longer need to talk about morality or ethics or philosophy because we could rather just talk about religion or religion or theology.

I wondered what perhaps someone from the opposite extreme might think, with an equally intolerant and cruel intention. "If you're stupid enough to not believe in God's laws, then perhaps you ought to try anarchy, i.e. get carjacked and killed."

(With a touch of levity) I thought it was more often phrased like this: "If you're stupid enough not to believe in God's laws, then perhaps you ought to burn in Hell for all eternity". It seems so much more enlightened when you put it your way. "Carjacked and killed" seems so much less inhumane than an eternity of torment (if anything the punishment is finite). This is the aspect of modern religion I find most distasteful; the kind that indiscriminately damns the non-believer. I can understand the motive behind promises of eternal life and mercantile or hedonistic utopias -- but why oh why do some faiths insist that the un-chosen, or the un-saved have to burn in their hell? Wouldn't it be bad enough that they just can't live in the golden cities behind the pearly gates, forever looking over the wall saying, 'darn shucks, I followed the wrong prophet'? Why the torture? When you choose not to follow the Tao, or more recently fail to take Camus's advice, you're just stuck living a miserable, unfruitful life ending with your meaningless death (and if you're Buddhist or otherwise believe in reincarnation, you get to live that meaningless life again and again until you embark on the Eightfold Path).

Well anyhow, I'm only a layman. Full dislcosure: My father, wife and in-laws are Lutheran. My mom's a Unitarian. One of my grannies is technically a Jew. I come from a background that's basically removed from all fundamentalism -- so that's why I ask. If you aren't a true-believer or otherwise don't believe that a just God would do such things then you know, you don't have to answer.

In short, anything that you're sufficiently attached to, that can give you enough happiness, can cause you as much pain when taken away. The solution therefore, is to follow a middle path practising detachment from all wordly desires, so as to walk along the middle path - neither be swayed emotionally toward too much towards happiness, nor being overly susceptible to sadness.

The four noble truths:
1. Life means suffering.
2. The origin of suffering is attachment.
3. The cessation of suffering is attainable.
4. The path to the cessation of suffering (aka the eightfold way).

Well, eventually, if they are around they would find combinations that form protons, neutrons, and electrons, and miscellaneous elements and then our world.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics would tend to disagree. It took the Big Bang to make those particles, so in the absence of second one, once they break down they'll stay broke.

Ok, don't have much time, but this http://www.thebigview.com/spacetime/universe.html is the first link I found. It says people aren't sure whether the universe will expand forever or if it will eventually contract.

Scientists are never sure of anything, but the current evidence points towards continued expansion.

Seems like expansion and contraction would help make sure the elementary units get mixed up sufficiently that they could form the combination that they are in today.

You're begging the question.

Well, eventually, if they are around they would find combinations that form protons, neutrons, and electrons, and miscellaneous elements and then our world. Ok, don't have much time, but this http://www.thebigview.com/spacetime/universe.html is the first link I found. It says people aren't sure whether the universe will expand forever or if it will eventually contract. Seems like expansion and contraction would help make sure the elementary units get mixed up sufficiently that they could form the combination that they are in today.

With about 95% of the country being Buddhist at least they're already familiar with the concept of suffering ;-)

Perhaps you need this:

User Friendly Desktop Version Fork of the Self-Restraint Documentation Project

KFG

in the Four Noble Truths. Does anyone know if this is GPL-ed?