"No, they don't. No competing theory (e.g., MOND) comes close to explaining the entire set of phenomena that dark matter can explain. At best, they'll get one or two things right."
You are confused. These reports of "evidence" of dark matter have invariably involved only a single property of the hypothesized matter. In each case, there has also invariable been one or more competing theories that equally well explain that one phenomenon.
They only HAVE TO get one or two things right, if you're only talking about one thing.
Pardon me. My mistake. I was confusing the fact that supersymmetry is an integral part of most versions of string hypotheses, with the idea that string hypotheses must exist for supersymmetry to exist.
"Clear now? I think you owe me an apology for the conclusion you jumped to."
I don't owe you squat. I didn't "jump" to any conclusions, I responded to your actual statements.
The IRS doesn't have the power to "rule" that a group is a church or religion. The United States Supreme Court has ruled that even IT does not have the power to rule whether something is a legitimate religion. (If you don't believe that, look up the court cases having to do with the Universal Life Church.)
The only thing the IRS can do, is determine whether a church meets Federal (extremely broad) guidelines for being tax-exempt. That is NOT the same thing as deciding whether it is a religion.
The fact is, you just don't know how this all works. Look it up.
If you want some factual information about Scientology vs the IRS, you can find a lot of it HERE.
I should have added that even though protons are HUGELY more massive than electrons, given that they have similar charges they would disperse, too.
People tend to think of gravity as strong because that is usually the greatest force they observe day-to-day. But they are very much mistaken, and if they thought about it, they would realize that even casual static electricity is much stronger than gravity.
"... because that still lends them the legitimacy of labelling them as a religeon."
NO, this is precisely the point you aren't getting. By law, they ARE a religion, whether you like their teachings or not!!! YOU do not have a say in that matter, and that's the way things are SUPPOSED to be!!!
If you want to fight them, stop obsessing over whether they are a religion or not (which is a battle you would lose), and instead focus on all the otherwise illegal shit they do.
"The IRS has never accepted them as a religeon and instead finally gave up and gave them tax exempt status due to other details, but mostly because the case was dragging on for so long."
Um... that's not quite the way it really went. If you knew the true story about Scientology and the IRS, it would probably horrify you. But... I really don't want to get into that here, as it's beside the point I was making.
You can be a "legitimate church", and still be abusive to your followers, or commit fraud, or -- most famously -- sexually abuse young boys. It still has nothing to do with them being a legitimate church.
"Also I think you overstate the case when calling dark matter a 'questionable' theory. It is widely accepted among cosmologists, at least as a tentative explanation that fits the available data."
Nonsense. It is a "questionable" theory because it is questionable whether it actually deserves the moniker "theory" at all.
A theory must be testable. So far, no solid grounds for testing have been established. Yes, you have sensational articles saying it has "been found", but they invariably neglect to mention that certain other theories fit the observed phenomema approximately as well.
In that vein, dark matter, dark energy, and string "theory" are ALL struggling to maintain a status of "theory", at all. Granted, there has been some evidence. But there has also been counter-evidence. And testability is still up in the air.
"Now, it would be unfair to judge the founders by anything other than their historical context, but it appears that they were in fact wrong on this particular issue."
No, that's faulty logic.
Instead, look at how bad the U.S would be if they HADN'T done that. I think it's pretty damned clear that it would have been disaster.
It simply isn't valid to point at a law that says "you can believe anything you want" and call that the cause of people believing in Christianity. There are other forces at work.
At least in the United States, history has absolutely nothing to do with the definition of a church.
I could start a church tomorrow, sign up a couple of friends, meet regularly, and make it a tax-exempt church. It could be "The Powerhouse Church of Oral Sex" if that's what I want it to be. And the government could not stop me. In fact, they would have to make it tax-exempt, as long as it met all the other criteria (which are damned few).
And if you want to live in a free country, rather than a Theocracy, that's the way it HAS to be.
"If you are allowed to leave it without fear of physical, legal, or financial consequences, it's a religion. Otherwise it's a cult."
But see, that's not semantically correct. Technically "cult" refers to the belief, not the practices of the believers.
Call the religion a cult if you want, it makes no difference. But more to the point is whether the members of the cult ACT in ways that are obsessive or delusional.
"The difference is that a religion is a large, popular cult, while a cult is a small, unpopular religion."
Keep in mind that Ambrose Bierce The Devil's Dictionary was humor and social commentary, and 100% sarcastic.
Even so, the definition of "cult" boils down to "believing in something bizarre". And by that definition, at least most modern large religions are in fact "cults".
I mean: "bizarre" can be defined pretty non-subjectively. If you consider bizarre to mean "something so far outside mainstream experience that it would normally be considered a delusion", then indeed, almost all modern religions are cults.
"In these times of economic struggle, the Government should just take away the Tax Exemption for Religions. It would only be fair and if the religions have a problem with that, then they can pray to their gods for help with money."
There be monsters in them there woods.
The REASON churches are tax exempt, is that we have a practical separation of Church and State in this country.
The reason we have a separation of Church and State, is that our Founders, through experience of very recent (for them) history, knew very well the consequences of either having a Government-run Church, or a Church-run Government. Either case ALWAYS (over the last 800-900 years or so) ended in disaster.
So they decided: government will stay out of Church affairs, and Churches would stay out of Government affairs. And it has turned out to be, in the long run, a very healthy way to run that relationship.
But once you start to allow Government to tax Churches, you must then allow Churches to have some say in Government ("no taxation without representation"), and you have just re-created the mess that everybody fought wars to get away from.
NO. No taxing of churches. And no influence by churches on government. No.
"As always, most of my contempt falls onto the suckers. Entirely there fault. Just like people who respond to spam."
While as a generalization I would be inclined to agree with you, it doesn't so much apply to this church. And here is why:
The church leadership -- especially early on, including Hubbard -- were very, very good at PR and BS. That's why they established a completely separate part of the church for rich and famous people, where they get treated completely differently than everybody else.
As a result, you have lots of rich and famous people thinking it's a GREAT institution, and telling everybody about it. But those who fall for all the hype, and aren't rich and famous, get bled of their possessions and shipped off to a work camp.
As I say, if it were just up to individual judgment, I would tend to agree with you. But they have this very well-engineered PR machine set up to make people believe.
Morally, that's fraud and deception. So far, they seem to have avoided legal consequences.
No, it was about 6 months ago, and I don't have it right at hand. But I will say that if you haven't heard about it, you haven't been paying attention.
I will look to see if I have a reference. It might take me a day or so. I am very busy with work and personal issues right now.
"He indicated elsewhere in the post that he was referring to General Relativity, not MOND. (It would be a bit odd to refer to MOND as "the currently accepted theory of gravity", I think - I believe MOND is still considered a hypothesis rather than a theory, even by the people fronting it.)"
MOND relates to making very tiny adjustments to a few constants like gravity, and nothing more. Since GP was referring to slight changes which make up the "modern" understanding of gravity and perhaps other constants, but was not spedific about it, MOND was not an unreasonable guess.
"Dark matter? Not so much. We know there are unobservable gravitational effects, but we can't currently say what they are even if we can point to a place where they are. Nailing the Higgs' boson may, in the future, help with this, but not yet."
Haha! I seem to have suddenly stumbled upon a couple of people on Slashdot who actually THINK!
"String theory isn't testable using current technology, but it's largely unrelated to dark matter."
Apologies, I did not read this quite right the first time, or I would have answered it.
Yes, indeed, string theory is one of the pillars upon which dark matter theory is formed. It may be possible for it to exist without "strings", but in most current models they are inextricably intertwined. I.e., string theory does not depend upon dark matter theory, but dark matter theory (most models, anyway) very much DO depend upon string theory.
So anything that is evidence against string theory, is also an argument against MOST dark matter models as well.
However, there has been much work being done on both "sides" of the matter, and I really don't feel I have time to get into a detailed discussion of the matter right now. But there have recently been findings that seriously call string theory into question, and in turn, that somewhat weakens the arguments for dark matter.
I'm not saying that anything is conclusive in either direction. But I sense the pendulum swinging...
"Connections" was one of the most awesome shows on television. Ever.
It reminded me very much of Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach.
(By the way... getting that umlaut right reminds me that Slashdot is still in the Web stone age... they don't even support UTF-8 yet. Evidence seems to indicate that the server-side code for Slashdot is Perl! Good Grid, how backwoods can a web developer get?)
(Yet another note: I just had an interesting episode with builtwith.com, and they say the HTML on Slashdot is actually UTF-8. So it's their BACK-END... their server code... that fails to support UTF-8. Which just reinforces the other evidence that they still program in Perl.
How old ARE these guys, anyway? And when will they upgrade to something like normal?
Slashdot Mirror
"No, they don't. No competing theory (e.g., MOND) comes close to explaining the entire set of phenomena that dark matter can explain. At best, they'll get one or two things right."
You are confused. These reports of "evidence" of dark matter have invariably involved only a single property of the hypothesized matter. In each case, there has also invariable been one or more competing theories that equally well explain that one phenomenon.
They only HAVE TO get one or two things right, if you're only talking about one thing.
Correction: "... with the idea that strings must exist..."
Pardon me. My mistake. I was confusing the fact that supersymmetry is an integral part of most versions of string hypotheses, with the idea that string hypotheses must exist for supersymmetry to exist.
Mea culpa.
"Clear now? I think you owe me an apology for the conclusion you jumped to."
I don't owe you squat. I didn't "jump" to any conclusions, I responded to your actual statements.
The IRS doesn't have the power to "rule" that a group is a church or religion. The United States Supreme Court has ruled that even IT does not have the power to rule whether something is a legitimate religion. (If you don't believe that, look up the court cases having to do with the Universal Life Church.)
The only thing the IRS can do, is determine whether a church meets Federal (extremely broad) guidelines for being tax-exempt. That is NOT the same thing as deciding whether it is a religion.
The fact is, you just don't know how this all works. Look it up.
If you want some factual information about Scientology vs the IRS, you can find a lot of it HERE.
I should have added that even though protons are HUGELY more massive than electrons, given that they have similar charges they would disperse, too.
People tend to think of gravity as strong because that is usually the greatest force they observe day-to-day. But they are very much mistaken, and if they thought about it, they would realize that even casual static electricity is much stronger than gravity.
No. They spread that lie but it was never ruled that way, especially in the USA.
Jesus Christ. (Not a pun, but humor very much intended.) You really don't know jack shit about this, do you?
You DON'T HAVE TO BE "ruled" a church in this country. You can only be ruled NOT a church.
Methinks you should pick up some books, or get on the internet, and start doing some homework.
I responded to your post because you have indeed been muddling two different things and you have your history wrong.
I really, really don't want to get into the IRS thing here, but events did not happen the way you described. You should look a little deeper.
"... because that still lends them the legitimacy of labelling them as a religeon."
NO, this is precisely the point you aren't getting. By law, they ARE a religion, whether you like their teachings or not!!! YOU do not have a say in that matter, and that's the way things are SUPPOSED to be!!!
If you want to fight them, stop obsessing over whether they are a religion or not (which is a battle you would lose), and instead focus on all the otherwise illegal shit they do.
"You are arguing about the camoflage. That's just what these scammers want you to do."
No, if that's what you're arguing, fine, but that means we're arguing about two very different things.
And frankly, I think you're invalidly muddling two very different concepts here.
"The IRS has never accepted them as a religeon and instead finally gave up and gave them tax exempt status due to other details, but mostly because the case was dragging on for so long."
Um... that's not quite the way it really went. If you knew the true story about Scientology and the IRS, it would probably horrify you. But... I really don't want to get into that here, as it's beside the point I was making.
You can be a "legitimate church", and still be abusive to your followers, or commit fraud, or -- most famously -- sexually abuse young boys. It still has nothing to do with them being a legitimate church.
"Also I think you overstate the case when calling dark matter a 'questionable' theory. It is widely accepted among cosmologists, at least as a tentative explanation that fits the available data."
Nonsense. It is a "questionable" theory because it is questionable whether it actually deserves the moniker "theory" at all.
A theory must be testable. So far, no solid grounds for testing have been established. Yes, you have sensational articles saying it has "been found", but they invariably neglect to mention that certain other theories fit the observed phenomema approximately as well.
In that vein, dark matter, dark energy, and string "theory" are ALL struggling to maintain a status of "theory", at all. Granted, there has been some evidence. But there has also been counter-evidence. And testability is still up in the air.
"Higgs boson or Higgs field? The Higgs field is supposedly literally the size of the universe."
Good point. I was referring to the recently-discovered particle which MAY be the Higgs boson.
"Now, it would be unfair to judge the founders by anything other than their historical context, but it appears that they were in fact wrong on this particular issue."
No, that's faulty logic.
Instead, look at how bad the U.S would be if they HADN'T done that. I think it's pretty damned clear that it would have been disaster.
It simply isn't valid to point at a law that says "you can believe anything you want" and call that the cause of people believing in Christianity. There are other forces at work.
At least in the United States, history has absolutely nothing to do with the definition of a church.
I could start a church tomorrow, sign up a couple of friends, meet regularly, and make it a tax-exempt church. It could be "The Powerhouse Church of Oral Sex" if that's what I want it to be. And the government could not stop me. In fact, they would have to make it tax-exempt, as long as it met all the other criteria (which are damned few).
And if you want to live in a free country, rather than a Theocracy, that's the way it HAS to be.
"If you are allowed to leave it without fear of physical, legal, or financial consequences, it's a religion. Otherwise it's a cult."
But see, that's not semantically correct. Technically "cult" refers to the belief, not the practices of the believers.
Call the religion a cult if you want, it makes no difference. But more to the point is whether the members of the cult ACT in ways that are obsessive or delusional.
"The difference is that a religion is a large, popular cult, while a cult is a small, unpopular religion."
Keep in mind that Ambrose Bierce The Devil's Dictionary was humor and social commentary, and 100% sarcastic.
Even so, the definition of "cult" boils down to "believing in something bizarre". And by that definition, at least most modern large religions are in fact "cults".
I mean: "bizarre" can be defined pretty non-subjectively. If you consider bizarre to mean "something so far outside mainstream experience that it would normally be considered a delusion", then indeed, almost all modern religions are cults.
"In these times of economic struggle, the Government should just take away the Tax Exemption for Religions. It would only be fair and if the religions have a problem with that, then they can pray to their gods for help with money."
There be monsters in them there woods.
The REASON churches are tax exempt, is that we have a practical separation of Church and State in this country.
The reason we have a separation of Church and State, is that our Founders, through experience of very recent (for them) history, knew very well the consequences of either having a Government-run Church, or a Church-run Government. Either case ALWAYS (over the last 800-900 years or so) ended in disaster.
So they decided: government will stay out of Church affairs, and Churches would stay out of Government affairs. And it has turned out to be, in the long run, a very healthy way to run that relationship.
But once you start to allow Government to tax Churches, you must then allow Churches to have some say in Government ("no taxation without representation"), and you have just re-created the mess that everybody fought wars to get away from.
NO. No taxing of churches. And no influence by churches on government. No.
No. No. No.
"As always, most of my contempt falls onto the suckers. Entirely there fault. Just like people who respond to spam."
While as a generalization I would be inclined to agree with you, it doesn't so much apply to this church. And here is why:
The church leadership -- especially early on, including Hubbard -- were very, very good at PR and BS. That's why they established a completely separate part of the church for rich and famous people, where they get treated completely differently than everybody else.
As a result, you have lots of rich and famous people thinking it's a GREAT institution, and telling everybody about it. But those who fall for all the hype, and aren't rich and famous, get bled of their possessions and shipped off to a work camp.
As I say, if it were just up to individual judgment, I would tend to agree with you. But they have this very well-engineered PR machine set up to make people believe.
Morally, that's fraud and deception. So far, they seem to have avoided legal consequences.
"I heard you got big stones."
No, Moses had the big stones.
Smith had the plates. But we're still waiting for the guy with the silverware.
No, it was about 6 months ago, and I don't have it right at hand. But I will say that if you haven't heard about it, you haven't been paying attention.
I will look to see if I have a reference. It might take me a day or so. I am very busy with work and personal issues right now.
"He indicated elsewhere in the post that he was referring to General Relativity, not MOND. (It would be a bit odd to refer to MOND as "the currently accepted theory of gravity", I think - I believe MOND is still considered a hypothesis rather than a theory, even by the people fronting it.)"
MOND relates to making very tiny adjustments to a few constants like gravity, and nothing more. Since GP was referring to slight changes which make up the "modern" understanding of gravity and perhaps other constants, but was not spedific about it, MOND was not an unreasonable guess.
"Dark matter? Not so much. We know there are unobservable gravitational effects, but we can't currently say what they are even if we can point to a place where they are. Nailing the Higgs' boson may, in the future, help with this, but not yet."
Haha! I seem to have suddenly stumbled upon a couple of people on Slashdot who actually THINK!
I was beginning to think they were a real rarity.
"String theory isn't testable using current technology, but it's largely unrelated to dark matter."
Apologies, I did not read this quite right the first time, or I would have answered it.
Yes, indeed, string theory is one of the pillars upon which dark matter theory is formed. It may be possible for it to exist without "strings", but in most current models they are inextricably intertwined. I.e., string theory does not depend upon dark matter theory, but dark matter theory (most models, anyway) very much DO depend upon string theory.
So anything that is evidence against string theory, is also an argument against MOST dark matter models as well.
Hi, Khayman80. Haven't heard from you in a while.
However, there has been much work being done on both "sides" of the matter, and I really don't feel I have time to get into a detailed discussion of the matter right now. But there have recently been findings that seriously call string theory into question, and in turn, that somewhat weakens the arguments for dark matter.
I'm not saying that anything is conclusive in either direction. But I sense the pendulum swinging...
"Connections" was one of the most awesome shows on television. Ever.
It reminded me very much of Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach.
(By the way... getting that umlaut right reminds me that Slashdot is still in the Web stone age... they don't even support UTF-8 yet. Evidence seems to indicate that the server-side code for Slashdot is Perl! Good Grid, how backwoods can a web developer get?)
(Yet another note: I just had an interesting episode with builtwith.com, and they say the HTML on Slashdot is actually UTF-8. So it's their BACK-END... their server code... that fails to support UTF-8. Which just reinforces the other evidence that they still program in Perl.
How old ARE these guys, anyway? And when will they upgrade to something like normal?