What Do You Believe Even If You Can't Prove It?

An anonymous reader writes "That's what online magazine The Edge - the World Question Center asked over 120 scientists, futurists, and other interesting minds. Their answers are sometimes short and to the point (Bruce Sterling: 'We're in for climatic mayhem'), often long and involved; they cover everything from the existence of God to the nature of black holes. What do you believe, even though you can't prove it?"

Comments

Someday

[doublem]

That some day, somehow, I will get the elusive First Post.

Re:Someday

[nine-times]

ep... you have your proof... no longer counts.

Re:Someday

[Tackhead]

> > [doublem] That some day, somehow, I will get the elusive First Post.
>
> [nine-times] ep... you have your proof... no longer counts.

...for proof denies faith, and without faith, getting a first post is nothing.

"Oh dear", says doublem, "I hadn't thought of that", and promptly vanishes in a fog of (-1, Overrated) moderation.

"Oh, that was easy", says nine-times, and for an encore, goes on to prove that (+1, Funny) is indistinguishable from (-1, Troll), and gets himself confirmed dead at the next Netcraft parody post.

Re:Someday

[goombah99]

I beleive that I am the only human posting to slashdot and the rest are all machine generated.

Re:Someday

[daniil]

Someone on Slashdot once had a sig that read: "On the internet, everyone assumes you're a dog." I wholeheartedly agree: you're a dog.

Re:Someday

[MightyMartian]

> On to my beleif without proof: I beleive that the big bang never happened... that time and space have
> always been and will always be continuous. It hit me that the universe can't expand inside of
> nothing... if nothing existed when the universe was infinitesmally small, not even nothingness
> itself, how can the universe expand into that? it doesn't exist.

What a pity that you don't actually seem to know what Big Bang cosmology states, and that, through ignorance, you simply can toss away the large amount of evidence for it (red-shift of distant galaxies, nucleosynthesis and the cosmic microwave background radiation).

>
Most of my beleif that the universe didn't have a big bang comes from a deep seated feeling that I
> have that cannot be explained. I imagine most of the people they asked had the same reasoning for
> their beleifs.

The Big Bang theory isn't about beliefs as you seem to use the word. It's about the best explanation that fits the evidence.

> I also feel pretty good each time scientists revise the 'age of the universe' each time
> they're able to look deeper into space.

That's a pretty big distortion. It's stayed relatively fixed at about 13.5 billion years for quite some time now. Perhaps you could provide some citations here. I suspect that you get virtually all of your information on the Big Bang from science journalists, who, in general, are utter incompetents.

Here's a tip. Learn what Big Bang cosmology is. Learn what physicists mean when they talk about the Universe. In other words, read some books by scientists, and not crap from science journalists or daft strawmen by pseudo-scientific kooks who are themselves largely ignorant of the theories in question.

Re:Someday

[chainsaw1]

Only if:

a) Stars have an infinite amount of lifespan. This is known to not be true
b) One star is created for every one that is destroyed with equivelent amount of energy to give off. This we don't have enough information on this to make anything other than an educated guess.
c) There is no dark matter / nebulae / black hole that is absorbing the light
d) It is not possible that things beyond the fringe of the known universe are just so far away that the light hasn't had time to reach us yet
e) It is not possible that things so old as to be outside the fringe of the known universe emit so little light/radation that we cannot detect them yet.

Re:Someday

[halfelven]

It hit me that the universe can't expand inside of nothing... if nothing existed when the universe was infinitesmally small, not even nothingness itself, how can the universe expand into that? it doesn't exist.

Multiple fallacies.

By the same token, how can the Universe exist at all "inside of nothing"?
It gets even worse: why should it have any particular size and be limited to it, instead of being "free" to change it?

Your problem is that you believe that a finite Universe must exist inside of "something". It doesn't have to. It could be self-contained.
There are multiple geometries which are compatible with the "non-limited yet finite" Universe. E.g. the hyper-spheric geometry (although STOP NOW and don't imagine a sphere because that will get you back to your initial puzzle of "what contains that sphere?").

You're simply thinking of a particular geometry which has the property that, if you keep on walking straight indefinitely, you keep on seeing indefinitely many new places. Most of the Big Bang models simply state that, if you keep on walking straight long enough, you get back from where you departed.
That model does not require it to be contained in anything. It's just a play of attributes of the space.

Re:Someday

[xSauronx]

i believe, though i can't prove it...that your argument was a waste of time, and he won't give a damn about the evidence

Re:Someday

[cbiltcliffe]

Naah. Machines have more intelligence than some of the people posting on here.... :)

Re:Someday

[AnonymousKev]

>Interestingly, he didn't make claims to deity, it was Paul that did most of that for him

Certainly you're entitled to your views on whether or not Jesus is the Christ, but you shouldn't misrepresent facts. Jesus made several claims to divinity -- both direct and oblique.

Matthew 11:27: Jesus claims an exclusive Father/Son relationship with God.

Matthew 26:63-64: High Priest asks Jesus if he is the Christ (aka the Messiah) and Jesus answers that he is.

John 8:58: Jesus states "Before Abraham was born, I am" The term "I am" is considered by Jews to be the name of God. (When God appeared to Moses as the burning bush, Moses asked His name. The response was "I am".)

John 14:6: "No one comes to the Father, except through me." -- while not a direct claim of deity, it's a very weighty statement of Jesus as Savior of the world. This is one of Jesus' statements that prevents most Christians from jumping on the "all religions are equal" bandwagon.

For more detail, check out Josh McDowell's Evidence which Demands a Verdict -- specificially, the chapter "Lord, Liar, or Lunatic?".

Re:Someday

[ObjectiveGiant]

Big Bang Cosmology? Isn't that like when Homer made that makeup gun?

http://www.redbrick.dcu.ie/~elmer/simpsons/homer/m akeupgun.jpg

Re:Someday

[jpflip]

I'm not quite clear on what you mean by "the other aspect of this matter is gravity which is the negative quantity..." etc. Inflation isn't all that useful for telling us why there is matter to begin with. Quantum field theory tells us that there should be matter and antimatter springing into existence all the time in the hot early universe of the big bang model - the problem is why the matter and antimatter don't appear in equal amounts and annihilate each other. There are theories which can explain this, but they aren't aspects of inflation per se.

What inflation is good for is telling us why the universe is the way we see it today - ridiculously homogenous on large scales (scales so large that light doesn't seem to have had time to cross the intervening distance) but not perfectly homogeneous (otherwise we wouldn't have any lumpy things like galaxies or planets). The quantum fluctuations you describe naturally give rise to the slight "lumps" in the universe, while the rapid early expansion of inflation smooths out any big inhomogeneities in the early universe. This all turns out to work out really well and solve a lot of problems.

Of course, no one knows exactly what caused this rapid expansion, but there are lots of good models that can do the job (which just don't have enough evidence to decide which particular one might be right). One model (eternal inflation) suggests that an eternal universe (the details of any initial Big Bang don't matter) would have occasional quantum fluctuations which expand outward in just the manner our universe seems to. The Big Bang could, in some sense, be just a local phenomena that happens every now and then in the bigger "universe".

Re:Someday

[AliasF97]

Your points are well-taken, but let's be fair. The Big Bang is a theory. I probably don't know nearly as much about it as you do, based on your post, but as we learn more about space, our take on what's out there beyond our atmosphere is changing...if not necessarily the view on the Big Bang. We can't even say if there is or was life on the planet right next door, but we are so bold as to say, "This is how the Universe started and I can prove it"? There are objects out there that we cannot even define, let alone discern the origin. This is about beliefs without proof (kind of like being a Philosophy major), so maybe we can be a little fast and loose with the hard facts. But, in relation to the Universe, it seems to me that we are looking at one very small part of a whole and making our best guess based on what we see. But our best guesses have been notoriously known for being questioned (with the questioners almost always being persecuted) and then corrected.

Re:Someday

[bcattwoo]

Big Bang Cosmology? Isn't that like when Homer made that makeup gun?

No, that was Big Bang Cosmetology. Not to be confused with Big Bang Cometology, i.e. when Bart discovered the comet that threatened to destroy Springfield.

Re:Someday

[johnnyb]

I haven't read the book, but you think that the Josephus references are just made up?

Remember that we actually have copies of the book of John dating back to 120AD, which is _really_ close to the time it was written. Likewise, the dates of the people who lived who quoted the New Testament also establishes an early date.

By reading the reviews of the books, it seems like the author is trying to disprove the basics of Christianity by arguing in agreement with one of its main tenets (that God is readying all people to know Christ). For more information about this, you should check out Eternity in their Hearts.

Re:Someday

[Wraithlyn]

"The Big Bang theory isn't about beliefs as you seem to use the word. It's about the best explanation that fits the evidence."

It is perhaps the best CURRENT explanation. But it is not as good a theory as it was even a few years ago. There are questions that the Big Bang theory has no explanation for.

For example, as recently as 1998 it was discovered that the universe is "flat". A tiny difference in the density of the universe, either up or down, would make it curved. This means the Big Bang was "tuned" to produce exactly this density. The odds of that happening by chance are estimated at 1 to 10^50.

The Big Bang does not explain the increasing evidence that the expansion of the universe is actually accelerating .

The Big Bang theory does not adequately explain (IMHO) the "Horizon Problem", which is that the universe looks uniform in all directions, from galaxy evolution to background radiation. (Yes, I am aware of "Inflation Theory", which seeks to address the Horizon Problem, but it's pretty shaky. Here's a paper disputing the ability of the inflationary model to produce homogenous CMBR if you are interested.)

Dead-Tree References:
"The Field", Lynne McTaggart - Recommended for everyone, written for laymen.
"Science and the Akashic Field", Ervin Laszlo - This is a bit more technical.

Re:Someday

[jaoswald]

No, your post cited material which *claims* he made that claim. Which is no more convincing than material which claims he is divine. It is evidence, but to my mind not convincing, because the source is irretrievably biased. Any text where Christ was quoted as saying "no, I'm an ordinary guy" would have been weeded out by the process of determining the Christian canon.

Most importantly, the people who wrote the Gospels wrote *to encourage others to believe in Christ.* They are not impartial historical accounts.

You also apparently can't tell the difference between Santa Claus and Jesus Christ, because you mix up which I was speaking about in my post.

There is *much* more evidence, both physical and textual, for the existence of Benjamin Franklin, than there is for the existence of Jesus Christ as a human being as opposed to a religious figure. Mostly because Franklin lived much more recently, and because printing presses and so forth existed in Franklin's time, but not in Christ's.

For instance, we can go to the National Archives and see papers with Franklin's signature on them. I'm confident we can go into the dusty archives of Philadelphia and see records of his property transactions. We can see the building in which the Declaration of Independence was written. However, there is not a single physical artifact that is known to be associated with Jesus himself.

You will probably retort that "these are just written documents like the Gospels", but they are not. Franklin's records and documents have a tremendous amount of extraneous stuff that connects them to a coherent reality: there are dozens of other signatures on the Declaration, and we can go do the same exercise on each one of the participants to develop evidence that *they* existed. Along with the records of Franklin's property transactions, we would find a huge number of other property transactions, almost all of which are credible and make sense.

For the Gospels, the independent evidence for most of their statements is scarce, and only tenuously connected to the crucial points of Jesus's life and works.

Re:Someday

[bwt]

So you admit you're the weird one.

Re:Someday

[ObjetDart]

As for me, I think it's strong evidence that God was behind the Big Bang.

As for me, I think it's strong evidence that something is happening that we don't understand.

Feel free to attribute anything we don't currently understand to "God", it's your right; humans have been doing it for thousands of years. Of course, thousands of years ago it was twinkling lights in the sky and occasional crop failures; today it's the big bang.

Personally, I'm perfectly comfortable accepting that that there are still many, many things about this universe that we cannot explain; furthermore, I'm confident that given enough time, we might even figure out the answers to some of those things. There will always be mysteries to keep us puzzled and searching for answers. In the meantime I don't need to imagine an all powerful mythical being to feel better about it.

Re:Someday

[CaptainAvatar]

There's no doubt that the standard big bang model doesn't work as well as it used to. But it's now merely a starting point. The most important features of the model - that it explains the microwave background, the recession of galaxies, and elemental abundances - are still good reasons for thinking that reality will turn out to have something very like a big bang, even if it is rather weirder (branes and suchlike). The big bang is here to stay - it's the standard, simplistic big bang model which is in trouble.

PS There is no way I am going to read a book with "Akashic Field" in the title, leastways not without laughing.

Re:Someday

[flottman]

life could not have existed in any form at any time nor place in the universe

Actually, let's clarify that. "life as we currently recognize it could not have existed". While it's likely true that the life that we see today would not have been possible if any of the alluded to parameters had been different, you know what? We'd be talking about a completely different universe, so our current understanding of life would have no bearing on anything.

So really all we're looking at is that if things had been different, then the universe would have been really, um, different. And that's not even interesting, let alone proof of anything.

Re:Someday

[mindstrm]

You are making a common perceptual mistake. You are thinking of a 3d explosion, in which everything is moving away from some 3 dimensional point... you expect that towards the center things should be more dense, towards the edge more spread out, maybe slower, etc, and that there is an actual 3d point we could extrapolate as "where it happened".

The big bang postulates a 4d explosion that brought into existence spacetime. (space + time). Our 3d universe is the surface of an expanding 4d bubble, so everything is moving away from everything else, there IS no center in 3 dimensions.

Draw a bunch of points on a balloon, then add more air, notice every point moves away from every other, there is no center.

This is why we look in EVERY direction and eventually see the beginning of the universe.. because looking further away is, due to the speed of light being limited, looking further back in time. Eventually we look far enough back that there is nothing else to see.

You aren't looking at the edge of the universe, you are looking back in time. There is no edge as you are thinking of it.

Re:Someday

[Bootsy Collins]

It is perhaps the best CURRENT explanation. But it is not as good a theory as it was even a few years ago. There are questions that the Big Bang theory has no explanation for.

Sigh.

Before going any further into your post, it's important to to remember that there is an enormous difference between the (Relativistic Hot) Big Bang model, and the standard cosmological model (of which the Big Bang model is a component). There is more to the standard cosmological model than just the Big Bang model, which really only describes the evolution of the spatial scale factor and the dynamics of the fluids contained in space. This is an important point: all three of the "issues" you reference (flatness, the acceleration of the expansion, and the so-called horizon problem) are not problems with the Big Bang. Well, the middle one (the accelerating expansion) isn't a problem at all, of any sort, and someone who suggests it is doesn't understand physical cosmology. The other two may indeed turn out to be problems for the standard cosmological model, but most emphatically are not problems with the Big Bang model, since they lay outside its domain.

It's a bit like suggesting that there must be something wrong with the round-Earth model because it doesn't explain why we get tornados. It's not part of the domain of applicability of the Big Bang model to answer the question of why the flatness and horizon problems exist. OTOH, our overall model of cosmology had better explain the flatness and horizon problems. If it doesn't, and is superseded by something else, that something else will almost certainly contain within it a description of the dynamics of the expansion that looks just like the Big Bang model.

As for your statement that the Big Bang model "does not explain the increasing evidence that the expansion of the universe is actually accelerating" . . .this is a bizarre statement, since it seems to suggest that the Big Bang model somehow predicts or requires that the expansion of the Universe not be accelerating. This is not true. Under the Big Bang model, the dynamics of the expansion are determined by a set of properties of the Universe (e.g. the density of the Universe in normal matter, the density of the Universe in relativistic fluids such as photons, the vacuum energy density of the Universe, etc.). The Big Bang model does not make predictions about the values of these parameters; it merely provides a mathematical framework that allows you to deduce "if these are their values, then this is what will happen." Non-zero cosmological constant models with accelerating expansion are not only permissable under the Big Bang model, but have been actively considered by theorists in different contexts for a very long time, since long before Bob Kirshner and Saul Perlmutter's research groups started turning out their data on the high-z Hubble diagram using Type Ia supernmova data. In fact, if you were to ask Kirshner or Perlmutter or Adam Riess or Brian Schmidt or anyone else associated with these projects, they'd tell you that one of the neat things about their evidence of acceleration is that they place constraints (which are non-zero) on the vacuum energy density of the Universe; those constraints come from the Big Bang model.

Your statement about fine-tuning in the context of the flatness problem is a little off. What would have been more disturbing to cosmologists is if the Universe were not flat, but were near flat. A Universe which is flat at early times stays flat; a Universe which is even slightly positively or negatively curved is driven away from flatness very very quickly. This was the fine-tuning problem that worried cosmologists before the BoomerANG and MAP results -- data seemed to suggest that the Universe was only slightly negatively curved, which in turn implied at very early times a Universe infinitely close to flat but not flat. There are a variety of physical theories out there to explain why the Universe would be flat; to explain w

That's easy

[Anonymous Coward]

The female orgasm.

Re:That's easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe the AC is a girl and hasn't tried out the Magic Wand yet.

Re:That's easy

[Anonymous Coward]

How about I HAVE A HEADACHE

My ex-wife used headaches, fatique, all kinds of illnesses to avoid sex.

During the divorce trial her medical records and examinations confirmed that her claims were contradictory (in legalese, she had been lying).

During our separation she had three affairs behind my back, even booking flights to them multiple times. That's a pretty active sex life for someone with lots of health problems.

So it was all one big lie. As you can imagine, I am extremely skeptical when a woman tells me she has a headache.

Re:That's easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Then the question becomes "why would a man fake one"? Probably the same reason a woman will - because she wants it to be over with.

Or you have another date later.

Re:That's easy

[Bonker]

Uhm...

Orgasmic vaginal contractions are rather easy to feel. Even if you can't feel it when you're doing the deed with your wang, you should be able to feel it if you're using your fingers or your tongue.

(Wait. I'm on Slashdot. 99% of geeks here have never gotten that far.)

Many women become hyper-sensitive to clitoral stimulation immediately prior and after orgasm. Meaning that the intensity is not comfortable, or even painful.

If she's enjoying clitoral stimulation and then stops enjoying it very suddenly and urgently, you can be pretty sure she had an orgasm.

If you guys can't grasp this, then seriously, turn off the computer, put away the porn, and go find a girlfriend. Seriously.

Re:That's easy

[Medevo]

You were simply in monogamous "raiser" position. In semi-monogamous species like humans and birds, males attempt to win the youngest female they can, and often females will willingly enter into relationships in which they do not wish to produce young with that male, but believe that males ability to raise children is top notch. However the female then, in the form of affairs, will attempt to seek out a male that give her children the best genetic chance at success. Much of this process is hardwired, so don't entirely blame her nature, and at best, take this as a compliment that you would be a great father.

Medevo

Re:That's easy

[JabberWokky]

As many people have pointed out, you are referring to something that is impossible for the observer to reproduce for observers that are male or unable to orgasm.

Fine. In the long tradition of "real science", I will assign the task of providing experimental data to the nearest grad student. As soon as she gets home. Repeatedly.

--
Evan "Although she's going for a PhD in Chemistry, I doubt she'll dislike this assignment"

I believe

[networkBoy]

in intelligent design.
-nB

Re:I believe

[nadadogg]

Same here, I'm a firm believer that God and science can coexist, seeing as we don't know exactly how God works, and I'm not closed-minded on either end of the argument.
Yes, slashdot, it's possible to believe in God and science without being a damned fundie that makes my faith look bad.

Re:I believe

[dbrower]

in intellegent design

So do I, but there seems to be darned little of it in the software that I see.

-dB

Re:I believe

[GoofyBoy]

If you mean Intellegent Design, as in purposeful Creation by God: Mod - Insightful

If you mean intelligent design, as in purposeful creation by programmers, analysts and end-users: Mod - Funny

Re:I believe

[the_mad_poster]

Please note: I.D. is billed as an "alternative" to evolution in which god exists.

The solidified and well-accepted portions of evolutionary models make no requirement, however, that you cease to believe in any gods.

Intelligent Design, therefore, while perhaps a good example of things to believe in without proof, has nothing to do with science and god. It has much more, however, to do with politically empowered people who don't understand science, and the people they seem to think are somehow disproving god.

Your ending statment, therefore, appears to have little to do with the rest of your post when it is put into the context of the post you replied to.

Re:I believe

[doublem]

Do intelligent design believers argue that God designed humans, animals etc directly or is it that God designed the physical laws of the universe such that everything could naturally evolve on its own?

Yes.

Both are valid schools of thought under the heading of "intelligent design"

Re:I believe

[Sergeant Beavis]

Yes, slashdot, it's possible to believe in God and science without being a damned fundie that makes my faith look bad.

You bet! Someday people will realize that the Bible is a book of THEOLOGY and not a book of SCIENCE.

Re:I believe

[Elwood P Dowd]

The theory of intelligent design is considered, by its proponents, to be proof that God exists. Believing in God & science usually means that you don't buy ID.

Re:I believe

[sqlgeek]

How much lab equiptment do you need in order to say "I don't understand, therefor God?" Mmmm, lets all call that science, shall we? I'm stealing Bradford DeLong's words, but I'm counting on folk around here not reading economists too much.

Cheers,
Scott

Re:I believe

[Rheingold]

How would you know what a universe that wasn't designed looked like? Have you ever experienced a universe that was designed? "Design" is one of those things that we as humans recognize in relation to things not designed; we compare, say, a chair with a fallen tree. Both can be appropriated for the task of sitting, but one is designed and other other not (presuming, of course, we're talking about a knocked over). How would you recognize if the universe werre not designed?

BTW, if you're really interested in the question and not merely espousing it as a foundation for other less tenable beliefs, I recommend that you read Bertrand Russell's "Why I Am Not a Christian (And Other Essays)" and George Smith's ""Atheism: The Case Against God."

Re:I believe

[olyar]

The foundation of intelligent design is that there exists a God who is both personal and creative. So humans and animals were created by him, and the physical laws are the *tools* he used to create them. Science then becomes the study of how God does things... I can believe in intelligent design and still believe in the process of evolution. I don't think that God just created the process, set it in motion and then left. He is actively involved in it, watching it play out... just like if you were running a piece of software you'd written. The only difference is that God's code doesn't have any bugs, so it doesn't have to be revised. There's no "gravity 0.9 pre-release".

Re:I believe

[Zzesers92]

and... just because science can explain something does not preclude God, ever, period.

Here's how I like to think of God, personally. Whatever changed and resulted in the singularity expanding is God. It's not some santa clause human-looking white man with a big white beard throwing lightning bolts from the sky. It is what made this glorious universe possible, whatever that was, however explained. That is God. And I'm very happy it happened.

Re:I believe

[MightyMartian]

Intelligent Design is merely Creationism dressed up in new clothes in an attempt to subvert US Constitutional prohibitions against teachign religion in public schools. It isn't science.

Re:I believe

[FuturePastNow]

That's a perfectly valid belief, especially in the context of things you'll never be able to prove. That said... I find it very difficult to take people who believe in ID seriously. They're usually just fundamentalists trying to circumvent the separation of church and state, one step at a time.

Re:I believe

[skiman1979]

If I had mod points, I'd mod you up. There are different theories on the creation of the universe, whether you believe in the "big bang", creation, or anything else. However the universe came to be, it had to come from somewhere. Assuming the universe exploded from a grain of dust, that grain of dust had to come from somewhere. Seems reasonable to me to say that God put it there and caused it to explode into what we have today.

If you go with Creation, the Bible says God created the Heavens and Earth in 6 days and rested on the 7th. To my knowledge, it doesn't define what a "day" is. Could these days be actually years or centuries or more?

It's not like the universe (or the dust cloud that created it) just existed through all eternity. If it did, call that God. After all, they do say God is everywhere, all knowing, etc.

Re:I believe

[JohnFluxx]

You are extremely confused.

"Try giving a straight (correct) answer to the question, "Is light a Partical(sic) or a Wave""

The answer is 'mu'. It doesn't mean the universe is inconsistent. We haven't yet found a single inconsistency of the universe. Only that our theories are wrong and need to be revised.

And, no, material isn't spewed out at the speed of light from a black hole (at least, no creditable scientist would say so).

Again, 'the laws of physics break down at the speed of light'. This isn't right or wrong, it's just a nonsense sentence. It's like saying 'can God create a rock that he cannot lift?'

Re:I believe

[ifwm]

"Just because science CAN explain something doesn't mean that it WASN'T God".

That's what Occam's Razor is for. As in the simplest explanation that fits the evidence is usually best (paraphrase). God, being unprovable, will rarely (if ever) fit these criteria.

Re:I believe

[ahodgson]

Sure, God wanted us to be intelligent, but took 3 billion years of fucking around to get to it.

Right ....

ID is an escape hatch for those who cannot deny the obviousness of evolution but don't want to give up their need to belief in God and, ergo, an afterlife.

Re:I believe

[MightyMartian]

> As much as I dislike religious creationism, the religion ban on schools is anticonstitutional (1st
> ammendment anyone?) and unfair. Let people pray in schools, those who feel offended can leave the
> classroom with no penalties.

This isn't about praying in schools. If a student or group of students wish to do so, then their rights are protected. However, if school staff require that students take part in prayers, then they are violating the Constitution.

Teaching Creationism in a public school science class is clearly pushing a specific religious view, which isn't even shared by many religious people. The issue of students being allowed to pray is not the same as the issue of students being taught a religious belief (even if carefully cloaked in seemingly neutral language) by an employee of the state (namely, a public school teacher).

Re:I believe

[geomon]

You are reaching with that conclusion. *No* physical evidence. How about the Big Bang?

How about it? Is this just another appeal for "God in the Gaps"?

Bias is on both sides.

How so? You have irrefutable evidence of god's existence? Something testable and falsifiable?

I have an open mind. Fill it with something other than speculation and you will be able to convince me.

"Atheists want nothing more than to live their lives without God so they can live a life without any ultimate consequences."

Atheists (and I can only speak for the ones I know) want nothing more than to be left alone by religious people. They don't belive in god, so the threat of any "ultimate consequences" is moot.

We chose to be moral and good because it suits us, not because we fear for our fate after we die.

Re:I believe

[MightyMartian]

> I have never believed in creationism that I know of; I have always believed in evolution; I have
> always believed in God. How does believing that God is responsible for evolution subvert the
> separation of Church and state?
> It's not like teachers need to teach the root cause of evolution, just how it works.

Well, I guess it depends on what you mean by "root cause", but it seems to me one of the big problems with science education in general is that it isn't properly explained that science isn't anti or pro-God, it's necessarily agnostic on that particular topic.

Evolution isn't an atheistic dogma, it serves an atheist no better than it serves a theist. It, like all scientific theories, has nothing to say on the existence or non-existence of God. Of course, certain religious beliefs are ultimately falsified or rendered useless by science. No one seriously thinks that Zeus sends down thunderbolts, or that Poseidon makes storms at sea. The same goes with Biblical Literalism, particularly in reference to Genesis.

Unfortunately for some branches of Christianity, a form of Bibliolatry has taken root. This seems to have created a litmus test in certain denominations, where either the person believes that everything in the Bible is literally true (except for the bits that are obviously metaphorical, heh heh heh) or they are not a true Christian.

In the older, pre-Reformation traditition (aka. Roman Catholicism) there is no requirement that the Bible must be read as a literal historical and scientific document. In fact, Biblical Literalism is a relatively young idea, not a deep-rooted one.

It's neither here nor there. A teacher in a public school should not be foisting a religious belief on his or her students. Even putting Constitutional issues aside, one would hope that teachers, and the educational system in general, would not teach blatantly incorrect things.

Re:I believe

[La0tsu]

By your reasoning, if presented with the question, "Does 2+2 equal 1 or purple?" We know that purple isn't a valid answer, so the answer must be 1. Maybe you should clean up your on fallacies before you start being a dick about other people's.

Re:I believe

[Rheingold]

That is the point of the whole story: Belief on what can not be proven. Your question is sort of pointless because you can't prove it either way. You didn't RTFA or even the title of the story, did you?

It sounds like the title is about all you've read. The site and its articles aren't about things believed willy-nilly; the articles are experts describing their hunches based on their years of experience and synthesizing information outside their fields. It is not about experts having beliefs without cause--it's about experts having beliefs with cause but not rigorously proven (yet anyway). That is a critical distinction to make. To quote:

This is an alternative path. It may be that it's okay not to be certain, but to have a hunch, and to perceive on that basis. There is also evidence here that the scientists are thinking beyond their individual fields. Yes, they are engaged in the science of their own areas of research, but more importantly they are also thinking deeply about creating new understandings about the limits of science, of seeing science not just as a question of knowing things, but as a means of tuning into the deeper questions of who we are and how we know.

These questions are not about making vague statments and leaving them at belief; they are about stimulating thought and discussion--not about simply accepting a belief and rejecting discussion based on unprovability.

Aparently that has already been answered by the partent with a resounding Yes!.

That was a mistake on my part. The quesion was meant to be: Have you ever experienced a universe that was not designed?

No, not really. Design is one of those things that indicates intelligent origin, that's all. You can call a DVD player "designed", but yet you can't point to a naturally-occurring DVD player growing wild on some jungle or being mined from the earth.

You've just restated what I said: Design implies an abstraction (a function of intelligence) of a purpose from nature and then creation (by man) of something for that purpose.

Re:I believe

[Elracim]

I agree, God and science are two separate things. There are some things that science can never explain; the things that are beyond the scope of science are the domain of faith. Science will never tell us how reality came to be, or if has always been here, why? Things that are unknowable are either ignored, or taken as, you guessed it, matters of faith.

Slightly O.T. But as far as I.D. goes, I can't think of a more absurd thing to argue about... If there is a "God", and he insists on designing things, then he could have created the earth, everyone in it and their memories 10 minutes ago, being omnipotent and all. Doesn't seem really important...

Re:I believe

[Venner]

>>Of course, Occam's Razor says "most likely" or "usually" as you put it. The significance is that the simplest explanation isn't ALWAYS the correct one.
>>

Exactly. Weird things happen that are absolutely unexpected and most certainly not the 'easy answer'.

I have a book around here somewhere that has an article about a man who was stabbed and killed at a baseball game in the 30s. The simple explanation? Probably that someone didn't like him very much, right?

The unlikely truth of the matter was that the man sitting on his right was passing an open pocket knife to the man on his left and a foul ball struck the hand with the knife, driving the point into his throat. That's something about which - even if you were there - you'd be saying, "What the hell?! Can't be."

Even the fact that someone can spend a dollar on a lottery ticket and win millions of dollars is pretty crazy. Some people call it "a tax on people who can't do statistics", but I personally know someone who is $10,000 richer for a $1 ticket. It defies the odds.

Ocham's Razor.
Explain: He has millions of dollars.
dollars.
Simple explanations: He inherited it. He stole it. He earned it with his business.
Not simple: He managed to beat the 1 in 135,145,920 odds and won the Mega Millions jackpot. (Real odds)

Re:I believe

[iceborer]

All of this nonsense about atheism being its own religion and the inability to describe negative atheism to theists is why I've taken to describing myself as an "Apathetic" -- I don't care if there is or is not a God. It pisses people off while they're trying to convert me, but maybe that's an unanticipated benefit.

I happen to be married to a devoutly Christian woman. I respect her faith, encourage it, and think it serves her well. I'm just not interested. I don't believe that there is a God. If he sat down next to me and said hello, I'd say, "Dude! My bad," and be back about my business. I think its hard for theists to accept the fact that we atheists can live perfectly moral lives without the Carrot (Heaven) or the Stick (New Jersey).

Re:I believe

[benna]

Physicists usually use the word God metaphorically. There are some exceptions, but not many. Your argument that the world is just too good to have come out of evolution shows your lack of understanding of the concept, not any evidence for the existence of a designer. See "The Evolutionary Origin of Complex Features" in the journal Nature for some good experimental evidence to the contrary. But really, such research shouldn't be necessary, as it is quite obvious that evolution has no limit in the complexity it can produce given enough time. And there has been enough time. The universe has existed for at least 11 billion years.

The usual....

[Null537]

That eventually, somewhere down the line the US government will get better. (Howard Zinn says so)

WMD

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe that there are Weapons of mass Destruction in Iraq-

G.W. Bush

Re:WMD

[killjoe]

WHen the gassing occured the UN wanted to sanction Iraq. The US blocked it. Why? Because we gave saddam the gas, we gave him intelligence, we gave him technology and we basically told him to gas people.

Think about that.

Re:WMD

[geomon]

It is unfortunate that the rest of the world believes that killing a quarter of a million people with gas is acceptable.

The US seemed okay with gassing the Kurds as well. We provided the satellite intelligence to Saddam's military so that they could evaluate the efficacy of their operation.

We didn't make too much noise as long as Saddam continued to pound the crap out of Iran.

Re:WMD

[IWantMoreSpamPlease]

Sorry, you are flat wrong.

Saddam *asked* the US permission to invade Kuwait, citing territory issues over oil. We agreed not to intervene on what we ( at the time) considered to be a domestic (between Iraq and Kuwait) issue.

Saddamn, armed with assurances from the US, did exactly what he said he was going to do, and then we changed our minds.

No wonder half the world hates us...

Re:WMD

[Tablizer]

I believe that there are Weapons of mass Destruction in Iraq- G.W. Bush

There *are* WMD in Iraq. They are called "Pissed Sunnis", and they have proven quite effective against conventional forces.

Re:WMD

[geomon]

This has been going on forever.

How true, but this applies to everyone equally.

For every petty dictator we supported in the Cold War, there was a petty dictator supported by the Soviet Union as well. I noticed that East Germany was absent from your listing. There are many more in that listing as well, I assure you.

And what about colonies? Every major power in Europe was just itching to get into Africa in a big way. Do you think they brought the natives foreign aid?

How do you rate the French involvement in Algeria or the Ivory Coast?

To contantly jump on the US for having made poor decisions as a nation undermines the great sacrifice that American citizens have made in keeping major conflict from arriving at everyone's doors world-wide. You and I can criticize the decisions as ill-informed or malevolent, but please don't forget that the US doesn't make them without perceived threats from abroad.

There are still Americans who believe in John Adams proclaimation that "Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy."

Living up to that proclaimation has been difficult and has meant the sacrifice of a nations treasure.

Re:WMD

[Qzukk]

US Bashers are hypocrites?

I guess they are, after all, nobody really wants to know the real truth, they just want whatever truth they get fed through the media or through their religious leader or through their president (often then filtered through the media too!)

Reminds me of the Republican ads being shown before the election, talking about how the Republicans were the "value" party, and listing all sorts of values they claimed to hold (gee, I'm glad you're courageous!). I guess those "liberal" tv channels must have cut the ad short, since not once was "truth", "justice", or "honesty" listed.

So, if The Truth is bashing the US, then maybe its deserved. US spoonfed Saddam (who wouldn't have been able to hold Iraq together himself) to have a secular friend against Iran taking over the region. Once Saddam was armed, he started misbehaving and killing people but the US chose to "overlook" that small flaw in his character for the continued security against Iran, until finally he invaded another country. Then Bush Sr. beat him down just enough to teach him that if he wants to slaughter people, he can do it within his own country.

Later, we invade Iraq, kill a lot of people, discover halfway through that we had no plans for an exit, no plans for a democracy (are we even going to pull off the hastily arranged election this month?), no weapons of mass destruction (and members of the government knew this, but failed to communicate it to anyone who could do anything about it other than fire them from the CIA, even after weeks of hunting in Iraq) making this an elective war which means that we could have waited in order to properly equip troops, rather than "going to war with the army we have".

I also find it highly amusing that you believe we are the sole source of freedom on this planet. I can see how people could say "we saved Europe" in WW2, but I'd like to hear how crushing Japan or Germany saved South Africa or Mexico. Not to mention that our own freedom was largely conferred to us with French support.

I suppose though that what America giveth, it taketh away, as the Bush Administration did when it tried to imprison our own Citizens without charge or trial, until the Supreme Court schooled Bush on the bill of rights (Jose Padilla was "detained" in 2002, and finally has a trial scheduled for this month thanks to the SCOTUS decision, however he STILL has not been charged with a crime). Though maybe you're right about the source of freedom spiel, just last month Britain saw the light and their indefinite imprisonment law got busted too.

I believe I will have another martini, please.

[drewzhrodague]

I believe I will have another martini, please. Up, Sapphire, extra olives, and go easy on the vermouth.

Logic works?

[nine-times]

Being a bit of a student of philosophy, my old favorite is "logic works", or, in other words, "a proof means something".

I mean, go ahead and prove it, but you'll still be taking it for granted, or you wouldn't bother with a proof.

Re:Logic works?

[RAMMS EIN]

In fact, the opposite has been proven. Gödel's incompleteness theorem states that a powerful enough system cannot prove its own consistency. This implies that you can make any number of proofs that are valid within your system, but you can never know if the system itself is valid. Or, as I like to say, the only thing you know for sure is that you never know anything for sure.

Of course, the incompleteness theorem itself is derived by a system of which the validity is unknown...

Re:Logic works?

[nine-times]

True, true. Every argument takes something for granted. But all arguments take for granted a certain same thing, along with whatever else they take for granted: that a properly structured argument gets you closer to Truth. (say it however you like)

Not only that, but there are different arguments about the proper use of argumentation and logic. So, not only does every argument presume that "logic works", but it presumes that a certain sort of "logic", namely the sort of logical attack you're using at the time, works. So Euclid isn't only taking his 5 postulates for granted, but also that his sort of geometric proof is appropriate, what constitutes a thing being proven, as well as a sort of spacial intuition without which geometry is impossible.

It's a very complex topic that, unfortunately, few people bother to examine properly. For the record, I'm not saying that, since we can't prove anything without assuming something, we shouldn't attempt to prove anything. I am saying that, since we are always taking things for granted, we should carefully examine and understand what it is that we assume. Once you understand how much you're assuming, even in order to complete the simplest of tasks, you'll understand that assumptions, in and of themselves, are not bad.

Re:Logic works?

[learn fast]

According to Goedels' Incompleteness Theoreom, every logic must have at least some holes

First Post.

[LWATCDR]

I believe in a kind and loving God. Keeping that belief is hard usualy because of the acts of man.
Let the flames begin.

Re:First Post.

[Anonymous Coward]

Let the flames begin.

You know what? Good for you!

I'm an atheist myself, but I'm not going to try and convert you. Nor do I want you to convert me. I don't believe in UFO's, ghosts, fortune telling nor anything else supernatural.

BUT! I believe that if people were a little bit more tolerant, the world would be a much better place.

Re:First Post.

[Hyecee]

I've haven't seen so many AC replies to a single posting before. Methinks people are scared to be associated with such a "controversial" topic.

It's a shame the topic can't be approached more open-mindedly, as the parent was neither malicious or forceful. Whether you believe in a God or not, is the idea so black and white that people can't even maintain a healthy, respectful dialogue about it?

Re:First Post.

[the quick brown fox]

(he|they) must be pretty damn cruel

Not necessarily, depending on whether there is an afterlife and what determines your fate therein. That's even assuming that the earthquake wasn't actually a good outcome out of all the possible outcomes; for example, what if the earthquake released tectonic pressure that otherwise would've built up and killed millions instead of hundreds of thousands?

I for one think the "If an omnipotent, loving God exists, why does he let bad things happen?" line of argument is a red herring. It's impossible for us to understand the actions of a being with an infinite perspective, if one exists--or to look at it another way, you can always argue the other side, no matter how disastrous and cruel the world might seem to be.

Re:First Post.

[Dyolf Knip]

I'm an atheist, but if you could please convey this line of reasoning to anyone who has ever used the phrase "God needs" in a sentence, it would be greatly appreciated. "God wants you to" has been used as justification for some of the most heinous acts ever committed. But as for me, even if I believed in god, I wouldn't waste a moment of my life trying to second-guess him, so I'd end of living exactly the same way I do now. Oh, and the problem with the 'lesser of two evils' earthquake hypothesis is that there's no reason why the tectonic stress couldn't also have been let out through hundreds of itty-bitty tremors over a period of years. That it was instead 'saved up' for centuries and released via one of the most powerful earthquakes in recorded history suggests either apathy, malevolence, or nonexistence.

Re:First Post.

[jejones]

That's even assuming that the earthquake wasn't actually a good outcome out of all the possible outcomes; for example, what if the earthquake released tectonic pressure that otherwise would've built up and killed millions instead of hundreds of thousands?

That's why omnipotence is part of the hypothesis part of the problem of evil. An omnipotent god wouldn't have to settle for the least bad solution.

Me personally

[cr0y]

That at some level computers, cars, and other non "animate" objects have feelings, moods, and emotions, and react to how you treat them. cuz my pc certainly does and i know my car does....

Re:Me personally

[ArsonSmith]

Don't anthropomorphise computers and cars, They hate that.

I believe that children are our future...

[geekpuppySEA]

I don't, actually. I believe that they will eat me alive if I give them back their candy.

Re:I believe that children are our future...

[L. VeGas]

I believe in miracles.

Since you came along.

You sexy thing, you.

What Bruce Sterling should have said:

[thenerdgod]

"I'm a good writer"

Redundancy

[yahyamf]

"What Do You Believe Even If You Can't Prove It?"

The question should be simply "What do you believe?" Because if something can be proven, the issue of belief does not arise. And only idiots believe what what is proven as false.

Re:Redundancy

[nebaz]

Even in Math, proof involves an agreed upon set of axioms, and an agreed upon set of operations to derive theorems. Without these common axioms, proofs are not proofs. In the real world, 'proof' is even harder to agree with consensus wise. Even sight and sound can be fooled by a clever magician, and hoaxes abound. I believe that science, done in a controlled and disinterested manner, will validate useful models of the universe, and reject others, but proof? What is proof? And the very idea of science, that is that controlled conditions yield predictable results is a base axiom, and if you disagree with that, what common discourse is there?

Re:Redundancy

[JaxWeb]

I believe the axioms of Set Theory are consistant, however Godel proved it impossible to prove.

The most important problem in Mathematics is unproveable. This is worrying. You just gotta believe it is true.

Re:Redundancy

[ch-chuck]

Even in Math, proof involves an agreed upon set of axioms

Amen. Even the learned writer of the US declaration of Independence fell back upon, "We hold these truths to be self-evident". Everybody has to start somewhere, and the pseudo-scientific religion bashing people who poo-poo faith are as grating as the bible-thumpers.

What comes around, goes around

[jhines0042]

I believe that if you are nice to others, even in small ways, that the world gets better.

I believe that if you are mean to others, even in small ways, that the world gets worse.

I believe that I want the world to be a better place, and I live each day according to that.

Re:What comes around, goes around

[k4_pacific]

I think I've seen this in at least three different chain letters. You forgot to ask people to forward it.

Re:What comes around, goes around

[jhines0042]

Its not a very easy philosophy to live by. I find the hardest part is when someone is mean to me. It is very difficult sometimes to let "thoughtless" meanness go. To realize that someone isn't being mean to me specifically, just ignorant of the fact that they are not the center of the universe.

Usually I can just let that kind of stuff go and not have it ruin my mood. But sometimes its impossible.

So, hang in there.

Re:What comes around, goes around

[rizole]

I agree, but want to add something my dad often said to me:

You can't reason with an asshole

I Believe I Can Fly.....

[Wandering Wombat]

I believe I can touch the sky.
I believe it every night and day.
I believe I can fly away...

But seriously, folks. I believe we, as a species, are screwed. I can't prove it, but I'm pretty sure you all will prove me right soon enough.

Truth...

[ites]

... is just a tool for navigating a complex world.

In some cultures, sacrificing a goat to the spirits is a truth that may help you survive the famine, if only by making your neighbours afraid enough of you so you can steal their food.

In other cultures, knowing why the ride to work drives you crazy is a truth that helps you stay sane.

Truth is any tool that works better. Scientific truth - that is, truth derived by the scientific method - works best of all, because it fits the physical world so well.

Different truths can be in direct conflict (quantum vs. classical mechanics) and yet both be suitable tools.

Even religion is a truth that helps navigate certain kinds of reality... it's a kind of fuse box for the mind, so to speak. When logic and science can't explain why the wave hit you, perhaps religion can.

Re:Truth...

[kokoloko]

How do you get from "works" to "whatever makes me happy"? I'd be happier if I didn't have a toothache, but ignoring pain certainly won't work. When you try to extend that to truths like the Holocaust, you'll notice that it gets a little tricker, but that's the point. Historical truths are much more mutable than those of the physical universe. It may be frustrating, but it's true. (If it wasn't, how/why could history be so contested?) "Correspondance to Reality" is one of those things that people believe in that they can't prove. ;)

Hard AI

[Tackhead]

I believe that "hard AI" is possible.

That is, that Minsky was fundamentally right, and that the brain can be modeled as a computing device (although not necessarily a deterministic Turing machine) made of meat.

Meta-belief: Just as I believe that mind is an epiphenomenon of certain configurations of matter, I believe that free will is an epiphenomenon of random processes in the brain.

Side note: I do not believe we'll solve the Hard AI problem in the next 50 years. (I'd very much like to be proven wrong on that, however.)

That there is no god.

[azav]

Simply put. As children, we grow up with "all knowing parental figures." With that as precident, when we grow up, we look for that figure. Therefore it is understandable and expected that humanity seek some type of all knowing figure to explain all they don not know and give them comfort when they are grown.

We as humans look for a god, even though based upon complex systems and greater scarcity of complex working systems as the systems become more complex, it is unlikely that one exists.

Re:That there is no god.

[autechre]

I don't really see how that stacks up. First of all, I'm not looking for God to explain anything, and while some people might be, I think that many see it in quite the opposite way. There are things that we don't understand yet, and also things that are impossible for us to understand as we are now. And that's OK.

If you're talking about philosophy, guides to life, etc., this can certainly be separated from theology. Look no further than Jefferson's Bible.

I also don't understand how you take a complex system as an argument against intelligent design; I would tend to see it the other way. Or, as someone else said it: "It's unbelievable that something so mind-bogglingly useful evolved all by itself." In other words, it would take something incredible to set such systems in motion.

Do I believe with absolute certainty in a quantifiable vision of the Almighty? No, and I think that's how it was meant to be. I don't think that any one religion is supposed to get it completely right, and I think we're supposed to be responsible for living our own lives (but I don't fully agree with the Deists either). Based on the things I've encountered in my life, adamant total disbelief seems...unbelievable.

Re:That there is no god.

[xenocide2]

I don't know about you, but my mom was a lying, controlling bitch. By your standards, wouldn't you expect me to be running naked in the night with the devil worshipers?

Christ

[bogaboga]

I believe in Christ Jesus and the "End of this Earth" as we know it today. I also believe that many of us will go to hell (the lake of fire) believe it or not.

Re:Christ

[Anonymous Coward]

There was no moderation named "Sad".

I believe...

[aeroelastic]

...that the princess will be in this castle. Or the next one. Or the one after that.

P != NP

[JohnGrahamCumming]

I wish I could prove it, but it seems to me that it is unlikely that P == NP.

There are various points of discontinuity in mathematics and I think this is one of them (for example, we know that the number of integers is less than the number of reals and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuum_hypothesis) .

John.

I BELIEVE!

[go$$amer]

That the world's religions will have their armageddon - and it will be entirely of their own making and have nothing to do with the divine.

ZFC

[Inf0phreak]

ZFC, of course. What other reply is possible when you study math? :)

I believe in 2 things I can't prove

[AceCaseOR]

God and that Global Warming is not necessarily a bad thing.

Re:I believe in 2 things I can't prove

[the_rev_matt]

You're citing Michael Crichton for your evidence against global warming? That's like citing Pauly Shore as an authority on Non-Euclidean Geometry. Newsflash: Crichton is not a scientist. He makes up the science to suit the story. He writes some good books, but he's hardly someone to be taken seriously on something outside his area of expertise (which is telling a good story).

Note that a vast majority of *real* scientists concur that global warming is happening, though there are myriad theories of WHY it is happening.

Re:I believe in 2 things I can't prove

[frankie]

Depends on your definition of scientist. He's actually Michael Crichton, MD, graduate of Harvard Medical School (and a BA in Anthropology). At minimum, he used to know a decent amount of biochemistry.

Other Worlds with Life and Civilization

[haplo21112]

I refuse to believe that our world contains the only life in the entire Universe. There have to be other planets with life on them out there some place.

As for the question of them visiting us, I am not so sure on that one.

What do you believen even if you can't prove it?

[benja]

P != NP.

My God is the Universe

[HenryKoren]

The semantics of your faith vs. my faith degrade into condemning and those who are different. It is not so much what somebody believes in, but the effects those beliefs have upon their actions.

The problem with many modern belief systems is that those who sin, repent, and sin again. It's a vicious cycle that gives people an excuse for evil deeds. Repentance only serves the goal of a supposed salvation. It does not in any way correct an evil deed. These beliefs cause people to sin against each other confident that their slates can be wiped clean in the confessional.

I have different beliefs. Their foundation is karma, a form of spiritual energy that connects life, the universe, and everything. What we do in our lives causes repercussions that are instantaneous, and those that echo into eternity long after our flesh is decomposed.

I first began to believe all this nonsense after doing something that was very evil and destructive. Not more than 24 hours after my transgression, something horrible happened to me. Could this have been a complete coincidence? Indeed it could; but what I did, and what happened was destructive, traumatic, and totally unrelated as possible. This led me to believe that there must be some underlying power that isn't properly described by Christian theology. Since getting slapped by karma I've changed my life. I haven't been perfect, but I've done my best. Now I find myself incredibly fortunate and happy in my life. This could be a complete coincidence.

Most modern religions defy science... mine embraces it. Physics has conservation of energy... What about conservation of karma or conservation of souls? If earth was once a cloud of stealer particles brought together by gravity, where did all the souls come from? From the billions of other systems that support life in this universe.

As far as "reincarnation" verses "afterlife", the two concepts are not mutually exclusive. For a soul that might have come from a distant star, or found its way into a different species; their lives now fit all the classic definitions or "afterlife". So with my beliefs it's impossible to say that the core concepts of most organized religions are wrong. But it becomes easy to tell that arguing the semantics of these concepts is pointless.

A final component of my belief system is that it could all be complete bullshit... But if it lays down a good moral code sans religious fanaticism, is it really that bad?

Who is God? A man sitting on a cloud passing judgment? Or a vast entity far beyond our comprehension? Why do religions have to weave such intricate and detailed pictures of what this deity is? Why must people comfort their fears of death by fabricating an imaginary world that lies beyond the grave? Why can't we realize how totally insignificant we and all of our complex illusions really are?

Scientific Methodology & the existance of proo

[Hakubi_Washu]

I don't need "hope", a "meaning of life", anything "greater", "something is too perfect about this world to be random", or whatever you claim to need, so why waste time _believing_ in those? All I want is "reason"; in combination with that I cannot but _believe_ in scientific methodology (theories need to be falsifiable, etc.) and the plain possibility and existance of proofs. Those concepts cannot be proven themselves, because the attempt to proof them is crediting them with validity in the first place. That would be a self-fulfilling prophecy... (This is the reason I don't argue with religious people, they just base their thoughts upon a different set of fundamentals; any argumentation already _is_ the choice for reason and science, so why bother?)

Nothing

[cheeseSource]

If you can't prove it within a reasonable margin of error then there's no point in believing. It's like "Faith". "Faith" is one of the most meaningless words out there. It means almost exactly "belief with out reason" (or proof). When people say: "Well, I have faith." It reminds me of snotty kids who whine: "Because I feel like it."

A Kind and Loving God.

[TrevorB]

I believe in a kind and loving God. Keeping that belief is hard usualy because of the acts of man.

Or, occasionally, because of acts of nature.

"It's all part of God's plan" my ass. This is all looking pretty random to me.

(dons flame retardant suit)

Re:A Kind and Loving God.

[arose]

Maybe he likes to play dice? :-)

It's not "if" but "why".

[khasim]

There aren't many people who say that the climate is not changing.

The difference is whether they say that man-made pollution is the primary cause or whether this is part of a natural cycle.

If it is part of a natural cycle, then there is no "proof" that changing our pollution will do anything.

Karma

[Infonaut]

Chaos theory may one day reveal that the concept of karma is based on scientifically valid underpinnings. Until then, I just believe it because I've experienced it. Cause and effect, baby.

Re:Karma

[JohnnyCannuk]

I'm with you on that one....

And if it turns out we're wrong, Buddhists will simply change their philosophy to match reality rather than the other way around.

The Elf Conspiracy

[duffbeer703]

I believe that little elves are responsible for all of the world's ills. Kennedy was killed by an elf, for example.

Even now, the elves are working on igniting a great volcano under yellostone park!

Re:i don't know what i really beleive

[JohnnyCannuk]

i don't beleive in the christian god, but i know there has to be something out there, things are just to "perfect" to randomly appear.

I think what you meant to say was:

"i don't beleive in the christian god, but i WANT there has to be something out there, things are just to "perfect" to randomly appear.

Are things "too perfect" because the earth and the universe was built around us and our design or are they "too perfect" because we eveloved to fit "perfectly" into this universe, that if the universe was different, we would be different also and wondering the same thoughts.

Just thought you might want to consider these things along with a healthy dose of Occam's Razor...

Re:Nature journal proved 93% of scientists ATHEIST

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a qualified physicist and I lean towards the more mathemetical areas - esp. pure maths.

I have met very few scientists whose opinions I genenrally value who claim to be athiests. In fact the number of athiests I studied with roughly equalled the christians with the majority being generally agnostic.

You see scientists don't tend to claim something unless they have experiments to back up what they say or at least logic and mathematics to predict behaviour. If they did they wouldn't be very gould scientists since their assertions could not be tested nor their work peer reviewed.

That's why no scientists have published papers attempting to prove the existance of god nor any to prove his absence.

Re:homosexuality

[vorpal22]

Of course, if it were genetics, according to Darwin, it would be a trait that should have been wiped out long ago since homosexuals cant reproduce.

Nonsense. Homosexuals, physically, are fully capable of reproducing - it's just that the sexual acts which are appealing to them don't result in reproduction. Regardless, I know no lack of people with gay biological parents who reproduced because they felt social pressure to enter into heterosexual relationships.

Additionally, recessive genes can carry for many generations, and if homosexuality is genetic, it's obviously controlled by a sequence of genes that are recessive.

Personally, I'm gay and I don't think homosexuality is genetic. I suspect that there are biological causes (e.g. hormone levels in the mother, etc.), but I'm capable of admitting that we don't know at this stage and it is possible that homosexuality is a choice. This is irrelevant to me, though, because even if it *is* a choice, it's my choice to make, and it's no one's business what the outcome of that decision is.

Reality

[Listen Up]

I believe in reality and only reality. Make believe is exactly that...make believe. The universe is not determined by mysticism outside of the human mind. The universe exists, is determined by unbreakable rules, and nothing in the universe is above those rules. End of the story. All of those rules can be determined and eventually will be.

As far as 'unprovable', the term is highly misleading. To be more specific, if there is a fabric which exactly explains the universe, mathematics, so be it. If the physical results of that fabric are repeatable, predictable, and disprovable then that is it.

Re:We're in for climatic mayhem

[Kainaw]

You are mixing two uses of the catch-phrase "Global Warming".
One use of the phrase is to claim that the world is getting warmer. Well, it is. There is plenty of proof.
However, there is another more liberal use of the phrase to claim that humans are at fault for the world getting warmer. That is lacking in proof. Sure, fossil fuels warm the earth, but by how much? How is that compared to cow emissions? How much is just the normal cycle of the Earth from hot to cold to hot again?
In the face of this lack of proof, some claim that if humans aren't part of the solution, they are part of the problem. This is a classic non-sequitur argument for fools that can easily be twisted into: if you aren't part of the problem, you are part of the solution.
I know you said to just look at the pretty charts in the National Geographic article, but I accidentally read it too.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:We're in for climatic mayhem

[Momoru]

I absolutely agree that global warming exists...what i don't think we can prove yet is that the phenomenon is entirely (or even mostly) man-made. We are exiting an ice age, and have been for the past 10,000 years. Of course its getting warmer. But we only have real climate data from the last 100 years, so to look at a 100 year time span out of the hundred million earth has been around and be like "gee its getting warmer, so it must be global warming" is a little rediculous. Last year when Europe had its terrible heat wave, global warming was blamed. This year when Europe was freezing and there was snow in Germany in the Summer and snow in Dubai just the other month, you don't hear anything about global warming. Global warming in my opinion is a natural occurance and is a cycle that will occur until we enter the next ice age. Frankly global COOLING should be considerably more scary to everyone then warming. With global warming a few eskimos lose their arctic animals they hunt and miami ends up under water, boohoo. But we can grow crops consideribly farther north with global warming. If global cooling (the next ice age) were to occur we would have glaciers covering europe and reaching into the deep south of america. Thats alot more scary in my opinion.

OK, my turn to reply

[TrevorB]

I believe that the existentialists are wrong, and that the world and the universe do indeed exist even if I can't prove it.

After all, if the observable world didn't exist, what the hell, the concept of truth itself is questionable, you might as well believe whatever you want.

Everything else is suspect.

I kinda like theories that don't falter under repeated experiments. Scientific method and all that. It's a good thing.

Women can't fake orgasms perfectly

[cryptochrome]

There are difficult-to-impossible-to-fake signs, if you know what to look/feel for. The sex flush is the best one. Pupil size generally increases when it happens too. The vaginal contractions at 0.8s intervals would be very difficult to fake also. Also there's the whole issue of their acting skills.

So... go run some experiments with this new data.

Re:Women can't fake orgasms perfectly

[aceat64]

No offense, but I feel sorry for any woman you date.

Re:Women can't fake orgasms perfectly

[cayenne8]

"There are difficult-to-impossible-to-fake signs, if you know what to look/feel for. The sex flush is the best one. Pupil size generally increases when it happens too. The vaginal contractions at 0.8s intervals would be very difficult to fake also. Also there's the whole issue of their acting skills."

Hmm...very hard to observe signs such as these with the lights down low, and your behind her doggy style her head is either buried in the pillow, or bouncing off the headboard.

At that point in time....I'm probably NOT going to roll her over and shine a flashlight in her face to check out her flush or pupils...

:-)

Besides...she might start talking, and I'd miss something on tv...

Re:Women can't fake orgasms perfectly

[GoofyBoy]

>The vaginal contractions at 0.8s intervals would be very difficult to fake also.

Spoken like a true nerd.

Re:Women can't fake orgasms perfectly

[cryptochrome]

No offense, but I feel sorry for any woman you date.

Why, because I can tell if they're enjoying themselves and work for it? I don't think it would be fair to them if I were the one having all the fun. They certainly weren't complaining about it.

Re:Women can't fake orgasms perfectly

[tritone]

>The vaginal contractions at 0.8s intervals would be very difficult to fake also.

And if they're only at 0.9 s intervals, what then?

Re:Women can't fake orgasms perfectly

[e.m.rainey]

Why, because I can tell if they're enjoying themselves and work for it?

No, because you're likely to put their eye out with your calipers measuring her pupils for dilation during intercourse.

Re:Women can't fake orgasms perfectly

[Anonymous Coward]

>>The vaginal contractions at 0.8s intervals would be very difficult to fake also.
>
>And if they're only at 0.9 s intervals, what then?

She's overclocked?

Re:Women can't fake orgasms perfectly

[covertbadger]

Not to mention the stopwatch for measuring those 0.8s intervals.

Re:Women can't fake orgasms perfectly

[cryptochrome]

Where's your sense of rhythm?

Good lovemaking requires no accessories. Except maybe a towel. (Hitchhiker's Guide was right!)

Re:What about quazi-intelligent design?

[dgatwood]

If that were so, what would be the incentive to create, to build, to grow as a species? Most technology, even in cave man days, originated out of human weakness---the inability to do something without tools. It is our weakness that has forced us to be intelligent---to outwit our prey when we cannot outrun it---and is the only real thing that distinguishes us from other animals---that instead of adapting ourselves to our environment, we adapt our environment to ourselves.

So, no, there's no reason for God to create humans as "bas ass" as possible. If He had, we would not be human. We would be more like... dinosaurs. Look how well they turned out. Oh, that's right. They didn't. :-)

I'm going to heaven, you're going to hell

[whoda]

Have fun bitch.

call Ohio

[oliphaunt]

I believe that Blackwell stole the election for Bush, the same way it was proved that Harris and Scalia stole the election for Bush 4 years ago. How long will it take before we see the proof this time?

Oh, and I also believe that Dick Cheney is a cyborg.

I believe that....

[jzarling]

Darwin was/is right
There is intelligent life out there, and the will contact us before we find them
When found they will considered infidels by some, heritics by others
Organized religion has held back scientific progress and should be kept out of the arena of public education.
Faith is more important than Religion
The original version of Blade Runner is superior to the Directors Cut and shold be released on DVD
Duke Nukem Forever is NEVER going to be released
Blatz is the finest beer ever produced
and finally,
Whether or we ever find life there, Jupiter should always be considered an enemy planet!

Re:i don't know what i really beleive

[Orne]

The anthrosophical answer is that, if it were any other way, then we wouldn't be here to observe it.

If the cosmological constants weren't just right, our universe wouldn't have coalesced out of matter as it did. If the planet didn't have just the right orbit and axis, things would have been too chaotic for life to appear. If we hadn't evolved the way we did, we wouldn't be sentient enough to look back and be amazed by how it all came about.

Now, we can all argue at the end of the day whether all that happened by accident (by randomness), or if there's something behind the scenes guiding it all (design), but it's still something neat to philosophize about.

Re:Everything

[SEWilco]

Prove it.

Re:Check the News-

[xtermin8]

I find belief in a kind and loving God difficult because of events like the tsumani and the resulting suffering around some of the poorest areas in Asia and Africa. The acts of man, especially if one also believes in free will, doesn't afffect faith one way or another. Perhaps God is indifferent? That seems more of a challenge to me than disbeleiving God altogether.

Re:AIDS is man made

[c_king]

I believe you are a moron.

Despite all evidence to the contrary...

[Anita Coney]

I believe Slashdot's moderation system is fair.

Re:homosexuality

[digital bath]

nothing like homosexaulity exists in other animals.

Wrong.

Re:AIDS is man made

[cephyn]

yeah, but the proof is right there. wrong topic. ;)

Déjà vu, precognition

[Scrameustache]

I believe that you can dream about things you haven't yet experienced, but will. That sometimes déjà vu is actually an event you have already seen, and not simply a synchronisation error between the two hemispheres of your brain (though not always).

I can't prove it, because you only half remember mundane events and you don't know when they will happen, or that it is a memory of events that are yet to happen, until it happens, and then it's too late to use it as a prediction.

And by half-remember, I mean that you can have the memory of the sensory input without having the memory of the mental analysis that automatically happens when you sense something (that ringing sound is the sound of a "telephone", or the sound of an "alarm clock", for example). Either that or the analysis is not remembered, but a live event only, or again, it is overriden by the analysis of the fact that it is remembered while simultaneously recalled.

Science tells us precognition is impossible, much the same way that science used to tell us that meteorites were impossible (with the math to prove it!), or that a human body couldn't survive a speed of more than 30kph, or that giant squids and giant waves were just the ravings of uneducated sailors.

P.S. here comes the "glitch in the Matrix" jokes... and the jokes about predicting the jokes.

Re:Nature journal proved 93% of scientists ATHEIST

[efatapo]

While researchers views might be that depressing, the beliefs of medical doctors is quite encouraging. Take a look at this survey.

72% believe that religion provides a reliable and necessary guide to life.
58% attend church once a month.
58% believe the Bible was inspired by God.

So while your article implies intelligent and influential scientists don't believe in God, a number I personally hope to decrease, the study of medical doctors shows a strong number of people with faith. I would say that medical doctors have 'scientific minds', which would dispute your second to last line.

On a related note, I don't think that it's fair to use the National Academy of Science as the survey pool. People who have made it into the NAS have devoted at least 90% of their waking energy to the scientific fields are not consistent with most kinds of faith anyways. As a Christian, there are things more important to me than scientific success. I have had dinner with many biochemists in the academy and family/friends/life/etc comes a distant second to their career. So I would suggest that these results are completely consistent with their life style. I would like to see a survey of PhD scientists or professors at a variety of universities, those results would be much more of a mixed bag.

I also hope that you don't take this as confirmation that education and faith are not compatible. I know plenty of PhD students who are practicing Christians.

~Dan

Google Cache:

[shaneh0]

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Re:homosexuality

[cephyn]

except that youre completely wrong -- homosexuality has been documented in many primates as well as many other animals.

I believe homosexuality is genetic. It's simply a random mutation, occurring about 10-20% of the time. And it's independent from heterosexuality -- hence, bisexuality. It hasn't been weeded out because its probably a mutation on a gene thats related to other, necessary functions in a complex, though not direct way -- in other words, its related to reproductive gene-work, but it doesnt interfere with those genes, its off to the side, so to speak. I'm simplifying the hell out of it, of course, but thats how it seems to work, as far as I can see. By your logic, people would never have genetic abnormalities like CF or Down's Syndrome because they'd have been weeded out by now. That's simply not true, becuase the genetic reasons for those diseases are complex and they occur on necessary parts of the genetic framework that cannot be weeded out.

The scientists arrogance

[Wizard of OS]

What has striken me most the last few years, is the arrogance of some (mostly the 'popular') science people on TV or in the news, is that they make you believe that Science will Have All The Answers. Eventually we will comprehend everything, and with that, we will know the nature of God (loosely quoting Stephen Hawking).

What most people (in my opinion) fail to realise, is that we have tiny brains. We have a limited number of grey cells in that tiny skull up there, and we are therefore limited in what we can comprehend. Sure we have come to understand the world around us in a incredible detailed way; but we have no guarantees at all that we will be able to continue this trend.

You often hear people come with arguments like 'but God can't exist' or 'we don't need God to explain the universe'. Sure, if you think that man can eventually comprehend everything there is to know about the universe, then you can make those claims. But I believe that we will never know everything there is to know about the universe around us, because we are mentally incapable. Science has nothing to say about religion, because science is a way for our brains to try to explain the world around us. Religion/faith is all about the step after that.

Therefore, it is not a question of 'possibility' to determine if there is a God or not. He either is (and we can't begin to grasp what this God is, it goes beyond our deductive skills), or he is not. That's a question of faith, it's a choice you make. Do you believe it or not? I personally do, you might not, but please don't come with arguments that science will prove you right. I won't use science to prove you wrong either, promise.

Re:The scientists arrogance

[StrawberryFrog]

What has striken me most the last few years, is the arrogance ... that Science will Have All The Answers. Eventually we will comprehend everything

Here's the thing: no other method comes anywhere close to the scientific one for generating real knowledge about the observable universe. Science keeps on generating better understanding, so either the universe is infinitely complex, in which case we'll never stop generting better science; or we'll eventually run out of steam due to our admittedly tiny minds - I doubt this one since we already so most of our science using mind-tools like oh, books, computers, etc to help us understand it; or we will eventually know it all. In a loose sense of "know". Much of the world doesn't know the venerable physics of Einstein and Heisenberg very well; and even more sadly, many deny the even more venerable biology of Darwin.

You often hear people come with arguments like 'but God can't exist' or 'we don't need God to explain the universe'. Sure, if you think that man can eventually comprehend everything there is to know about the universe, then you can make those claims.

So either we can know all, or we need God to explain it? false dichotomy.

Religion/faith is all about the step after that.

A totally meaningless sentence.

I personally do ... have faith that there is a God (paraphrase).

What testable predictions about the observable universe result from this assumption? If there are none, you must entertain the posiblity that your statement has no meaning.

Re:The scientists arrogance

[nattt]

Just because media science promulgates arrogance, does not mean that science is arrogant. Any scientist that says "this is the right answer, the total truth, forever" is arrogant - but they don't say that. Your media scientist is a straw man.

The true answer is always "I don't know" - but the person who has studied the available evidence will say - "the available evidence points to this or that conlusion". It does not mean that that conclusion is true, only that the available evidence points to it. When more evidence becomes available, the pointed at conclusion will change to more accurately reflect the available evidence.

So it's not a question of "possibility" but one of evidence. Faith is what you believe in when you don't have evidence. There's ample evidence out there to make a decision if you look at it without being brainwashed from birth.

What a rational person can do is look at the known facts about the christian god and decide from the available evidence if they make sense given your own personal experiences of the world. If you have a vision and god speaks to you, then there is no way for me to dissuade you from a belief in god. However, your evidence is personal evidence, and it's based upon personal experience, and is in no way valid for convincing me that there is such a god.

Even if you do have a personal revelation and believe in a god, how does that help you know the attributes of god. Unless god tells you he's omnipotent, do you know that he is. Perhaps your revealed god says "I'm the god of the christian bible, and everything in it is true", and there you are, you can now be a truely rational christian. Hopefully you'll ask your god to do a bit of proof for you, to give you some more tangible evidence. Why would god make you a rational being if the one thing he asks you not to be rational about is his own existence?

Most people on this planet who believe in a god do so for no other reason that that's what they were told when they were little. They're not just told that there is a god, but which particular brand they're to follow. That's not rational, that's just hearsay evidence and means nothing.

That's why the rational course of action is to be agnostic until proven otherwise. If you've been proven otherwise, then that's fine - I'll respect that, but don't go thinking that your evidence has any meaning for me because the only evidence that matters in this issue is very personal. Everyone has to discover their own answers to these questions and make them fit with how their own brains work. That why religion in it's current "one size fits all" mentality doesn't work, for even in a specific branch of a specific religion there are vast differences in the details of belief, and that's because the religion was not personally revealed to each and every member, but passed on from one person to another in such a way that does not account for the differences in each individual.

Re:The scientists arrogance

[jdray]

You decry the media scientist as a straw man, but use arbitrary terms to describe the state of affairs.

Brainwashed from birth? What about people who are "born again" or have thought long and hard about their faith and chosen to accept it as is?

The Christian god? What about the god of the Jews, or that of the Muslims, or Hindus? We're in a global community here. Expand your horizons.

...you can now be a truly rational Christian. How does God revealing himself to someone, validating everything in the Bible, give someone the wherewithal to go be a "rational Christian?" In such an event, it's more likely that God would say, "Yeah, that, that and that are all true. That over there, well, anyone that thinks about it can see that it's not true. Something was lost in translation there. Oh, yeah, and on that, too. And that over there..."

God...omnipotence...proof...? How would any omnipotent God prove his omnipotence beyond altering someone's beliefs directly? If he did, what good would that do?

Most people... believe in God [because they were told to]? Really? I haven't taken any polls recently, but I suspect most people who believe in God do so because the want to.

Religion in it's current "one size fits all" mentality? How many different religions, sects of religions, divisions of sects, etc. are there in the world? If it was truly "one for all," we wouldn't have the terms "holy war" or "Jihad."

I'm very open to discussions on this topic, but come back when you've done some serious thinking about it rather than just grabbed whatever half-baked idea came out of your anatomy.

Oh, sorry, this is Slashdot after all. For a minute, I forgot where I was.

Re:The scientists arrogance

[guidryp]

Born again is akin to a nervous breakdown IMO. Often they are trading the bottle for a bible.

What percentage of the religous are the same religion as their parents? Is this startling coincidence or learned/enforced behavior?

Talking to my friends growing up, most were forced to go to church. Sounds like brainwashing from a young age to me.

Frankly it is amazing that many escape this cycle. Told from the time you can talk there is an all powerfull vengefull god and weekly attending mass brainwashing sessions.

If we had a world without religion we also wouldn't have the term "Holy War" either, or inquistions, or crusades etc....

Re:The scientists arrogance

[nattt]

Exactly!!

Most people believe what their parent's believe, right down tot he particular brand of religion.

Most people in the USA are christian. If people actually thought about what to believe and tried to find a religious belief (assuming they're going to be religious) that fitted in with their own ideas, wouldn't there be a nice random distribution among populations and variations in families?

And Atheists don't become born again - lapsed christians do! Atheists have an honest breakdown and just hit the bottle.

Read the article, most of them say: "YOU!"

[javaxman]

Seriously.

If you RTFA, the most common response seems to be "that you exist" or "that people other than myself exist", or "that people other than myself have conciousness", something along those lines.

Not surprisingly, most folks comming up with this are psychologists, but some of the physicists hit on that one as well, which I found interesting.

Re:homosexuality

[Decaff]

I believe this is the reason why nothing like homosexaulity exists in other animals.

Nonsense! It's extremely common in large numbers of species. In one of our closest relatives the Bonobo chimp, same-sex coupling is an important part of their social behaviour.

Google Cache

[jasonmantey]

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Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life

[khelek]

I believe in the death of Jesus on the Cross for our sins and I believe He was resurrected on the third day. I believe that a belief in that is the only way to Heaven, and more importantly, a real relationship with God.

I believe that while other religions focus on what man has to do to bring themselves to God, Christianity is the only Way, in that it shows what God did to bring us back to Him.

I believe that there is such a thing as absolute morals, and what God said 4000 years ago is still applicable today.

No, I can't prove it. That's why it's faith, and that's why Hebrews 11:1 says, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Having said that, Lee Strobel's The Case for Christ makes very convincing arguments.

Re:homosexuality

[clickster]

As opposed to those adulterous heterosexuals who fornicate all day long and have children out of wedlock only to beat and otherwise abuse them. See, I can corner a small part of a population and project their faults onto the population as a whole. Does being straight make us the way I've described? No. Does being gay mean you spread disease? No. Can everything mentioned in both your post and mine be done by gays AND straights? Yes. Am I beginning to talk in questions like Donald Rumsfeld? Well, you post on Slashdot with the comments you have, not necessarily the comments you want.

I believe faster then light travel is possible.

[killjoe]

It has to be.

Nitpick: as a boolean value, that was true

[Just Some Guy]

One thing: we did find at least one artillery shell with traces of Sarin gas, so there were, strictly speaking, WMDs found in Iraq.

Did we find many? No. Are we 100% certain that Iraq actually made the shell? Not that I know of (although I haven't tracked the story in months). Was it more than a miniscule amount? No. Does (found-wmds-p "Iraq") evaluate to t? Yes.

Re:Nitpick: as a boolean value, that was true

[Just Some Guy]

Go back and track the story. The shells were over 20 years old and the chemicals mainly degraded. And guess who the supplier of them to Iraq was...

Those may or may not be true, but that's irrelevant to the question of whether WMDs were found in Iraq.

Framed another way, the original poster basically said that no WMDs were found in Iraq. That statement is provably not true, to the best of my knowledge.

Re:Nitpick: as a boolean value, that was true

[Raunch]

If you want to get all nitpickie, then I don't think that "traces" of anything would be in the running to be titled with "mass". Beyond that, degraded sarin that was no longer harmful would be perhaps not best classified as a "weapon".

If I put .000005 grams of cyanide in your potatoes, is it posion? Perhaps it's just garnish.

Re:homosexuality

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, if it were genetics, according to Darwin, it would be a trait that should have been wiped out long ago since homosexuals cant reproduce.

Nonsense.

Nice analysis, but you forgot to mention one thing. If it was genetic, and even if homosexuals couldn't reproduce, and even if it wasn't recessive you *still* could get a recurrent population of homosexuals.

There is a genetic disorder (Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria syndrome) which causes you to age prematurely, in most cases causing death before age 16. This is a dominant trait, so if you got it from your parents, they'd also have the trait. The genetic defect arises from spontaneous mutation in most cases and is not passed down from parent to child. Even despite the lack of heritibility, there is a recurrent instance of 1 affected individual in 6 million births.

Re:homosexuality

[Decaff]

yeah, show me exclusive homosexuality in other animals i mean like humans do, not like confused dogs humping a tree.

Many animals show homosexual activity which includes full mating rituals and sex, not just 'tree humping'. This is know to occur in dolphins and wales, apes, rodents, deer, goats, sheep, and birds. In all, it been observed in hundreds of species. As for cases of exclusive homosexuality, this has also been seen in many species. For example, in japanese Macaque monkeys around 9% of all adults exclusively mate and pair-bond with the same sex.

Could is not the same as Can't

[cniebla]

Reading the article, only one of the answers uses correctly Can't, the others must use Could. Let me explain it: you can make your life around something you believe in, and you could some day probe it (or expect someone else probe it). When you live your life by believing on something you can't probe, you're wasting it. Thus the diference between could and can't take 2 different worlds apart: those who believe and could someday probe it (or probe it wrong, for instance), and those who believe and are aware that they can't probe (or deny), but live confortably with that. There's a third kind of people: those who can't tell the difference between could and can't.

I believe in hypocrisy

[Scrameustache]

WHen the gassing occured the UN wanted to sanction Iraq. The US blocked it. Why? Because we gave saddam the gas, we gave him intelligence, we gave him technology and we basically told him to gas people.

March 1988 "chemical assault" on the town of Halabja, in which the number of dead, according to Human Rights Watch "exceeds 5000".

Think about that.

At least 3,000 people died when a gas leak occurred at the Union Carbide factory in Bhopal on December 3, 1984 and more than half a million people were seriously injured.
At least another 10,000 deaths have been linked to the disaster

A Consistent Universe and Other People

[rossifer]

To be a little more constructive than the parent:

I believe, though I can't prove, that the universe presented to me by my senses is not an artifact of my own existence but exists separately from me, is consistent and will remain consistent after I am dead. (i.e. the universe isn't a figment of my imagination).

I believe, though I can't prove, that other entities that resemble me in appearance and behavior (people) have the same kind of agency and observer status as myself and therefore have value similar in kind to myself. (i.e. contrary to the assertion of the psychopath, I believe other people really are people).

Once you accept those predicates as lemmas (and variations, like having empathy for the pain of animals, or using tools to enhance your senses), a great number of things become "very likely". However, we don't need to "prove" any of it, because there's very little value to "proven" once you have "really, really likely". All we need is enough consistency to make predictions reliable and you can live a full and happy life in this world. Most/all of the people I've observed actually demanding proof for things are those behaving defensively in a "faith-based knowledge vs. reason-based knowledge" discussion.

Yes, I am an athiest. No, I'm not hostile to Christianity or Christians: I just stopped accepting that there was a need for God and lost interest (except as a hobby of studying myth in literature and culture).

Regards,
Ross

Re:Nature journal proved 93% of scientists ATHEIST

[lukesl]

I went to both med school and grad school (in neurophysiology), and I would say that you're wrong about one thing: medical doctors, in general, do NOT have "scientific minds." The recent embrace of so-called "evidence-based medicine" by the medical community is a perfect example of this. If not evidence, what were they using before? The answer: convention/dogma/judgment or whatever you want to call it.

Many Worlds Interpretation I believe in

[thomasa]

QUOTE
The Many-Worlds Interpretation (MWI) is an approach to quantum mechanics according to which, in addition to the world we are aware of directly, there are many other similar worlds which exist in parallel at the same space and time. The existence of the other worlds makes it possible to remove randomness and action at a distance from quantum theory and thus from all physics.
UNQUOTE

This gives new meaning to the concept of re-incarnation.

Re:A Consistent Universe and Other People

[Bingo Foo]

I believe, though I can't prove, that other entities that resemble me in appearance and behavior (people) have the same kind of agency and observer status as myself and therefore have value similar in kind to myself.

But they still are clearly not you, so why should you care?

Beware the slippery slope.

Hillary in '08

[BrK]

I believe that John Kerry's political campaign was an experiment to see just how much Americans would tolerate in terms of an ill-prepped candidate as a dry run for Hillary's '08 presidential bid.

Re:Few things of my own

[nagora]

I have mod points today but there isn't an entry for "totally nuts"! There's not a single item on your list that I believe; you even managed to undermine alien life with the odd proviso that it will be "acorporeal".

Well, if it makes you happy, I guess.

TWW

Re:Nature journal proved 93% of scientists ATHEIST

[halivar]

Regretfully, the number 7% includes opinions of non-scientists that are allowed in the National Academy of Sciences, namely mathematicians.

Mathematics is the first science to get it right. When your precious "scientists" were making up goofy cosmological models to account for idiotic presuppositions, it was the mathematicians that set them straight. At the beginning of the modern era, all real scientists were first and foremost mathematicians. Tomorrow, we may find out your most precious "science" was fraudulantly doctored, but 1 plus 1 will always equal 2. Period.

The above quote, by the way, shows you know absolutely nothing, nada, zip, zilch about mathematics or science. Anyone who has taken high school chemistry ought to know better.

Mob psychology

[WinterSolstice]

Yup. I believe that in tense situations groups are only as smart as the dumbest person there, and that all people are fundamentally like sheep.

I can't prove that, but I do fervently believe that :)

-WS

Re:Mob psychology

[njh]

Actually, there was a New Scientist article recently that gave evidence that mobs are smarter than the average.

A simple universe

[tgibbs]

That the universe is understandable by man, and furthermore that its fundamental principles, when properly formulated, are conceptually simple.

I believe in...

[bvankuik]

The Father, the Son and the Holy Torvalds!

Halleluja!

Misinterpretation of the Establisment Clause

[the-matt-mobile]

Why is this modded insightful? It's a complete misinterpretation of the Establisment Clause. There is no "prohibitions against teachign{sic} religion in public schools". The only thing the Establisment Clause prohibits is a state sponsored religion.

Re:Misinterpretation of the Establisment Clause

[MightyMartian]

> Why is this modded insightful? It's a complete misinterpretation of the Establisment Clause. There
> is no "prohibitions against teachign{sic} religion in public schools". The only thing the Establisment
> Clause prohibits is a state sponsored religion.

Teachign a religious belief, even a cleverly hidden one like ID, in a public school is state-sponsored religion. Parents are perfectly welcome to put their children in private schools if they wish them to be taught about the Intelligent Designer.

ID evolved because openly teaching Biblical Literalism to public school students was pretty much squashed a long time ago. It's the floorboards of the wedge strategy (along with the premise that somewhere somehow something is wrong with evolution). Watch an ID advocate. In mixed company they will refuse to say anything about the alleged Designer, while among like-minded inviduals, this Designer's secret identity is quite obviously the Judeao-Christian god.

In other words, ID is nothing more than a lawyer's version of Biblical Creationism, specially designed to get around that little ol' problem of pushing Biblical Literalism upon kiddies in public schools.

Re:A Consistent Universe and Other People

[TGK]

Because once you accecpt that those entities are similar to yourself you must realise that they, like yourself, have the capability to manipulate their environment.

Because you are part of their environment, they have some power over you and you some power over them. Since they seem to exhibit a sort of herd mentality, it would seem foolish to antagonize them as the herd itself is significantly stronger than the sum of its parts.

Re:Nature journal proved 93% of scientists ATHEIST

[nattt]

So religious believers have strength in numbers the world over - what does that mean?? The number of people believing in something has no bearing on it's validity either way.

The main issue with religious believers is that their belief is not rational and in many cases borders on madness. Unlike other bad habits, they feel it necessary to perform their bad habit in public and group together with others.

You as an individual can believe whatever you want, and I'll defend your right to believe whatever you want, but as soon as you try to organise together to oppress.... I'm not happy at all. I don't know you, you're probably not one of those oppressive types - after all that type of religious person doesn't read /. for instance, and cannot use a computer, but by even allowing yourself to be associated with them by saying you're a christian, you're lending validity to their oppression. Now I'm certain you're not a christian - you have your own beliefs, and as no two christians can agree on exactly what to believe anyway, I'd be much happier if you described yourself as a theist and leave it at that.

Re:A Consistent Universe and Other People

[rossifer]

But they still are clearly not you, so why should you care?

Good followup, but now you're asking a question of morality, as opposed to the reasoning behind a metaphysical predicate.

Short answer: because it's normal (genetically wired into my brain) to treat other people with respect.

Longer answer (and a better answer for people who don't believe in natural causes of behavior): Because there are substantial negative consequences to behaving in a way that ignores other people's value. I enjoy the company of friends (and find their help useful on occasion), and other people are good at detecting fake friends. I like my freedom, and running people down at stoplights causes uniformed people in cars with flashing lights to lock me up, limiting my freedom.

Regards,
Ross

I believe

[dfj225]

1+1=2 even though no one has ever proven it to me and I have not made an effort to do so myself.

The Joke

[swb]

Q: Why do women fake their orgasms?

A: Because they think men care.

The arrogance of religion

[Theaetetus]

Sorry, no, science does not say "science will have ALL the answers" nor "someday we will comprehend everything." Science merely says "this is what we know now, and here are our questions."

It's religion that says "we have ALL the answers." That's the arrogance - claiming to have all the answers without proof. Where did the Universe come from? Science says, "we have this theory that seems to lead to what we see now, but if something changes, we'll change our model." Religion says, "We know! God created it! No debate necessary, no evidence needed more than this here book!"

-T

Re:The arrogance of religion

[jdray]

My wife and I went to a seminar once with her father, a fundamentalist Christian. The speaker was supposed to be talking about the coexistence of Christianity and classical science, with discussion on the dinosaurs and the idea that God created the universe about a week before Adam and Eve, which, according to many bible scholars, was about 6500 years ago. This piqued my interest, so I went along.

The speaker started out talking about how there's this difference of opinion among scholars regarding how old the world is, and that "some people" say that, if you look at the biblical account of six days for the creation of the universe, the "days" are just metaphors for some periods of time that were significant to God, and not literal 24-hour periods that Man knows as "days." He continued to say that this line of thinking leads people to say that the dinosaurs could have lived for millions of years on a God-created Earth, and that they lived and died within the "day" described in the bible where God populated the Earth with animals.

I was just settling in, looking forward to an insightful discussion that had the opportunity to create some bridges with my (non Christian) beliefs on this subject. This would please my father-in-law, and we might have a better understanding of one another. But then, like a hammer, this guy brings out the statement, "But none of it's true!"

WTF?? I asked myself, since no one else would've listened.

The guy went into full rant mode, prattling on about how God created the dinosaur bones in the state we found them and buried them where we found them so we would have something to wonder about when we found them. The universe, he said, was created in exactly six days, meaning 24-hour periods, just like the bible says. Question not the word of God!!

Well, after sitting through the rest of this flood of rubbish, I asked my father-in-law what he thought of the whole thing. "Oh, I think he's right on." Now, I know he doesn't really think that way, but he was caught up in the reverie of the whole thing, mezmerized by a charlatan. The seminar probably warmed his heart for weeks. Many years later, I still won't discuss the topic with him. We have something of an armed truce where religious notions are concerned.

People seem to find it easy to use emphatically-delivered, easy to understand ideas to model their life on. I personally think that the universe is somewhat more complex than that, and like to apply my somewhat limited brain power to thinking about it. Sometimes, though, you run across gems of simplicity that are basic truths. The idea is to know how to identify them when you see them, I think.

Cheers.

JD

EmotionallyPotentOverSimplification(WMD);

[Scrameustache]

Go back and track the story. The shells were over 20 years old and the chemicals mainly degraded. And guess who the supplier of them to Iraq was...

Those may or may not be true, but that's irrelevant to the question of whether WMDs were found in Iraq.
Framed another way, the original poster basically said that no WMDs were found in Iraq. That statement is provably not true, to the best of my knowledge.

As a boolean value, that was !true:

Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Unusable relics with degraded payloads are still technically chemical weapons, but they are not capable of Mass Destruction.

Taken a physics class lately?

[raehl]

What's simpler:

"The electron lies in a potential well"

Or:

"God did it."

Looks like God is winning this one.

Re:Taken a physics class lately?

[ifwm]

You (conveniently) left out the EVIDENCE part. God loses.

Re:Taken a physics class lately?

[Raunch]

> What's simpler:
> "The electron lies in a potential well"
> Or:
> "God did it."

The idea is simplest answer, not shortest answer.

To you, sir, I say: harrumph

[Hortensia Patel]

That's even assuming that the earthquake wasn't actually a good outcome out of all the possible outcomes; for example, what if the earthquake released tectonic pressure that otherwise would've built up and killed millions instead of hundreds of thousands?

I've heard this line of argument (the so-called "hidden harmony" defence) described as pornography for priests, and tend to agree. An omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent deity can't do anything about geological events on one small planet? Even a half-arsed demiurge with no more foreknowledge than a blurry impression of next week's National Enquirer ought to be able to manage at least a booming voice from the heavens suggesting that people might want to head up to higher ground for the next couple of days.

I for one think the "If an omnipotent, loving God exists, why does he let bad things happen?" line of argument is a red herring. It's impossible for us to understand the actions of a being with an infinite perspective

And I for one think that's a cop-out of Homeric proportions. You (assuming you're a Christian) claim to understand the actions of just such a being every time you espouse the tenets of your faith. God sent Jesus to redeem us, did he? How is that statement not claiming to understand his actions?

The "Problem Of Evil" is a notable argument, as cogent as it is concise, and the fact that two thousand years of Christian thought (Catholic and Protestant, at least) have failed to produce a single plausible theodicy, to my mind, strongly suggests that those thinkers ought to revisit their assumptions.

"Common use" vs. "How it should be used"

[doublem]

While logically, the phrase "Intelligent Design" should refer only to "Architect Created it this way" models of origins, the common usage of the phrase has come to include a wide variety of Models that include generous amounts of evolutionary behavior.

A strict interpretation of the "Intelligent Design" phrase can't even be taken seriously today, as it ignores the MicroEvolution that's been observed. Claiming that NO changes take place and there is no alteration over time, is counter to what has been observed in the human species alone, let alone what can be seen over time with other species, not to mention the fact that there's a lot of confusion, even in scientific circles, over the difference between directed breeding and MicroEvolution.

Mind you, it's been close to a decade since I was reading the "Creation Science Quarterly" (Yes, a real publication, and yes, I read it for years) but "Intelligent Design" is generally used to refer to any theory that includes even the smallest component of divine intervention. Mind you, not many people at the conservative end of the Creationist scale are happy with this state of affairs. The claim is made that using the phrase to refer to ideas like "God set up the rules and let it go" dilutes the phrase and muddies the waters.

In a sense, your statements reflect the views of many Creationists, but even they tend to ignore the apparent misuse of the phrase. It really is trivial to the overall debates over God's level of involvement in the form of the living organisms on planet Earth.

Damn it, I just responded to an AC. What a waste of time, no on will even read this.

Dick Cheney *is* a Cyborg

[bill_mcgonigle]

Oh, and I also believe that Dick Cheney is a cyborg.

That much is provable. He has an implanted pacemaker, or an artificial SA node. Ergo, cyborg.

The other part of your post is bunk - Harris certified the election according to Florida state statue. That their election system is crap is true, but she adhered to the law as required by her oath of office.

Re:A Consistent Universe and Other People

[rossifer]

Morality is nothing more than personal opinion (for both the Deist and the Atheist). For the Atheist, however, the one absolute that follows from first principles is "might makes right."

Depends what you want in your life (i.e. your personal long-term goals).

If you want joy in your life, as I do, you're going to want to love and be loved by a partner, your children (if you choose to have some), and probably by a group of close friends. If you actually act in a "might makes right" manner, you have zero chance of experiening any of that. People may say they love you and fawn over you to manipulate you and your power, but they'll never love you.

Actions have consequences. Using force to get your way has substantial negative consequences. To some people, these consequences don't matter, however, I don't hear about too many of those people living long guilt-free lives into their old age.

As an aside, Bush Jr. just might be stupid enough to be a counter-example to my assertion (if he believes his own campaign rhetoric, that is)...

Regards,
Ross

Let an atheist correct you.

[jotaeleemeese]

My goodness, you seem to be interested in the nonsense that religion is but neverhteless get your fact completely and utterly wrong.

Repetance leads to salvation only if you are sincere about repenting (and this only in Catholicism, because I am sure Chistians from different protestant sects have their own baseless domga on this regard).

If you sin and intend to keep sining you can visit the confessional as much as you want, if there is no sincere repetance then your maker will judge as the piece of shit you are and condemn you to ethernal damnation.

But all the above is irrelevant since no god exists in any case.

White holes

[demachina]

I believe in white holes. For every black hole there is a white hole elsewhere in space. The matter gets sucked in to the black hole and spews out elsewhere in space, with a worm hole, tear in space or whatever you want to call it connecting the two which are very far from each other in conventional space. Where are the white holes, presumably there is one at the center of most or all galaxies. I envision a continuing cycle of renewal where matter is being incinerated and compacted in one place and starting a new life elsewhere building new stars at the center of new galaxies.

Re:A Consistent Universe and Other People

[Anonymous Coward]

The principle of 'There is no God' is actually foundational to atheism. 'Might makes right' doesn't follow, logically (on premises everyone must accept if they believe there is no God) or naturally (by which I mean according to this and other things most people believe, like there are other people and the sky is blue).

Maybe you believe that if someone does not believe morality is dictated by the sanction of a superbeing, then they must accept 'might makes right.' This seems far from true to me. Suppose one doesn't believe anything makes right. Maybe one believes that anything that maximizes taco production is right. Or one might accept any number of moral frameworks (deontological, utilitarian, whatever.) Where is the logical inconsistency?

Re:A Consistent Universe and Other People

[PenguiN42]

Did you ever consider that saying you stopped accepting that the core of everything they believe in and the basis of everything they do had any value might be inherently hostile?

Saying that he doesn't accept the core of what they believe in is not hostile.

Saying that it has no value may be hostile, but luckily the OP didn't say that.

Putting words in peoples' mouths to try to prove a point can also be considered hostile.

Re:A Consistent Universe and Other People

[rossifer]

Right -- your personal opinons. But there is no a priori reason, other than personal opinion, why your opinions should matter to anyone else.

Hm. I believe that we are discussing at cross purposes here. If you happen to choose the same goals I do, then certain kinds of behaviors become moral to you and we can get into the details of that. If you don't choose the same goals I do, or if you choose goals that are antithetical to the goals I've chosen for myself, then we will have little to no common ground and almost nothing to talk about.

Too, those in your group who agree with your personal opinions would be free to love you, regardless of what the masses think

Trust/friendship amongst thieves, eh? That's an interesting assertion, but I find that assholes don't like assholes any more than nice people do. If you've got a reputation for manipulative behavior, even people who agree that manipulative behavior is ok won't trust you. You have to have a reputation for trustworthy behavior, which doesn't fit with being a manipulative person.

In any case, the principle of "might makes right" is foundational to atheism.

This assertion is highly astonishing and would need a lot more substantiation before it could be accepted. It seems to presuppose that atheists lack the ability to determine morality (which is an unsupportable assertion).

My first response is that your statement seems true for a sociopath (who is also likely an atheist), but I don't see why any other athiests would agree with you.

Fortunately, atheists either don't realize this, don't want to accept this (after all, it intuitively seems wrong), or act inconsistently with their beliefs.

If it intuitively seems wrong, you might want to check some of your "facts". I believe that your conclusion is insupportable because it depends on an unsupported presumption.

Regards,
Ross

Technically, the second is Theistic Evolution

[kale77in]

Of the two options you mention, Special Creation usually connotes the first (intervening), whereas Theistic Evolution connotes the second (fine-tuning in creation). Intelligent Design, in the strict use of the term, does not necessarily make any claims about origins, but rather studies intelligent action as the best explanation for different kinds of order.

Generally, Christians working in the natural sciences are mostly commonly Theistic Evolutionists, then IDers (long ages), and only very occassionally into Young-Earth Creation (YEC), in which case they will belong to an organization like Answers in Genesis. The first two perform meaningful research IMHO, whereas AIG spends most of its time promoting YEC in churches as the only possible option for Christians.

Something like the Anthropic Principle is consistent with either ID or Theistic Evolution, as is Antony Flew's recent adoption of some kind of Aristotelian Deism (not Theism but no longer strictly Atheism, even by Flew's usual agnostic definition) which appears to have been motivated by ID concerns (requiring intelligence as an information source for DNA). See the following interview:

http://www.biola.edu/antonyflew/

Of particular interest is the bold claim at the end that Ayer and Russell would have agreed with him had they lived as long. As Richard Carrier summarizes at SecWeb:

...he is increasingly persuaded that some sort of Deity brought about this universe, though it does not intervene in human affairs, nor does it provide any postmortem salvation. He says he has in mind something like the God of Aristotle, a distant, impersonal "prime mover."

Source: http://www.secweb.org/asset.asp?AssetID=369

Flew is not, of course, a scientist, a point Carrier makes several times, and his views should be understood rather as those of a (respected) philosopher.

Re:i don't know what i really beleive

[RatBastard]

but i know there has to be something out there, things are just to "perfect" to randomly appear.
Things are "perfect" because we evolved to survive in the environment we found ourselves in. We developed here, on earth, and here on earth things are close to perfect.

look at how the earth balances itself out, no matter what we do to mess it up
Like global warming? The extinction of thousands of species? Mercury poisening in the water supply ? Deforestation?

The earth is big enough that it took a very large population of humans, something that is a very recent condition, in order to have a noticeble effect. But we are now effecting the earth in ways that are causing serious problems.

look at mathmatics, virtually perfect
Guess what? Mathmatics is a human invention. Nature neither knows nor cares what 1+1 is, nor does it care that you can't divide by zero. Have you ever tried long division in Roman numerals? What about in cultures where their numbers are 1, 2, 3, "many"?

our bodies are amazing pieces of machinery
Sure. Our feet are hands that barely do their job. Don't beleive me? Ask Dr. Scholl. The octopus has better eyes than we do. We gain weight at the drop of a hat but it takes an amazing amount of work to lose it again. Childbirth puts the mother's life at risk, a feature pretty unique to human beings.

We are beauitiful and wonderous things (as are all other living things), but we are not intellegently designed by any stretch of the imagination.

Re:A Consistent Universe and Other People

[rossifer]

1) All morality is nothing more than personal opinion (since there is nothing outside of man (or God) which says 'ought' instead of 'is'.

Your problem is faulty in this statement. It does not agree with reality. Some goals are objectively better than other goals. Some behaviors are objectively better than other behaviors. Not to fall into the simplistic analysis of Ayn Rand and the objectivists, but morality follows from this reality of motivated action.

Correct the problematic statement and see if your proof still makes sense. I submit that it does not.

Trust/friendship amongst thieves, eh?

Not necessarily. Instead of 'thieves', think of an elite group.

I disproved your assertion that people with common morality can have the same beneficial outcome, no matter what the chosen morality. I used a counterexample taken from the real world. Thieves tend to discount the value of long-term goals, which makes them less likely to be trusted/liked/loved by people they are honest with, thus a thief's morality is inferior to a morality that allows/supports/develops long-term positive relationships.

Morality is not just a matter of opinion (just shown). You are correct that in a world where there was no significant advantage to a particular set of behaviors (morality), might would make right. Luckily for all of us, that world is not reality.

Regards,
Ross

Slashdot

[TwP]

Slashdot contains actual useful information.

Another way to look at it

[GunFodder]

The odds of the universe being very nearly flat are 1 in 1, since we wouldn't be around to calculate those odds if it didn't pan out that way. Similarly the odds of the universe supporting life are 1 in 1 for the same reason.

For all we know there is a natural system that churns out universes on a regular cycle. Usually nothing comes of it, but once in a while the universe pans out and lasts for a while. So far we don't have a way of observing these failed universes. But we can observe other systems that work in a similar fashion.

One could say that we are incredibly lucky to live on a planet with the correct chemical composition at the correct distance from a correctly hot Sun. If we use a sufficiently powerful telescope we can see that there are billions of other stars, and they are all different. Given the rather large number of chances it doesn't seem that odd that at least one of them provided the proper environment for life as we know it.

Re:Another way to look at it

[Wraithlyn]

"The odds of the universe being very nearly flat are 1 in 1, since we wouldn't be around to calculate those odds if it didn't pan out that way."

You are incorrect here, there is nothing about a curved universe that would prevent us from being here, in fact I believe Einstein predicted a curved universe. The fact that there is precisely the right amount of matter in the universe to make it flat (ie Cartesian), remains an unexplained statistical wonder.

You're right about the constants needed for the universe to support life, of course.

Translate this, and you'll have stronger evidence

[leonbrooks]

Stuart A. Kauffman - Biologist, Santa Fe Institute; Author, Investigations, says:

Consider this, the number of possible proteins 200 amino acids long is 20 raised to the 200th power or about 10 raised to the 260th power. Now, the number of particles in the known universe is about 10 to the 80th power. Suppose, on a microsecond time scale the universe were doing nothing other than producing proteins length 200. It turns out that it would take vastly many repeats of the history of the universe to create all possible proteins length 200. This means that, for entities of complexity above atoms, such as modestly complex organic molecules, proteins, let alone species, automobiles and operas, the universe is on a unique trajectory (ignoring quantum mechanics for the moment). That is, the universe at modest levels of complexity and above is vastly non- ergodic.

The short story: the levels of complexity we see in life around us are well beyond impossible. Stuart wants to invoke a mystery principle to explain this, but doesn't want it to be God.

OH COME ON!!!!!

[rmdyer]

"This means the Big Bang was "tuned" to produce exactly this density. The odds of that happening by chance are estimated at 1 to 10^50."

This kind of thinking is freshman 101 philosphy talking. You obviously have little grasp of the very large numbers, even less grasp of the infinite. This kind of talk leads even more stupid people into believing in miracles, and gods, and all sorts of magical mystery tour fluff.

Experience thinkers go well beyond your primitive and immature logic. It is well known that in a universe of practically infinite time that all numbers less than infinity might as well be 1. So while I'm not a die hard believer in the big bang theory, whatever happened only had to happen once! And based on any kind of random chance, no tuning was neccessary. Better yet, in infinite time, not only does this theoretical universe come into existance, but it does so an infinte number of times. All that, and together with all the other random universe type probabilities.

The question, and this has been pondered many times by advanced theologians, philosophers, and scientists, is...is this universe the only logical possible universe that can exist? If this turns out to be true, then not only do gods get demoted to janitorial duty, but they don't even get paid. This is basically saying that any god would have no choice in the creation of a universe...there is only one possible one that could ever be created.

This kind of thinking makes perfect sense when you go into deep analysis on how we are able to think and know truths. In our everyday lives we know things by definition. We made up those definitions based on sensory perception. Definitions need to be logically organized, otherwise the world is utterly incomprehensable. For example, the color of the sky can never be both black and white at the same time. We've created an intermediate word for that defined as "grey". Also, you cannot pick up a thing that is both square and round, or lift a thing that is both heavy and light. You would never say to a person "Go pickup that heavy box, it doesn't weigh much." Our entire experience of the universe is based on the languages of definition and logic. We see a "color". We define that "color". If the color changes, the only way to know that it did was to compare it to the originally defined color.

If there is only one logically possible universe, then what is the requirement that it changes over time? Quite possibly so that it can work out all the permutations of what -is- possible. But that is not a "purpose". That is only "what it does". The next question that arises is...if the universe is working out all logically possible combinations over time (perhaps at the quantum level), then are the number of logically possible combinations infinite?

Any beginning computer programmer knows that a memory with a finite number states cannot logically produce every number in existance. So if the universe has an infinite number of states, in a sea of inifinite time, is there an algorithm that would produce a series of logically possible states that occur once and only once...that cannot repeat? Even calculating PI will eventually produce a series of repetitive numbers that occur at ever decreasing frequency.

Is there only one logically possible universe?

For insight into this kind of thinking google on the "Bekenstein Bound" of quantum mechanics.

Also read...

"The Physics of Immortality", Frank J. Tipler

and,

"The Anthropic Cosmological Principle", John D. Barrow & Frank J. Tipler

Note: I personally don't always agree with the nature of the material presented in the above books. Nevertheless I find the reading to be absolutely facinating.

Re:OH COME ON!!!!!

[Cappy Red]

Just poking about on one point...

"...is this universe the only logical possible universe that can exist? If this turns out to be true, then not only do gods get demoted to janitorial duty, but they don't even get paid. This is basically saying that any god would have no choice in the creation of a universe...there is only one possible one that could ever be created."

If one is "God," and has the powers and abilities generally stated to extend above and beyond those of the natural order, wouldn't one be able to change the rules? Wouldn't that mean that no matter how the rules say a Universe must behave within any particular Universe, that God would be able to supercede these by virtue of the fact that He is not bound to the rules?

One of the big problems in all this is the variance in the definition of what God can do. Another is the extremely small sample of polled Universes.

Re:Translate this, and you'll have stronger eviden

[ckedge]

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Sigh....

You fools, there are only 10 to the 260th power combinations if you presume that there are no mechanisms that *reduce* the problem space and make 10 to the 250 power possibilities disappear.

Look at it this way. See the ball I'm holding in my hand. It occupies X amount of physical space. There are 10 to the 1024th power other physical locations in the universe it could go to when I release it. But *mysteriously* it always ends up on the floor roughly below my hand.

Wierd, eh?

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Universe is probably slightly curved

[bitingduck]

This means the Big Bang was "tuned" to produce exactly this density

Actually, if you go and look at the published, refereed technical paper (the first one at WMAP papers you'll see that the most probable value for Omega_total is 1.02+-.02. This is consistent with a flat universe (1.0), but is also consistent with a closed, large radius of curvature universe. Other experiments produce similar values (some referenced in the paper), also slightly greater than one but with error bars that include 1.0.

It always makes me cringe a little when people stand up and show data plots of the various cosmological parameters that are consistent with flat, but also consistently tend towards very large radius closed, and then declare the universe to be flat. And I've been at a lot of those talks. I'm fine with them saying "It's nearly flat" or "it's got such a large radius that we can treat it as flat for most purposes" or "it's flat enough to be consistent with inflation", but it's not convincingly dead-ass flat. The data always seem to be centered around "very-nearly-flat-but-closed"

I was talking to a cosmologist friend about this, and his comment was "Yeah, but it would be perverse if the universe were that close to flat, but not really flat". To which my reply is "The universe is a perverse place-- it doesn't have to be flat just to make the mathematical description pretty". Life as an experimenter is way more fun when the data give you those tiny deviations from the theory-- they're often real, and they're hinting at something missing from the theory.