No, sorry, it is never "grey". If tradeoffs are known, it is a political decision to decide what ought to be done. However, trying to hide the fact that a tradeoff is taking place is pure dishonesty. And in many cases politicians want certain tradeoffs to remain hidden, because they make there life harder: going against the beliefs of your voters is a sure election loser.
"Grey", meaning "we don't know", or "we are not sure" is a cop-out: the maximum likelihood still lies somewhere, and ignoring it will not improve public policy, quite the contrary. Also, if you really don't know, as a politician-elect, you must know. It is your duty. This means more science and more communication, not less.
This is irrelevant. Of course errors are made. Things can be outright wrong. The point is that as an elected official, you have to take decisions. These decisions are meant to improve the lot of the people you are responsible for. Therefore, you must use the best data available to optimise the outcome. And the best data/understanding is the current state of research. It might be wrong, but it is always your best bet.
But then, it is true that many things are disturbing to right-wing/conservative politicians. Giving free needles to drug addicts is a good thing for public health. The length and the harshness of a sentence are not well correlated to prevention. The social/monetary cost of not having social security/health care is higher than having it. Taxes are not always bad for the economy. Children raised by gays are not worse off than those raised by straights. But also, Nuclear power is necessary to fight climate change, vaccines are overwhelmingly good, new age doctrine is bullshit, education also means structure, law and order are necessary.
Basically, voters -- especially conservative ones, but the liberal ones also have all manners of wrong beliefs -- WANT things to be true. And telling them it is not so loses you votes, never mind that you are right. It is important that there be people, namely scientists, who say things as they are, never mind who this might disturb. After that, if you want to ignore reality, it's a free country! Eventually, the truth wins, if you let it exist.
Remember, in a thermodynamic cycle, the maximum efficiency you can get is:
eta = 1-Tcold/Thot (in Kelvin)
This formula is all you need to know to debunk stupid claims of efficiency of sellers of snake oil thermal systems. In practise, getting 80% of that is really, really good.
Big turbines are efficient because they run hot, as hot as the materials will allow, in fact [1]. The blades are designed so a cushion of air protects them from the burning gaz. You do not want a turbine running at 2000 C in you car: combusting the passengers would most likely be considered a downside.
[1] Russians used to machine titanium alloy monocristal compressor blocks for the power plants of their Sukhoi aeroplanes. In the west, use of ceramics is favoured.
The point is that there are ten times as many angry social conservatives/disenfranchised white ex-middle class/religious nuts who are infinitely more important in that movement than the few libertarians who are so desperate to have any relevance that they think opposition to _a_ government is the same thing as opposition to Government.
Libertarians will never amount to any significant political forces, because deep down, they are 90% of self-centred jerks with an overgrown sense of self-entitlement and paranoia, and 10% who really believe in the ideal of pure freedom despite the evidence that it cannot possibly work in any circumstance where more than one Human is involved. Hmmm, wait a minute, maybe the TP is libertarian after all!
Or not: religious conservative libertarians? the mind boggles.
Income mobility is remarkably low in the US. There was an economist article on that a while back.
Also, about the government being inefficient: this is a huge strawman: the government is meant to fill those niches which cannot be filled by the market, because the externalities are hugely positives but there is no profit (roads for example). Also those niches which are natural monopolies: in this case profit can be extracted, but this profit is pure loss for the society, utilities tend to be like that, telcos can tend to that point, collectively, health insurance companies are like that. This is something the US gov does badly, in that it doesn't take over these roles as much as it should.
Also, the UN recommends lowering the income inequality, because this helps growth. This is obvious: markets depending on the choice of a few select individuals are vastly less efficients than markets depending on the collective choices of a great many individuals: in other words, although some guy is a really clever investor and became hugely rich, you cannot depend on them to invest efficiently all of his money: the choices are too numerous and complex.
The tea party is not a libertarian movement. Not remotely. it wants more control of the State in all that concerns "morals". They also want more border control, and less immigration. They also want less taxes (because taxes are bad, and clearly just wasted money, and keep government out of medicaid).
It is a boring, extremely banal populist movement, the like of which always crops up when the economic conditions are bad. And they are always used by people who's democratic credentials are more than patchy. The only sane reaction to such a movement is to ignore it and fix the problems which caused it to exist in the first place. In this case: increase taxes to reduce income disparity, fix the financial system, fix the infrastructure, and fix the medical coverage problem.
Basically, all that the democratic government is doing -- one would just wish they did more than half-fix the problems and muddle through.
Oh, no. Not the same standard of living. Not remotely.
We live much, much better. In fact, if you want to live with all the gadgets from the 60s, you don't need double income. You probably only need part of the first income. data
Do we live better? well, living better depends not only on income, but also health and education. And there was significant progress. more data -- but only since the 80s, although I will submit to you this interesting graph of child mortality: graph .
So what is obvious to you is in fact plain wrong. And this is a big issue, because you are not the only one: hardly anyone looks at the actual data to decide whether things are really getting worse. BTW, one of the things is getting worse in the US these days, and that is inequality. Look for the graphs showing the gini coefficient.
And before I conclude, one last graph, showing the effect of women's education on family size -- because you are arguing, whether you realise it or not, that half of the potential workforce should get no education. And sadly, this half will be women. graph Push the play button. Largish families of the sixties and stay-at-home mothers are a consequence of a largely uneducated female population, forced in that role. And it's a guy telling you that.
My argument is that although the system of education (any system of education) can and should be improved, it'll probably always involve some teachers, if only as a facilitators and guides. Because it seems to be the most effective structure for the greater number.
Also, if you want to improve the education system, and you can teach yourself, you are probably deeply unqualified to have an opinion on what works, because it puts you in the tiny minority of people who do not need an education system in the first place and will always wonder about what the point of it may be.
You cannot build an education system for the very few wealthy, bright, with highly educated parents!
The fact that there exists people like you describe is meaningless: in the end, everyone needs education. It must therefore be available for the greatest possible number, in a form that is most appropriate to that effect. Yes, the consequence is that some tiny minority of geniuses will suffer for it. But for them, it doesn't matter, because they will learn and succeed in any circumstances!
I am sad for all those people who live in a determinist universe where all that happens to you can be explained by hard work and ambition, modulated by the amount of money you started with.
Fact, sometimes things happen to you, good and bad. Fact, these sometimes cannot be offset by any amount of brains and work.
Which is why a civilised society recognises that and helps out those people that ran into an unexpected and impossible to plan for problem. Which is why also, the richer and more advanced society is, the more taxed should be extracted, because a more complex society means also that many more things can go awry, and need to be planned for collectively -- and because more taxes do not affect your lifestyle after you are rich enough.
People saying "this is my money", "I refuse to pay for someone else lifestyle choice", "I provide for my family, why can't they?", are a problem, because they think that given the same circumstances another Bill Gates would happen. Therefore, they think that is they play their cards just right, they will become rich. And if they do become rich (this happens), they think it is purely due to them -- refusing even to acknowledge the importance of living in a society whose infrastructure allowed it. And if they become a significant minority, they will eventually destroy society.
Except that in a depressed economy, a surprisingly large amount of money is uninvested because there are not enough opportunities -- there are trillions of dollars lying around these days doing nothing because everyone piles up to be ready for the coming apocalypse. The investments creating jobs happen when the economy is booming (to an extent. money can also be spent on buying yet another Picasso, which helps no one).
Now if the money in the bank looks like it will be taxed or inflated away (fat chance for the latter, the fed has given up on its inflation target) then its odds of getting invested get better.
In periods of crisis, rising taxes on the wealthy both helps make up for the shortfall in income and gets more money invested.
I think Buddhism is more of a philosophy than a religion as such -- how important the mystical aspects are depend on the individual, guess. But I think a lot of our disagreement comes from the fact that we also don't agree/did not define what is really meant by being religious.
But yeah, Dune is probably more anti organised religion than anti-religion.
In Dune, the empire is not secular. The Orange Catholic Bible is very much the law: the interdiction of thinking machines is a religious interdiction. Also, the Fremen are religious, and this is what allows Paul to manipulate them -- but he clearly hates that (he mentions Stilgar turning from a friend into a believer). Later Leto II makes himself into a god, also in the hope to disgust humanity forever of such things.
The only people who are clearly not religious are the Guild, the Bene Guesserit, and Ix -- and they use religion as a tool to manipulate others, the BG being the worse offenders. In fact, this book is almost entirely about religion and how it shapes societies.
The Fremen are Zen-Sunnis, the Empire is Protestant-Catholic, the Tleilaxu are -- I think -- Buddhist-Shias ; all are amusing contradictions. The Guild are mathematicians, and the Ixians technologists. The whole universe is steeped in religion and religious thought.
Fair enough. We essentially disagree on the meaning of words, and since your beef is with the words, we cannot be reconciled.
There is no interest in debating words -- you clearly don't like what I said, but mostly you hate the way I said it. It would be dishonest for me to retract it, because I wrote it. It is there, for all to see. I can explain what I meant, but the words will stay. Just realise that the phrasing you think is less offencive may sound more offencive to someone else.
For the record, I also do believe that whatever I feel is probably the product of chemical imbalances in my brain. But I don't claim to be sane.
I will however note, as a parting remark, that I am in fact sorry to have offended you, because I don't like to hurt people. I wish you a good day/evening/night.
PS what's up with your nick? Religion in Dune is portrayed in a very, very bad light...
Sorry. Being delusional and forcing oneself to be continuously subject to cognitive dissonance is not mental illness. It is just illogical.
So I will rephrase: being religious is due to chemical imbalances in the brain. This is not an illness but just a by-product of evolution prevalent in the human population.
See? much more offencive. It is not a metaphor: just a sad fact. You feel offended, because you have personal contact with people with grave mental illness. Well, me too, and I still think what I think. "Mental illness" is about as vague as one can be, and people like you perpetuate the stigma of something which can occur to anyone, and take infinitely many forms. This does not help.
I have met more than one bright, educated scientist who also believed in a personal god. Christian and Muslim. And they all concluded that god necessarily, because he existed, was not bound by logic.
Because this is how they solved the self-consistency conundrum. I believe they are wrong, because their argument is based on the notion that the maker of rules is not bound by them and that logic is not absolute.
But yeah, people believe that. Bright, educated, self-deluded people.
We have a pretty good understanding of mathematics in higher dimensions. And they do not dispense you of logic. And higher dimensions only mean different laws, not no laws.
I should not also that there are Hindus, and Buddhists, and Taoists and I suppose even a couple Animists who do science. Now there is no reason for me to believe they are more or less wrong than you or I may be...
Also, scientists don't think things stop at the edge of our universe. Some even develop theories about other universes. But in all cases, the name of the game is designing some experiments so you can test the theory.
If think believing in some creator is narrow minded, because it makes you important. In fact, this is the only reason to believe in a creator. Rather, I believe we are just the product of random fluctuations.
According to the Manual of American Psychologists, the majority of the population is mentally ill.
You confuse serious mental illness which requires professional help and people who are not "normal", which is the majority of us. We could all go to a psychologist for help, and most of us will be the better for it.
This is not the same as require medication or internment, or even special care. This is a completely different situation, and has nothing to do with the point which is that religious thought is, in my opinion, the mark of an unbalanced mind.
You conflate mental illness to severe cases,apparently from personal experience. I can tell you, also from personal experience, that there is a whole range of cases, from the severe to the fairly innocuous, and if illness is the word that shocks you, well, feel free to suggest another.
As for powers of conversion, I don't believe I have any, nor do I try to convert anyone. It is actually offencive to me that you would accuse me of preaching.
But what if you find the laws of physics make it possible for the universe to generate itself spontaneously?
Then you retreat always further back until believing in god is basically believing in the universe.
You have a view of religion I can certainly sympathise with, though -- but it is a view that could well label you as a closet atheist for certain "Christians";)
No, "ideas which can be tested" can also be expressed in logical symbols (maths). In fact, it is necessarily the case. Yes, scientists don't say that enough, because math is deemed frightening and a put-off to the general public.
"the Earth's crust consists of plates that move about driven by currents in the mantle" translates to a map of the currents (a vector field) which in turns becomes a prediction of positions in the past and the future (numbers) which get to be measured. Further, the map of the currents, because of the consistency of the universe translates into a map of forces acting on the Earth crust. And the study of these yields interesting insights on paleontology, planet formation and cosmology. It's all linked by maths.
However, it is infinitely arrogant to know that all physical laws derive from a single set of more fundamental laws -- you should be aware that it is a belief. "Publicly testing" has nothing to do with it -- just that if it isn't, why should we believe the conclusions?
Well, if you believe in a simultaqneously omnipotent and omniscient being, you are being logically inconsistent.
Or maybe you don't believe in god. Just you don't like admitting it.
Believing in magic, to the extent that is affects your actions, despite amazingly an amazingly bad track record at predicting anything, is not the sign of a sane mind.
For the record, I don't think people I disagree with are mentally ill (that would be crazy). I think religious people are, but no one helps them as it is a socially accepted illness. I also think only a small minority of people who call themselves religious really are so. The rest are just hypocrits.
Sorry about your parent, though, I know it's hard.
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No, sorry, it is never "grey". If tradeoffs are known, it is a political decision to decide what ought to be done. However, trying to hide the fact that a tradeoff is taking place is pure dishonesty. And in many cases politicians want certain tradeoffs to remain hidden, because they make there life harder: going against the beliefs of your voters is a sure election loser.
"Grey", meaning "we don't know", or "we are not sure" is a cop-out: the maximum likelihood still lies somewhere, and ignoring it will not improve public policy, quite the contrary. Also, if you really don't know, as a politician-elect, you must know. It is your duty. This means more science and more communication, not less.
This is irrelevant. Of course errors are made. Things can be outright wrong. The point is that as an elected official, you have to take decisions. These decisions are meant to improve the lot of the people you are responsible for. Therefore, you must use the best data available to optimise the outcome. And the best data/understanding is the current state of research. It might be wrong, but it is always your best bet.
But then, it is true that many things are disturbing to right-wing/conservative politicians. Giving free needles to drug addicts is a good thing for public health. The length and the harshness of a sentence are not well correlated to prevention. The social/monetary cost of not having social security/health care is higher than having it. Taxes are not always bad for the economy. Children raised by gays are not worse off than those raised by straights. But also, Nuclear power is necessary to fight climate change, vaccines are overwhelmingly good, new age doctrine is bullshit, education also means structure, law and order are necessary.
Basically, voters -- especially conservative ones, but the liberal ones also have all manners of wrong beliefs -- WANT things to be true. And telling them it is not so loses you votes, never mind that you are right. It is important that there be people, namely scientists, who say things as they are, never mind who this might disturb. After that, if you want to ignore reality, it's a free country! Eventually, the truth wins, if you let it exist.
Remember, in a thermodynamic cycle, the maximum efficiency you can get is:
eta = 1-Tcold/Thot (in Kelvin)
This formula is all you need to know to debunk stupid claims of efficiency of sellers of snake oil thermal systems. In practise, getting 80% of that is really, really good.
Big turbines are efficient because they run hot, as hot as the materials will allow, in fact [1]. The blades are designed so a cushion of air protects them from the burning gaz. You do not want a turbine running at 2000 C in you car: combusting the passengers would most likely be considered a downside.
[1] Russians used to machine titanium alloy monocristal compressor blocks for the power plants of their Sukhoi aeroplanes. In the west, use of ceramics is favoured.
You have made my day.
So the concept of externality is something someone can get at even when starting out as a libertarian. Yay! There is Hope!
The point is that there are ten times as many angry social conservatives/disenfranchised white ex-middle class/religious nuts who are infinitely more important in that movement than the few libertarians who are so desperate to have any relevance that they think opposition to _a_ government is the same thing as opposition to Government.
Libertarians will never amount to any significant political forces, because deep down, they are 90% of self-centred jerks with an overgrown sense of self-entitlement and paranoia, and 10% who really believe in the ideal of pure freedom despite the evidence that it cannot possibly work in any circumstance where more than one Human is involved. Hmmm, wait a minute, maybe the TP is libertarian after all!
Or not: religious conservative libertarians? the mind boggles.
BTW, capitalising Movement is creepy.
A-ha. Not student debt. The system is fucked-up that way: bankruptcy will not erase these...
Income mobility is remarkably low in the US. There was an economist article on that a while back.
Also, about the government being inefficient: this is a huge strawman: the government is meant to fill those niches which cannot be filled by the market, because the externalities are hugely positives but there is no profit (roads for example). Also those niches which are natural monopolies: in this case profit can be extracted, but this profit is pure loss for the society, utilities tend to be like that, telcos can tend to that point, collectively, health insurance companies are like that. This is something the US gov does badly, in that it doesn't take over these roles as much as it should.
Also, the UN recommends lowering the income inequality, because this helps growth. This is obvious: markets depending on the choice of a few select individuals are vastly less efficients than markets depending on the collective choices of a great many individuals: in other words, although some guy is a really clever investor and became hugely rich, you cannot depend on them to invest efficiently all of his money: the choices are too numerous and complex.
The tea party is not a libertarian movement. Not remotely. it wants more control of the State in all that concerns "morals". They also want more border control, and less immigration. They also want less taxes (because taxes are bad, and clearly just wasted money, and keep government out of medicaid).
It is a boring, extremely banal populist movement, the like of which always crops up when the economic conditions are bad. And they are always used by people who's democratic credentials are more than patchy. The only sane reaction to such a movement is to ignore it and fix the problems which caused it to exist in the first place. In this case: increase taxes to reduce income disparity, fix the financial system, fix the infrastructure, and fix the medical coverage problem.
Basically, all that the democratic government is doing -- one would just wish they did more than half-fix the problems and muddle through.
Oh, no. Not the same standard of living. Not remotely.
We live much, much better. In fact, if you want to live with all the gadgets from the 60s, you don't need double income. You probably only need part of the first income. data
Do we live better? well, living better depends not only on income, but also health and education. And there was significant progress. more data -- but only since the 80s, although I will submit to you this interesting graph of child mortality: graph .
So what is obvious to you is in fact plain wrong. And this is a big issue, because you are not the only one: hardly anyone looks at the actual data to decide whether things are really getting worse. BTW, one of the things is getting worse in the US these days, and that is inequality. Look for the graphs showing the gini coefficient.
And before I conclude, one last graph, showing the effect of women's education on family size -- because you are arguing, whether you realise it or not, that half of the potential workforce should get no education. And sadly, this half will be women. graph Push the play button. Largish families of the sixties and stay-at-home mothers are a consequence of a largely uneducated female population, forced in that role. And it's a guy telling you that.
My argument is that although the system of education (any system of education) can and should be improved, it'll probably always involve some teachers, if only as a facilitators and guides. Because it seems to be the most effective structure for the greater number.
Also, if you want to improve the education system, and you can teach yourself, you are probably deeply unqualified to have an opinion on what works, because it puts you in the tiny minority of people who do not need an education system in the first place and will always wonder about what the point of it may be.
You cannot build an education system for the very few wealthy, bright, with highly educated parents!
The fact that there exists people like you describe is meaningless: in the end, everyone needs education. It must therefore be available for the greatest possible number, in a form that is most appropriate to that effect. Yes, the consequence is that some tiny minority of geniuses will suffer for it. But for them, it doesn't matter, because they will learn and succeed in any circumstances!
And luck. Never forget luck.
I am sad for all those people who live in a determinist universe where all that happens to you can be explained by hard work and ambition, modulated by the amount of money you started with.
Fact, sometimes things happen to you, good and bad. Fact, these sometimes cannot be offset by any amount of brains and work.
Which is why a civilised society recognises that and helps out those people that ran into an unexpected and impossible to plan for problem. Which is why also, the richer and more advanced society is, the more taxed should be extracted, because a more complex society means also that many more things can go awry, and need to be planned for collectively -- and because more taxes do not affect your lifestyle after you are rich enough.
People saying "this is my money", "I refuse to pay for someone else lifestyle choice", "I provide for my family, why can't they?", are a problem, because they think that given the same circumstances another Bill Gates would happen. Therefore, they think that is they play their cards just right, they will become rich. And if they do become rich (this happens), they think it is purely due to them -- refusing even to acknowledge the importance of living in a society whose infrastructure allowed it. And if they become a significant minority, they will eventually destroy society.
Except that in a depressed economy, a surprisingly large amount of money is uninvested because there are not enough opportunities -- there are trillions of dollars lying around these days doing nothing because everyone piles up to be ready for the coming apocalypse. The investments creating jobs happen when the economy is booming (to an extent. money can also be spent on buying yet another Picasso, which helps no one).
Now if the money in the bank looks like it will be taxed or inflated away (fat chance for the latter, the fed has given up on its inflation target) then its odds of getting invested get better.
In periods of crisis, rising taxes on the wealthy both helps make up for the shortfall in income and gets more money invested.
I think Buddhism is more of a philosophy than a religion as such -- how important the mystical aspects are depend on the individual, guess. But I think a lot of our disagreement comes from the fact that we also don't agree/did not define what is really meant by being religious.
But yeah, Dune is probably more anti organised religion than anti-religion.
In Dune, the empire is not secular. The Orange Catholic Bible is very much the law: the interdiction of thinking machines is a religious interdiction. Also, the Fremen are religious, and this is what allows Paul to manipulate them -- but he clearly hates that (he mentions Stilgar turning from a friend into a believer). Later Leto II makes himself into a god, also in the hope to disgust humanity forever of such things.
The only people who are clearly not religious are the Guild, the Bene Guesserit, and Ix -- and they use religion as a tool to manipulate others, the BG being the worse offenders. In fact, this book is almost entirely about religion and how it shapes societies.
The Fremen are Zen-Sunnis, the Empire is Protestant-Catholic, the Tleilaxu are -- I think -- Buddhist-Shias ; all are amusing contradictions. The Guild are mathematicians, and the Ixians technologists. The whole universe is steeped in religion and religious thought.
Fair enough. We essentially disagree on the meaning of words, and since your beef is with the words, we cannot be reconciled.
There is no interest in debating words -- you clearly don't like what I said, but mostly you hate the way I said it. It would be dishonest for me to retract it, because I wrote it. It is there, for all to see. I can explain what I meant, but the words will stay. Just realise that the phrasing you think is less offencive may sound more offencive to someone else.
For the record, I also do believe that whatever I feel is probably the product of chemical imbalances in my brain. But I don't claim to be sane.
I will however note, as a parting remark, that I am in fact sorry to have offended you, because I don't like to hurt people. I wish you a good day/evening/night.
PS what's up with your nick? Religion in Dune is portrayed in a very, very bad light...
Sorry. Being delusional and forcing oneself to be continuously subject to cognitive dissonance is not mental illness. It is just illogical.
So I will rephrase: being religious is due to chemical imbalances in the brain. This is not an illness but just a by-product of evolution prevalent in the human population.
source
See? much more offencive. It is not a metaphor: just a sad fact. You feel offended, because you have personal contact with people with grave mental illness. Well, me too, and I still think what I think. "Mental illness" is about as vague as one can be, and people like you perpetuate the stigma of something which can occur to anyone, and take infinitely many forms. This does not help.
I have met more than one bright, educated scientist who also believed in a personal god. Christian and Muslim. And they all concluded that god necessarily, because he existed, was not bound by logic.
Because this is how they solved the self-consistency conundrum. I believe they are wrong, because their argument is based on the notion that the maker of rules is not bound by them and that logic is not absolute.
But yeah, people believe that. Bright, educated, self-deluded people.
We have a pretty good understanding of mathematics in higher dimensions. And they do not dispense you of logic. And higher dimensions only mean different laws, not no laws.
I should not also that there are Hindus, and Buddhists, and Taoists and I suppose even a couple Animists who do science. Now there is no reason for me to believe they are more or less wrong than you or I may be...
Also, scientists don't think things stop at the edge of our universe. Some even develop theories about other universes. But in all cases, the name of the game is designing some experiments so you can test the theory.
If think believing in some creator is narrow minded, because it makes you important. In fact, this is the only reason to believe in a creator. Rather, I believe we are just the product of random fluctuations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_energy
Personally, I believe the universe as we know it is the result of a random fluctuation on some infinite and eternal energy field.
But hey, my explanation is no better than yours -- and neither assume the existence of some personal god.
According to the Manual of American Psychologists, the majority of the population is mentally ill.
You confuse serious mental illness which requires professional help and people who are not "normal", which is the majority of us. We could all go to a psychologist for help, and most of us will be the better for it.
This is not the same as require medication or internment, or even special care. This is a completely different situation, and has nothing to do with the point which is that religious thought is, in my opinion, the mark of an unbalanced mind.
You conflate mental illness to severe cases,apparently from personal experience. I can tell you, also from personal experience, that there is a whole range of cases, from the severe to the fairly innocuous, and if illness is the word that shocks you, well, feel free to suggest another.
As for powers of conversion, I don't believe I have any, nor do I try to convert anyone. It is actually offencive to me that you would accuse me of preaching.
But what if you find the laws of physics make it possible for the universe to generate itself spontaneously?
Then you retreat always further back until believing in god is basically believing in the universe.
You have a view of religion I can certainly sympathise with, though -- but it is a view that could well label you as a closet atheist for certain "Christians" ;)
No, "ideas which can be tested" can also be expressed in logical symbols (maths). In fact, it is necessarily the case. Yes, scientists don't say that enough, because math is deemed frightening and a put-off to the general public.
"the Earth's crust consists of plates that move about driven by currents in the mantle" translates to a map of the currents (a vector field) which in turns becomes a prediction of positions in the past and the future (numbers) which get to be measured. Further, the map of the currents, because of the consistency of the universe translates into a map of forces acting on the Earth crust. And the study of these yields interesting insights on paleontology, planet formation and cosmology. It's all linked by maths.
However, it is infinitely arrogant to know that all physical laws derive from a single set of more fundamental laws -- you should be aware that it is a belief. "Publicly testing" has nothing to do with it -- just that if it isn't, why should we believe the conclusions?
Well, if you believe in a simultaqneously omnipotent and omniscient being, you are being logically inconsistent.
Or maybe you don't believe in god. Just you don't like admitting it.
Believing in magic, to the extent that is affects your actions, despite amazingly an amazingly bad track record at predicting anything, is not the sign of a sane mind.
For the record, I don't think people I disagree with are mentally ill (that would be crazy). I think religious people are, but no one helps them as it is a socially accepted illness. I also think only a small minority of people who call themselves religious really are so. The rest are just hypocrits.
Sorry about your parent, though, I know it's hard.
By the definition of axiom, this is not actually a valid theory of the universe...