Which is more believable: God or Global Warming

[Mr. Laz]

Double spin-off thread and with a Poll no less!!





Ready, Set .................. Go!!!

[Simplex3]

Originally Posted by C-Mac

I wont tell you I have tons of answers......, but I do have a question, where did everyone get the notion that Eve ate an apple?

Skip was there, he saw it. I believe he said something about "see, I knew that stupid b**ch noob was going to f**k this up", but that got redacted from the Bible.

[Adept Havelock]

Originally Posted by Simplex3

Actually, your test doesn't disprove the zero gravity theory. If something doubles in size every second it's growth is exponential, therefore the speed of the surface is constantly increasing. The further away you start, the faster it will be going when it reaches you.

Your scenario doesn't "prove" gravity any more than jumping off of a car going 50 in front of a car going 100. The differential will still kill you.

True, I chose an overly simplistic example, but I figured most people here were smart enough to know I was being largely facetious.

Besides, I have no need to prove the Law of gravity. The Universal Gravitational Constant (among many other scientific facts) does that for me.

Should I just include you with gochiefs and his neo-hippy psuedo-science, or are you just performing the office of Advocatus Diaboli?

[Simplex3]

Originally Posted by Adept Havelock

True, I chose an overly simplistic example, but I figured most people here were smart enough to know I was being largely facetious.

Besides, I have no need to prove the Law of gravity. The Universal Gravitational Constant (among many other scientific facts) does that for me.

Or should I just include you with gochiefs and his neo-hippy psuedo-science?

Including me with hippy anything is liable to get you a beat down.

I'm a "don't know" kind of guy. I know nothing as a fact, though I have many accepted realities so that I can deal with daily life. Is there a God? I don't know. Does any of this actually exist? I don't know. I believe in impermanance, but I don't have any unimpeachable empirical evidence to support that belief.

[ChiefFripp]

I believe there is a god ( a higher form of intelligence that created everything), but I don't think any human could possibly know exactly what God is.

Global warming exist plain and simple...no philosophical debate there.

[C-Mac]

Originally Posted by Amnorix

Actually, nearly all of science is based on theories and theories stacked on theories. Whether or not they are RIGHT is not known for certain (hence, "theory") but any valid theory has yet to be disproved by evidence yet found.

Are you planning to expounding on this or are you sticking to your guns?

Originally Posted by Amnorix

Religion, meanwhile, is simply faith. Believe it or don't. No proof, no evidence, nothing.

I guess "proof" & "evidence" and "nothing" are all relevant terms. You can say there is no proof that Jesus existed but yet you dont hesitate to write the evidence of the year 2006 on your checks. Until you can find me a scientist who create life from "nothing", then all bets for the evolution theory are still off. All the science known to man cannot disprove the existance of a creator.

[Adept Havelock]

Originally Posted by Simplex3

Including me with hippy anything is liable to get you a beat down.

Fair enough. I can certainly understand that attitude. It's just my label for most "new-agey" pseudo science. "Zero Gravity" theory ranks up there with Phrenology. Though I must admit lately I've become curious about Retro-Phrenology (causing behaviors by inducing specific lumps and dents on the cranium). I've been having trouble finding people willing to act as experimental subjects, for some reason.

Originally Posted by Simplex3

I'm a "don't know" kind of guy. I know nothing as a fact, though I have many accepted realities so that I can deal with daily life. Is there a God? I don't know. Does any of this actually exist? I don't know. I believe in impermanance, but I don't have any unimpeachable empirical evidence to support that belief.

Damn...and I thought I was a skeptic.

You know nothing as a fact? As I said before, it's a fact that in Base 10 mathematics 2+2 always equals 4, regardless of perspective.

I also believe in impermanance, but I have empirical evidence of it. It's called the Second Law of Thermodynamics. As C.P. Snow put it:
"You cannot break even (you cannot return to the same energy state, because there is always an increase in disorder; entropy always increases)."

[Adept Havelock]

Originally Posted by C-Mac

All the science known to man cannot disprove the existance of a creator.

By an amazing conincidence, it also cannot prove it.

Science is based on logic, and by the rules of logic, one cannot prove a negative. It therefore follows your statement above is at best, nonsensical.

As far as Science is concerned, a "creator" remains a concept based entirely on faith. As I said before, there is no room for the "supernatural" in Natural Science.

[Simplex3]

Originally Posted by Adept Havelock

Though I must admit lately I've become curious about retro-phrenology (causing behaviors by inducing specific lumps and dents on the cranium).

Now THAT is some funny s**t.

[Hammock Parties]

AH, you should read scott adams book, or at least the that last chapter. Scott himself is a huge skeptic. I don't know that I believe him, and in fact, he says he's not even sure himself. But it did give me something to think about.

[Adept Havelock]

Originally Posted by GoChiefs

AH, you should read scott adams book, or at least the that last chapter. Scott himself is a huge skeptic. I don't know that I believe him, and in fact, he says he's not even sure himself. But it did give me something to think about.

I've read most of it. I think I made it clear I wasn't impressed. I can only roll my eyes so many times before I put down a book.

If you enjoyed it, I'm guess I'm happy for you. Given my choice of his writings, I vastly prefer "Dilbert" and "The Way of the Weasel".

[C-Mac]

Originally Posted by Adept Havelock

By an amazing conincidence, it also cannot prove it.
Science is based on logic, and using your suppostion, one cannot prove a negative.
The "creator" remains a concept based entirely on faith.

Well its a bit weightier than entire faith for we exist either by means of the evolution theory or we exist from a creator. Science is based on logic and order verses illogic and chaos. So understanding these facts, I would say that a creator has a bit more that a 50/50 shot here.

[Adept Havelock]

Originally Posted by C-Mac

Well its a bit weightier than entire faith for we exist either by means of the evolution theory or we exist from a creator. Science is based on logic and order verses illogic and chaos. So understanding these facts, I would say that a creator has a bit more that a 50/50 shot here.

Actually, it's not a zero sum game. The third possibility is a scientific process that is yet to be considered.
Careful there, you might just prove the existence of God, and then where would you be?

Originally Posted by Douglas Adams

"The Babel fish," said The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy quietly, "is small, yellow and leech-like, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy not from its carrier but from those around it. It absorbs all unconscious mental frequencies from this brainwave energy to nourish itself with. It then excretes into the mind of its carrier a telepathic matrix formed by combining the conscious thought frequencies with nerve signals picked up from the speech centres of the brain which has supplied them. The practical upshot of all this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language. The speech patterns you actually hear decode the brainwave matrix which has been fed into your mind by your Babel fish.

"Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mindboggingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as the final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.

"The argument goes something like this: `I refuse to prove that I exist,' says God, `for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.'

"`But,' says Man, `The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED.'

"`Oh dear,' says God, `I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanished in a puff of logic.

"`Oh, that was easy,' says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.

"Most leading theologians claim that this argument is a load of dingo's kidneys, but that didn't stop Oolon Colluphid making a small fortune when he used it as the central theme of his best-selling book Well That About Wraps It Up For God.
"Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation."

Fascinating how Douglas Adams forsaw the very basis of all ID arguments.

[Hammock Parties]

Originally Posted by Adept Havelock

I've read most of it. I think I made it clear I wasn't impressed. I can only roll my eyes so many times before I put down a book.

If you enjoyed it, I'm guess I'm happy for you. Given my choice of his writings, I vastly prefer "Dilbert" and "The Way of the Weasel".

So you think there's zero merit, despite the double slit experiment?

[Adept Havelock]

Originally Posted by GoChiefs

So you think there's zero merit, despite the double slit experiment?

As I understand it, the "Double Slit" experiment only attempts to disprove the theory that the present is a quantum gravity interface which, as it moves through time, compresses Time into a system of relativistic blocks.

I think it's an interesting phenonmenon. I certainly don't buy the idea that it somehow proves all reality is subjective. To me, the Copenhagen interpretation of the Schrödinger's cat exercise, while interesting, remains in large part mental masturbation.

In short, perhaps not "zero merit". That said, I do not believe it signifies what Scott Adams is stating it does.

[C-Mac]

Originally Posted by Adept Havelock

Actually, it's not a zero sum game. The third possibility is a scientific process that is yet to be considered.
Careful there, you might just prove the existence of God, and then where would you be?

I would probably be still here on the Planet debating with someone why it is that God wont let the Chiefs go to another Superbowl.