Go for it.

This had better be satire...

Check out my profile for some good physics based warnings....

"This is not a theory suitable for children."

Or for people of similar intellect to the author, apparently.

Mathematics is, after all, a liberal art.

If anyone has the link to the Onion News article about 'banning evolution' because it's depressing, I'd love to see it and save it.

The author is responsible for the 1963 Supreme Court decision striking down the requiremnt for all public school students to read the Bible.

On November 26, 1956 Ellery staged a protest against the school requirement that each student read 10 Bible passages and the Lord's Prayer each day during homeroom. Instead, Ellery brought a copy of the Qur'an and read from that. For this, he was sent to the Principal's office. With the help of his father Edward Schempp and the American Civil Liberties Union, sued the Abington School district over their policy of mandatory Bible readings.

Over several years, Ellery, his father, and later his younger siblings Roger and Donna continued to fight this policy in the courts. The Schempps were Unitarian Universalists, who do not necessarily believe in the divinity of Jesus or agree with the Bible. The case was eventually settled in Ellery's favor by the Supreme Court in 1963, five years after he had graduated from high school.

from:http://www.dictionaryofeverything.com/explore/663/Ellery_Schempp.html

This is a well-known satire. However it was more or less intended to be taken seriously by certain elements (who would then embarrass themselves). There have been a number of pranks like this, most notably the time where Alan Sokal of NYU punked the postmodern-theory-gibberish journal Social Text.

Fuzzy math! Fuzzy math!

I really thought I was reading satire... but it isn't.

This web site is about helping people know more about the Catholic Church. For non-believers, this site makes a strong case for theism, and Christianity in general. It shows that God is transcendent and immanent and revealed Himself in Jesus Christ. We are always looking for good writings in defense of theism, especially Christian theism and those articles shall be included in our Philosophy or Apologetics sections. The bringyou.to domain is ranked high at Google/Yahoo (thanks be to God), so your articles will get good exposure.

This is pretty neat. It clearly is written and intended as a satire (see the part italicized below)--but the site's owner seems to not realize it!

It is safe to say that without the Theory of Gravity, there would be no talk about a Big Bang, and important limitations in such sports as basketball would be lifted. This would greatly benefit the games and enhance revenue as is proper in a faith-based, free-enterprise society.

The theory of gravity violates common sense in many ways. Adherents have a hard time explaining, for instance, why airplanes do not fall. Since anti-gravity is rejected by the scientific establishment, they resort to lots of hand-waving. The theory, if taken seriously, implies that the default position for all airplanes is on the ground. While this is obviously true for Northwest airplanes (relying on A Wing and a Prayer), it appears that Jet Blue and Southwest have a superior theory that effectively harnesses forces that overcome so-called gravity.

As far as I can tell from the rest of the site, the site maintainer doesn't even realize he's posted an article written as satire in opposition to gravity.


BTW I was hoping the kind of warnings the physics textbook would include, would be warnings about getting too much plutonium together and reaching critical mass, and accidentally nuking your city. Or about the dangers inherent in building an amateur railgun. Cool stuff that would get kids interested.

Tiga: I read that as "psycho" textbooks. Those SHOULD have a warning, as far as I'm concerned.

If only psycho women had a warning label, also.

check out the author's bio: http://www.dictionaryofeverything.com/explore/663/Ellery_Schempp.html

that confirms this is total satire, as the author is apparently a brilliant physicist.

I love to see creationists/non-believers in evolution sputter and make up bullshiat when they say "it's only a theory" and respond with "so's gravity"

My first approved link. And approved within a few hours at that.

Dude, I so want this blown up to poster size to go on a wall in my classroom.

ZAZ:

At some level any scientific theory boils down to "because God said so." We seem to be farther away from that point with gravity. The speculations of string theory, long on faith and short on testable predictions, might as well be religious proclamations.

*sigh* No.

Science describes what is actually observed to be true in the universe, not why we imagine God did whatever, or why we should think or do certain things. Religion describes things that we've never seen, that fly in the face of observed reality, that you're expected to believe on faith.

Science tells you what you can expect to happen in a future situation, based on what has been observed already, and it is extremely reliable. The controversial parts of religion tell you what will happen in an imagined future situation (heaven) which will only be relevant in a hoped-for afterlife.

No post from Bevets yet?
Awesome article, although, to be fair, it looks like the author just grabbed something that Bevets would not approve of and just changed a couple words.

too bad you never see warnings like that in religious texts

whew...good thing this is satire, you guys saved me some time in explaining why einstein's theory doesn't follow the second law of thermodynamics in gr to discredit the first major argument in this thing :D

loraksus: No post from Bevets yet?

All farkers must be made aware that gravity is an atheist fairy tale.

The existence of tides is often taken as a proof of gravity, but this is logically flawed. Because if the moon's gravity were responsible for a bulge underneath it, then how can anyone explain a high tide on the opposite side of the earth at the same time? Anyone can observe that there are 2 -- not 1 -- high tides every day.

Sigh....

how obtuse.

Farking God, holding us down.

while riding the metro to watch the fireworks in DC monday morning, I overheard this (paraphrasing): in the creation story, it said god made plants and animals and the planet first, and then the stars and sun, so that means photosynthesis is a load of crap.

I shudder to think my children might go to school with people like this one day.

As a Phyicist myself, LOL

That's an awesome joke. They should go further.

As Gravity is only a theory, we believe it may run out at any time, or even reversing, catapulting everyone into space. As a precaution, we recommend parking your car in a garage or chaining it to the ground when not in use. Remember to keep all dogs on a leash so it can act as a tether. The loss of oxygen to space will kill us all, but if the loss of gravity is only temporary, the ensuing fall will be deadly... Unless of course gravity reverses itself just before you hit the ground so you don't die, but if you keep getting yo-yoed in the air, then maybe it'd be pretty fun.

From the February 2005 issue of Scientific American:

Sticker Shock by Steve Mirsky

How many general relativists does it take to change a light bulb? Two. One holds the bulb, while the other rotates the universe.

/meh, I'd hit it

I want some of whatever this guy is smoking.

yeah, it literally looks like he went after every 'odd' effect of gravity that IS demonstratable and provable, but not necessarily intuitive (opposition tides, plantary rings, etc) ... i feel better.

mmmm.... fuzzy math
divide for me you freak
oh yes!! YES!!

Despite Einstein being one of the more prolific physicist of the 20th century, his contributions to internet slang were minimal, or so we thought. The photographic evidence of Prof. Einstein writing the word 'LOL' clearly demonstrates that this field was not untouched by his brilliance.

2005-07-06 09:47:37 PM Donald_McRonald
loraksus: No post from Bevets yet?
All farkers must be made aware that gravity is an atheist fairy tale.

And a COMMUNIST one at that.
Note to people who didn't think this was satire. If people start ranting about how x theory is communist, they are either a farking crackpot or the article is satire. Of course, if your bullshiat meter didn't start going off by the end of the first paragraph, you probably went to a public school in Kansas.

Physics - In highschool, our teacher had some kind of chemical that would show how much energy is stored in a single M&M. And taught us how fast we would fall at the meter/second/second if we jumped from somewhere, until terminal velocity was reached... I understood all that...

Now, math on the other hand, when they started adding in *imaginary* numbers, I was like WTF are those? Some douche didn't have an answer so he just created something...

But, I have realised the errors of my way... How the hell else could we "throw" a dishwasher at half of Manhatten at a distance of 83 million miles, and hit the friggin thing?

/used to believe it was all BS, now I am putting on my foil hat

"Where is your god now? Where is your mercifull little c*ck sucker?"

ROFLicopter!!!!

These teaser stories slay me! Now it's time for whackjobs to start referring to it to support thier ill-conceived dogmas.

and should the bible be in the fiction or non-fiction section.

then again,,the jehova wittness's bible only allows 200,000 of them to get in to heaven. they have already exceeded that. so where do the rest go?

according to ned flanders,,cavemen did not exist.

and the earth is only 6,000 years old...

without gravity,,,you'd bump your head on the planes in the sky.

if you don't believe in gravity,, then you should be able to walk on water or cross a gully without a bridge.

The Bible Warning Label:

http://www.strangecosmos.com/content/item/108543.html

That was a thing of beauty.

Well, the Catholic Church burned Galileo for being a scientist.


Oh, wait...that was Giordano Bruno.

Some douche didn't have an answer so he just created something...

That douche happens to be my great-great-great-great-great grandfather!

As I've said before, when you go drilling for oil, you choose your spots based on likely deposits, based on plate techtonics and unquestioned (because never disproven) planetary evolution. Saudi Arabia, for example, was a forested area that got compressed after millions of years. Hence, oil.

For some reason this came to my head:



To all those Americans that just can't stand it that their country is getting more stupid by the minute: Why don't you move to Canada or Mexico? I heard Canada's a good place, and Mexico is getting the exact opposite cultural/social movement that the US has (and no Paris Hilton worshipping here, thank God).

/No, really. Escape stupidity
//Please, do it
/// Don't loose your precious IQ
////Slashy

QuietSound
I'll pretend i didnt notice you dredging up this very link earlier today... it is a doozy though.
/congrats on the green light

Hahahaha!

Brilliant.

I am a physics minor from CMU. Gravity is pretty cool. 9.86 m/s^2. And some rocket science is easy.

I also know God exists, Jesus is Lord. He spoke to me,"Good News", then I recieved a Good News bible. Thats the only time God ever spoke to me, and it wasn't just my imagination since I recieved a Good News bible soon after. You can claim I'm a lying, but if I was lying, I'd be going against God, and there isn't anything to gain in it.

In the Creation Story states that day and night was created before the Sun and the Moon. It does sound odd that the plants were created before the Sun, but many pieces of God's work mystify us.

Umm, if NASA used physics to hit a comet millions of lightyears away, then I sorta think they know what they're talking about.

/waiting for someone to catch it

this is by far, the dumbest thing I've read in a long, LONG time...

Gravity is a theory, straight out says so. aero major by the way. It is useful in describing certain things. Couple things though...Jupiter has rings, the 2nd law of thermodynamics isn't violated by planets b/c they're not hitting a measureable amount of particles in their path. In other words big planet, small object, no change for the purpose of calculations. We can't measure things that accurately.
Imaginary numbers have a use in simplifying calculations, used for electrical engineering and for analyzing singularities/black holes/sources of water/sinks of water/weird small places in a system.

If anyone knows please tell me why planets rotate/revolve, and dont tell me it's cause they have tangential velocity. where did they get their tangential velocity. dont say its cause the sun captured them. in all likelyhood pluto was captured, but the other planets were not. they're in nearly the same orbital plane/inclination.

mistergecko
Millions of miles away.

/caught it.

A theory is a super good guess, sometimes that we'll never be able to prove ie theory of gravity. othertimes we'll be able to prove it someday ie molecules exist, atoms exist, mabye something smaller exists with a super awesome microscope. Sometimes a theory becomes a law when they believe it's proved, and can be violated and still be a law. Matter cannot be created or destroyed. Unless you're dealing with nukes, this holds.

crazyjim

Isn't gravity 9.81m/s/s?......

The reason that most of them do not move to Canada is that they do not allow felons.

All though this guy is a bit of a loon and a warning label is over the top he does raise interesting points.

How can we be so arrogant to know everything about the universe that we can call it fact? Everyday, things that we once accepted are not as they appear anymore.

An example of our understanding of the universe collapsing is "Zeno's paradox"(GIS it) . It's a cool little failing of our concept of space and time that's been known for centuries. We just ignore it because we have no way of explaining it at this point in time.

New Group Hopes To Break Monopoly On Gravity Theory

A Georgia group calling itself Teachers for Equal Time has asked that stickers be placed in all new physics textbooks which note that mutual attraction and relativity are not the only theories available to explain gravity and should not be taken as fact.

Teachers for Equal Time hopes that the addition of the warning stickers will pave the way for the teaching of its alternative theory, Intelligent Grappling, the theory that certain intelligent and conscious agents "push" things together.

Dr Elf M. Sternberg, the originator of the theory of Intelligent Grappling, or "IG" as some call it, and president of Teachers for Equal Time, announced the group's plans to seek legislation requiring the stickers at a Cobb County school board meeting.

"Mutual attraction has had a monopoly on the truth for too long," said Dr. Sternberg, "it is time we let children see all of the theories."

Dr Sternberg founded Teachers for Equal Time soon after getting his PhD from the Alabama School of Divine Motion.

Most mainstream scientists have concluded current theories of gravity are sufficiently capable of explaining such things as the motion of planets and why things fall.

Dr Sternberg denies this conclusion and claims the popular theory of gravity "doesn't explain why objects fall, it just describes what they do."

"There are theories by atheists and secular humanists that try to explain gravity," explains Dr Sternberg, "but they all lead to crazy conclusions no human being has ever seen, like black holes and the so-called "Big Bang". Intelligent Grappling only deals with the visible world."

Daniel Mason, a Georgia science teacher, is critical of Intelligent Grappling Theory and claims "IG theory isn't at all scientific. It appears to just be a thin veneer for the idea that 'little angels' push things around. This is a religious idea, not a scientific one, and as such has no place in science class."

"I'm not saying they're little angels," says Dr Sternberg, "Intelligent Grappling only says that conscious agents are the cause of all apparent 'gravitic' phenomenon. There's no religion involved."

and there he is...

That site is satire, right?

I am definitely printing that out and giving it to my friend at NASA. I want to see him have an aneurysm.

"There are numerous other flaws. For example, astronomers, who seem to have a fetish for gravity, tell us that the moon rotates on its axis but at the same time it always presents the same face to the earth. This is patently absurd."



Uhh, the author's statement is easily proven wrong. Just from logic alone, put an X on a ball and move it around an object with the X pointing towards the object at all times. Voila, you have something rotating on its axis, but showing only one side to the object it rotates around...

crazyjim doesn't know what he's talkin bout
9.81 m/s^2
32.186 ft/s^2
stupid english units gimme kelvin, stupid rankine

2005-07-06 10:14:52 PM billsil


A theory is a super good guess, sometimes that we'll never be able to prove ie theory of gravity. othertimes we'll be able to prove it someday ie molecules exist, atoms exist, mabye something smaller exists with a super awesome microscope. Sometimes a theory becomes a law when they believe it's proved, and can be violated and still be a law. Matter cannot be created or destroyed. Unless you're dealing with nukes, this holds.

AFAIK, people don't really like labling things laws as much nowadays, after Einstein was all like "Well, this Neuton fellow was rather smart, but he missed a bit". Plus there's the whole dichotomy between the theory and the phenomenon. For gravity, you have the theory (all the equations and such) and the phenomenon (things fall, usually). For electricity, you have the theory (equations, again) and the phenomenon (your computer works, sometimes). For evolution, you have the theory (natural selection and such) and the phenomenon (things in the ground look different from things not in the ground, except for the things that don't look as different). And so it goes for the rest.

davidshi123: Uhh, the author's statement is easily proven wrong.


I think that's the whole point.

theToadMan
An example of our understanding of the universe collapsing is "Zeno's paradox"(GIS it) . It's a cool little failing of our concept of space and time that's been known for centuries. We just ignore it because we have no way of explaining it at this point in time.

I was given to understand that the fallacy in Zeno's paradox lay in an assumption of a quantified universe as opposed to a continuous universe. An easy solution that makes use of a continuous universe: redefine the halves.

OPM: "Well, this Neuton fellow was rather smart, but he missed a bit"

I like that. The next particle they find should be called a Neuton.

The real problem is that these religious whackos don't live in the real world and they don't really understand what science is. The concept of a scientific theory is just too complicated for them. These are people who have been trained from birth to think that asking questions is sinful.

The moon points towards the earth all the time cause of a gravity gradient. Basically there is more mass to the moon on the side we see, than the side we dont. lagrange points are cool. They're a couple points in between the earth and the moon where net gravitational force is effectively zero. You still got the Sun, other planets to worry about, but really close to zero.

billsil

please tell me why planets rotate/revolve

Short Answer: conservation of angular momentum.

Bevets:

The difference between evolution mythology and the theory of gravity is that the theory of gravity was not devised soley to exclude God.

Gravity doesn't exclude God? The Theory of Gravity means that God isn't the one keeping you from floating away, but instead, it's the force between two bodies of mass.

Btw, for everyone who is saying it's satire/the guys crazy, it's actually just a rather accurate anallogy to the opposition of evolutionary theory. Gravity is used with sarcasm because it is such an obvious, and apparent penomenon that the author assumes thinking people know it to be true. Just as evolution is an observable phenomenon that actually happens in our world.

Heh, yeah, its 9.81 m/ss. Sorry for the typo. There's no way I could do 20 digits of pi, let alone 80,000.

whatshisname
I like that. The next particle they find should be called a Neuton.

The government is working on developing a Neuton bomb right now.

If evolution is outlawed then only outlaws will evolve.


Best bumpahstickah evah!

also, it is sad that at this time people cannot assume this article is sarcasm because it is conceivable that there are some people who actually think this way.

but HOW did the planet GET angular momentum?

the centrifugal force on the far side is greater than the moon's gravitational force in that area so you get the second high tide. the earth rotates through the two bulges giving two tides per day.

/edification

Aldo Leopold
Btw, for everyone who is saying it's satire/the guys crazy, it's actually just a rather accurate anallogy to the opposition of evolutionary theory. Gravity is used with sarcasm because it is such an obvious, and apparent penomenon that the author assumes thinking people know it to be true. Just as evolution is an observable phenomenon that actually happens in our world.

That's what makes it satire.

billsil

From an intelligent creator.. Duh...

Corvus: Can some anti-evolution person please explain to me all the other othe Homo species


Don't ask. Anti-evolutionists also hate Homos.

Corvus:

Can some anti-evolution person please explain to me all the other othe Homo species like the neanderthals?

Why do you turn to these people for "logic?" They'll either:

A. Say something that is COMPLETELY unfounded.
B. Say something that was at ONE POINT thought to be true, but had been shown to be wrong like a decade ago.
C. Say something that is COMPLETELY unrelated to your question.

2005-07-06 10:16:53 PM Bevets


The difference between evolution mythology and the theory of gravity is that the theory of gravity was not devised soley to exclude God.

I'd have to respectfully disagree with you on that point, Bevets. You're a nice, polite poster with a unique discussion style, but it seems to me that you didn't think this point all the way through. Gravity was obviously crafted to exclude God from his place in the universe.

I mean, think about gravity. Supposedly every particle on the universe, no matter how small, is supposed to pull on every other particle in the universe, no matter how far away. In other words, properties similar to omnipotence and omnipresence have been attributed to every random little bit of mass, even infinitismal specks that we couldn't possibly hope to ever directly observe. And they exert this universal force constantly, for the entire duration of their existence, without actually sending any sort of carrier particle for the force. They don't even try to give any actual mechanisms, except for relativity, which is an obvious bit of insanity. Space bending? More attributing of God-like properties to inanimate specks.

billsil: but HOW did the planet GET angular momentum?

God was bored and gave it a spin?

I'm fine with thinking there's a God, btw, even with thinking there's one that created the universe. I don't believe religious leaders (let alone religious political leaders) have any supreme insight into what an unfathomably complex and powerful God wants, or what s/he/it did in the past, or anything like that, and I think you'd have to be supremely full of shiat or deluded to claim such special knowledge of God's nature and intent. Especially basing that claim on a book of tribal myths.

Even accepting that there probably is something like a God, I don't think "God" can serve any purpose as an explanation of phenomena in the universe. Even if God did create it, and all the laws, what good does that do for us to assume? It doesn't give us so much as a splinter of useful leverage in understanding how the universe works, or what things we can do in and expect in it.

How does a planet that has no moon rotate? I dunno if I buy that the sun can torque a planet...point mass and such b/c if that were the case they'd be a net torque on the earth, and it would continually rotate faster until everything on it just flew off. We'll cept for that last part.

Alright, I thought parody would have been a better description, but after looking up an actually definition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satire) I guess they both fit.

billsil


An intelligent creator made it that way.. Duhh..

Not much of a flame war.

Where are the regular firebreathers?

Here's some bait:

- Creationism is nonsense that no one with any scientific clue can subscribe to.
- The bible is fiction. This includes the cute story about how the old man rose the land from the waters, made all the animals, etc.
- You may think you have spoken to JHVH or Yeshua ben Yusef, or that they have spoken to you. I am positive that it was either a) imagiantion or b) wishful thinking or c) both.

billsil - "If anyone knows please tell me why planets rotate/revolve"

Okay, as I understand it, it all begins with gas - a big cloud of hydrogen floating in space. It collapses in on its center due to gravity, pulled in on its own weight, and becomes a dense spheroid of hydrogen. But there's not room for it all to come straight in, it has to spin, like water going down a drain. So, spinning ball of gas, yadda yadda yadda, some quantum physics happens, and it becomes the sun.

So now we have the sun, and it's spinning. Now, something happens to the dynamics of the sun (I'm a little shaky on details here; I think the sun ran short on hydrogen, and became cooler and denser as it switched to helium?) Anyway, the sun suddenly throws out a lot of mass from its equator - the great circle perpendicular to its axis of rotation. This mass, because it came from the spinning sun, has some of its rotational inertia; that is, it's spinning too, as well as orbiting around the sun. Most of it clumps up due to gravity, and becomes the planets, spinning and orbiting. (This also explains why the planets are all [besides Pluto] orbiting in the same plane - they were all thrown out from the sun's equator.)

/ I have a BS degree in Physics, can you tell?
// Not an astronomer; correct me where I'm wrong.

Seriously davidshi123

I hate that excuse tho. WARNING: Atheist speech. I like to try to explain everything with science. Some things you just get stuck and you just have to accept them. You end up saying oh things were always like that or b/c God made it like that. I think that if God exists he said follow gravity, other stuff, and kinda let the universe go about it's business. Mabye he popped in once in a while, have a beer or something, mabye not.

AppleDan


I'll call your "- Creationism is nonsense that no one with any scientific clue can subscribe to."

and raise you a

"George Bush is dumbass"

billsil:

If anyone knows please tell me why planets rotate/revolve, and dont tell me it's cause they have tangential velocity. where did they get their tangential velocity. dont say its cause the sun captured them. in all likelyhood pluto was captured, but the other planets were not. they're in nearly the same orbital plane/inclination.

Before the solar system existed there was a big cloud of dust which began to fall in on itself. Possibly started by a Super Nova in a dying solar system. As things fall in, they begin rotating. I can't remember why. Maybe someone will fill in that important part.

Anyway as the stuff was falling in, crap was also being thrown out of the sun in something called the X-Wind. As the dust conglomerated several bodies survived in stable non-decaying orbits and became the planets.

Tada! There are a lot more details and corrections to be made to my description but that is essentially the reason why.


Dust cloud started collapsing, hence it rotated, hence we have revolving rotating planets.

Guys... it was clearly satire. The title of the essay is "Gravity 'is only a theory'", clearly making fun of the "Evolution 'is only a theory'" argument.

And then there are the clearly satirical references to science, but say you didnt catch on any of those.

billsil:

crazyjim doesn't know what he's talkin bout
9.81 m/s^2
32.186 ft/s^2
stupid english units gimme kelvin, stupid rankine

Seeing as gravity depends on where you are on the earth, 9.82m/s2 is a possible value. I believe 9.8m/s2 is generally what you'd use as an approximation, seeing as it can go below or above that value based on where you are.

One thing I'll never understand about the theists is how you can rationalize something like a God. Basically you figure that the universe is SO complex and SO "just right" that there MUST be some kind of intelligent design. Yet, what created the thing that does this intelligent design? The usual answer I get from you people is "well it (God) JUST IS." WTF kind of answer is that? Apparently a universe needs a creator but a creator doesn't need a creator...you accept one level of something you cannot explain to explain something else you cannot explain. That is FAR too covoluted for me to accept.

/to the monotheists...I believe in the same number of gods you do, minus one.

//to the polytheists...man, get with the times...polytheism went out like 2-3 millenia ago.

cuibono

An easy solution that makes use of a continuous universe: redefine the halves.

The problem still remains though. I doesn't matter that one half is 99.999...9% and the other is 0.000...1%. Once you get to that 99.999...9% you still halve to devide the 0.000...1% until the end of time.

TheSeer is wise. Makes a nice smelling crock of BS.
"See mom, physics is useful!" - me

And the 2 in that last post was supposed to be superscript, but the filter stripped out the <sup> tags.

/Why does the filter hate science?

billsil

The moon points towards the earth all the time cause of a gravity gradient. Basically there is more mass to the moon on the side we see, than the side we dont.

Not exactly. The Moon's rotational (both around its own axis and around Earth) energy was lost via tidal interactions with Earth, slowing down its rotation and eventually locking it into synchronous orbit.

but HOW did the planet GET angular momentum?

From the big ball of gas that was rotating before it formed the solar system.

An article by the owner of the site.

The site owner is a Catholic who's not an anti-evolutionist; he knows very well what the article is about. Yes, that's right kids, most Christians aren't idiots and psychopaths; it's just the loonies that get all the attention.

billsil: How does a planet that has no moon rotate?


What does having a moon have to do with a planet's rotation?

D'oh! And I misread the 6 as a 2. My bad. (Seeing as acceleration due to gravity is never that high on the surface of the earth.)

/Slinks off in shame
//Ok, actually just to get food

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ADVISORY: There is an Extremely Remote Chance That, Through a Process Known as "Tunneling," This Product May Spontaneously Disappear from Its Present Location and Reappear at Any Other Place in the Universe, Including Your Neighbor's Domicile. The Manufacturer Will Not Be Responsible for Any Damage or Inconvenience That May Result.

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Bevets
The difference between evolution mythology and the theory of gravity is that the theory of gravity was not devised soley to exclude God.

Actually, yes it is:
He is before all things, and in Him all things are held together

The bible clearly states that God is the force that holds things together, and the bible is innerant. Therefore Gravity - (re: atheist mythology - the study of particles no one can observe and waves no one can detect) is atheist mythology.

/clap

theToadMan
The problem still remains though. I doesn't matter that one half is 99.999...9% and the other is 0.000...1%. Once you get to that 99.999...9% you still halve to devide the 0.000...1% until the end of time.

You're talking about the sum of an infinite series. In a discontinuous universe, that goes on infinitely, but using calculus to describe a continuous universe, it can be solved. So the sum of 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8...to infinity equals 1, not .9999999... .

Zeno's paradox doesn't logically prove that we have an incomplete understanding of the universe, but instead it proves that the logic on which the paradox is based has faulty premises.

Also, a quick joke taken from this website: ( http://www.math.utah.edu/~cherk/mathjokes.html#topic3 )

A mathematician and a physicist agree to a psychological experiment. The (hungry) mathematician is put in a chair in a large empty room and his favorite meal, perfectly prepared, is placed at the other end of the room. The psychologist explains, "You are to remain in your chair. Every minute, I will move your chair to a position halfway between its current location and the meal." The mathematician looks at the psychologist in disgust. "What? I'm not going to go through this. You know I'll never reach the food!" And he gets up and storms out.
The psychologist ushers the physicist in. He explains the situation, and the physicist's eyes light up and he starts drooling. The psychologist is a bit confused. "Don't you realize that you'll never reach the food?" T he physicist smiles and replies: "Of course! But I'll get close enough for all practical purposes!"

the warning label is blue, and it says "If this label is red, you are moving waaaay too fast"

/old physics joke

2005-07-06 10:33:14 PMOPM
beat me to it...

ToeKnee666 [TotalFark]

Mathematics is, after all, a liberal art.

As a math major (and, therefore, a very lonely person), I take offense to that. Math is a hardcore science, not a liberal art.

/not that it matters.

can i have a warning label for everything?

2005-07-06 10:43:00 PM theToadMan

"cuibono

An easy solution that makes use of a continuous universe: redefine the halves."

The problem still remains though. I doesn't matter that one half is 99.999...9% and the other is 0.000...1%. Once you get to that 99.999...9% you still halve to devide the 0.000...1% until the end of time.

That's true, except when you don't go until the end of time.

For example, let's say there's a blue line on the ground a meter in front of you. Halfway between the line and you is a red line. Halfway between the blue and red lines is another red line. Halfway between the blue line and the new red line is another red line. And so on and so forth, unto infinity (A ninja did it. They're cool that way). You step to the first red line. You step to the second red line. You step to the third red line. You're going to be there a really farking long time, without ever reaching the blue line. There are an infinite number of divisions to cross, taking an infinitely long time.

Second scenarion: you're still there, the lines are the same, but instead of stepping to the first red line, you step to the blue one. "OMFG, that's impossible!1!". Well, no. Although there are an infinite number of divisions, since each division is progressively closer to the last one, the time you take to progress from division to division becomes increasingly close to zero. An infinite number of things can add to a finite thing when the things approach zero fast enough.

Summary: Calculus.

Frankly17 is using atheist materials. They use study of waves/particles in designing materials/circuits that go in the server for Fark and your 'puter. By this logic, everyone that uses something created by the use of atheist mythology is subscribing to the beliefs of the evil atheists.

/Why is atheism so bad?
//If I could, I wouldn't be atheist.

billsil: If I could, I wouldn't be atheist.


That would make a GREAT t-shirt.

/I'd buy one...

At my friends school and mabye mine someday, Computer Science is under the College of Engineering. Here it's under the College of Science. I say it should be under the College of Mathematics. Is math in the college of Science? Hmmm...the possibilties...

Interesting article linked to from the same site:

The Evolution of "Bible-Science"

It's about young-earthers/creationists, geo-centrists, and flat earthers -- in other words: people who use the bible as a science textbook.

Well, if we're telling stupid physics jokes...

Okay, so a farmer wanted to be able to figure out exactly how much milk his cow would give. So he asks a biologist. The biologist goes off for two weeks and studies the cow. When he comes back, he said, "I'm sorry, there's too many enzymes and chemicals and exterior factors. I can't write an exact formula for this."

So the farmer goes to a physicist, and asks him the same question. The physicist doesn't go near the barn, he goes off to his office. The farmer checks in on him every so often, and finds him writing arcane equations on his whiteboard and mumbling. He keeps on like that for quite a while, with no apparent progress. Two months later, the physicist comes back, and says, "Ha! I've done it! I've figured it out. Here's what you do. First, assume a spherical cow."

http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/p43.htm

That's the article I refered to. HTML seems to have been stripped out on me/I messed something up royally. Which means it's time for me to go to bed, as I can't seem to do anything right today.

Corvus
Remember that whole Science vs. Religion debate with Capernicus and Galileo? About the church saying that the Earth is the center of the universe and people who didn't believe that were saying God didn't exist?

How did that one turn out?

Scoreboard!

After evolution wins out they will no longer say it disproves God like they have always done in history.

Considering that the Church condemned Galileo for saying that the sun was the center of the universe rather than that it just seemed that way to him, and considering that he has since been proven wrong, I'd say the score goes to the Church.

Both sides were asses, and Galileo's excommunication was probably more due to personal animosities, for which the Church has since apologized, but the Church's scientific position then and now is to be open to new developments but not to teach them as likely true until they've attained a massive weight of evidence. The policy is one of critical examination and suspension of conclusion until sufficient evidence is attained,and in the meantime stick with what you've got. So even if what you've got is wrong, this prevents you from jumping on whatever bandwagon comes along next, which could also be wrong. (This is the same method that Descartes suggests as an approach to the examination of reality.)

I'm an engineer, and as we engineers all know, 1+1 = 3 for large values of 1.

No joke...once i tried to find the optimal use of material to make a box. Wrote equations, and scratched head. Some hot girl ended up drawing a couple lines on the material, and we cut it. KISS. Keep it simple stupid. KISSWSS. Keep it simple stupid wasn't so stupid.

Nerdy t-shirt in the physics wing: Gravity sucks!
Nerdy t-shirt for the aero club: My brain is stuck in a Hohmann transfer orbit. I never wore it. The front was cool though. The back...

OPM: There are an infinite number of divisions to cross, taking an infinitely long time.

That assumes that you can divide something infinitely, which is not so. There are smallest particles of matter, and smallest divisions of time and distance.

2005-07-06 10:49:51 PM Franky17
beat me to it...

Not at all, your post leads directly to a testable counter-theory to gravity, to be added to textbooks posthaste: it is God's Love, permeating the entire universe, which causes each particle to be tugged towards each other particle. The test? Well, when all of you evolutionists and gravitationalists are burning in hell, you may be surprised to note that, along with burning, you are also floating in midair. Given that there is no sane mechanism that gravitationalists can point to, this makes "God's Love" the superior theory.

That assumes that you can divide something infinitely, which is not so. There are smallest particles of matter, and smallest divisions of time and distance.

And that's where the ninja comes in!

Seriously though, going by that classification of space-time, Zeno's paradox is even easier to resolve, since you now have only a finite number of half lines you can pass.

TheSeer

I've heard that joke in many incarnations. Most people that laugh at it (or groan) are thinking "Silly physicist, cows aren't spherical"

The thing is, it's not really a joke, it's a fable. The moral of the story is that a solution for a spherical cow is better than no solution at all. If there's a joke in there at all, it's the theoretical physicists laughing at everyone else that doesn't get it.

I hail from Cobb County GA. we are the proud home of stickers in the front of every public school science book:

Well, when all of you evolutionists and gravitationalists are burning in hell, you may be surprised to note that, along with burning, you are also floating in midair

Sounds like you speak from experience.

whorehopper
I hail from Cobb County GA. we are the proud home of stickers in the front of every public school science book:

I think (nearly) everyone here already got that from the multiple previous Fark articles and the obvious reference in this article.

Also, you know by now that those stickers have been removed.

Only God can speak and have only his will come from his words. That means that every nutjob who's read the bible and done something crazy, God intended it. Every action and reaction from the words of Jesus and the old jewish prophets till now is the direct responsablity of God alone.

Think about it for a while if you must respond.

No discussion of God's gravity is complete without a stop off at GEOCENTRICTY.COM (pops). Yes, they're serious

whatshisname
you can divide time and distance infinitely. Sadly you can't divide cookies infinitely. Although we go through an infinite number of points traveling from A to B, we do it in finite steps, in which we move through a finite amount of space. Strange huh? Makes me wonder how big the universe is, and can we get to the end...I want a cookie.

St. Apatheism
Only God can speak and have only his will come from his words. That means that every nutjob who's read the bible and done something crazy, God intended it. Every action and reaction from the words of Jesus and the old jewish prophets till now is the direct responsablity of God alone.

Think about it for a while if you must respond.

*Waves farewell to Free Will.*

Only God can speak and have only his will come from his words. That means that every nutjob who's read the bible and done something crazy, God intended it. Every action and reaction from the words of Jesus and the old jewish prophets till now is the direct responsablity of God alone.

So, when does freewill come into play? And, are you saying it's god's intent to kill babies?

St. Apatheism:

Only God can speak and have only his will come from his words. That means that every nutjob who's read the bible and done something crazy, God intended it. Every action and reaction from the words of Jesus and the old jewish prophets till now is the direct responsablity of God alone.

In other words, "Who are you to question why your God doesn't want me to believe in Him?"

whatshisname:

There are smallest particles of matter, and smallest divisions of time and distance.

Glad to see you know things that no one else does, why haven't you written any papers? You're worse than the crackhead I knew who said he could make gold but just wouldn't do it, that selfish asshole.

to infinity and beyond

whatshisname:

That assumes that you can divide something infinitely, which is not so. There are smallest particles of matter, and smallest divisions of time and distance.

And they are?

I thought it was making fun of the physicist's tendency to simplify things - assume a frictionless surface, or no air resistance, or whatever. Just because we're right to do it doesn't mean it's not funny.

But an engineer once solved a real problem for Perdue by assuming spherical, frictionless chickens. (I'm serious! Apparently they were moving them around with vacuum pumps, and needed to know how much underpressure to use... Okay, this is sounding faker and faker. But it's true!)

I concur that the site owner knows this is satire.

There are many articles on this site that answer Evangelical or Fundamentalist anti-Catholic polemics. I try to be mostly polite in my discussions, and toss in a little humor now and then.

The Einstein picture alone should be the tip-off. Current Catholic teaching is that faith and science can coexist. Neither can be used to explain the other.

God can't know everything and be immune to culpability at the same time.

1+1=2

St. Apatheism

I think that whatshisname is referring to the Planck length and time. I'm not sure what he means by the smallest particle of matter. (Last I heard, the jury was still out on that one.) You physics gurus, chime in and educate me.

yotta:

Current Catholic teaching is that faith and science can coexist. Neither can be used to explain the other.

Respect for the Catholic church has gained a level!

damn funny submission.

St. Apatheism:

"Current Catholic teaching is that faith and science can coexist. Neither can be used to explain the other."

Respect for the Catholic church has gained a level!

That was the major new feature in PJP 2.0.

cue LiberalAssKicker to emphatically defend the story as true in 5..4..3..

mookielove: Planck length and time

Because we exist we must be finite, what's so genius about that anyhow?

I agree with the wise Seer. Its funny to engineers, cause we do it, not cause cows aren't spherical. I'd make it a box. It fit in its square pen better.

it's about time someone started putting forward an alternative to general relativity. it's not even a quantum theory! besides, it's really damned hard to do the calculations. have you ever calculated the christoffel symbols? it can be really tedious, and all of the indices turn your head to mush.

I couldn't even read it past the first line...'it's only a theory, and not a very good one at that,' 'it's religious,' ha.

I hate these people who are ignorantly clutching at something that is just farking IMPOSSIBLE!

I'd sooner believe we're someone's hamster farm or something like that... I read somewhere that gravity is the only universal force (of the 4) that they don't know why it works, but they have mathemeticians who could explain it...using no less than 11 dimensions.

Yeah.

1. length
2. width
3. depth
4. time
5. x
6. y
7 z
...

crazy stuff.

proteus_b:

it's about time someone started putting forward an alternative to general relativity. it's not even a quantum theory! besides, it's really damned hard to do the calculations. have you ever calculated the christoffel symbols? it can be really tedious, and all of the indices turn your head to mush.

I did on another thread but it's too crazy to ever fit into anything but some future religion or something.

There comes a point in time where science needs to take a step back and realize it's done all it can and if we can't live with what we have then too bad. Crazy things are crazy because no one can explain them.

Well, we have a set of fundimental "particles." Eighteen, according to the Standard Model: six quarks, six leptons, six exchange particles.

By the way, excellent quote from Franky17's link:

"However, II Timothy 3:16 tells us that the Bible is authoritative in all that it touches upon, science included."

That's some of the best circular logic I've ever seen.

Who can explain the multiple gravitational forces theory? That different forces we lump into one called gravity. Dunno exactly what I'm talking about.

First off, I'll admit I haven't read this entire thread, so someone may have beaten me to it, but I think the linked site's owner knows it's parody, but hasn't really labelled it as such. The massive numbers of "Jesuses" and "Christs" on the home page probably leads a lot of people to false conclusions. But look at some of the other articles on the site, particulaly this one:

http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/p82.htm.

From the conclusion:
As we have seen, the idea of a universal deluge was the settled interpretation of the church for nearly seventeen centuries, but that changed as a body of compelling evidence undercutting that interpretation gradually accumulated. The cumulative pressure of general revelation can be ignored only so long. Christians must always be ready to reexamine even settled interpretations when a wealth of external data call these interpretations into question. God may be trying to tell us something!

This case study of the flood suggests the need for more humility and less dogmatism in interpretation. The arrogant attitude displayed by some commentators who have lacked appropriate scientific knowledge, especially in this century, is appalling. Christians must also be cautious in using extrabiblical data for apologetic purposes, since their data may eventually be supplanted by better information that demands a different interpretation. There is danger in basing an apologetic for our interpretations on a presumed agreement of the Bible with science.

AFAIK, Catholics are generally OK with evolution, etc.

Must sew the gravity and evolution threads together with a really dumb joke:

Q: If you hold a rock at waist level and release it, why does it fall to the ground?

A: Because all the rocks that don't are long gone.

Imagine someone from 2000 years ago being transported into now. They would go nuts. Brain's just can't take that kind stress. I guess in all reality we're going to keep going around the mullberry bush as long as we exist. But that dosen't change what I said.

My favorite is the "bicycles don't evolve so living things can't either" arguement. Classic.

/ignorance trumps logic?

Who let Bevets out of his can?

Anyhow real geniuses, like Ein, they see into the crazy and somehow find a way to relate it in a sane manner. Anyone can state a view it takes a genius to state something totaly nuts in a way that has practical use.

cuibono
Also, you know by now that those stickers have been removed.

No, pending yet another appeal...

"but", said man, "the bable fish is a dead giveaway isn't it?"
"oh, dear" said god, "I hadn't thought of that", and promptly vanished in a puff of logic.

For an encore, man proved up was down, black was white, and got killed at the next zebra crossing.

-Douglas Adams , he knew the universe

meatman: -Douglas Adams , he knew the universe

Wouldn't the universe have become finite when God vanished?

"One thing I'll never understand about the theists is how you can rationalize something like a God. Basically you figure that the universe is SO complex and SO "just right" that there MUST be some kind of intelligent design. Yet, what created the thing that does this intelligent design? The usual answer I get from you people is "well it (God) JUST IS." WTF kind of answer is that? Apparently a universe needs a creator but a creator doesn't need a creator...you accept one level of something you cannot explain to explain something else you cannot explain. That is FAR too covoluted for me to accept."

Scientists supporting the Steady State theory believed that the universe could be the kind of thing that didn't need to be created. It was a perfectly acceptable scientific theory that claimed, among other things, that the universe could just be around for ever. It took 65 years or so of increasingly precise observation to tip the balance of opinion among scientists towards the Big Bang. Plenty of observations supported either theory equally, and it was only a little evidence of radio-wave background noise that might be better explained by the Big Bang theory that tipped the scales of scientific opinion.
Given this, how can it be unscientific to say that God could be the sort of thing that doesn't need a beginning, or a prior creator to make God? If that's true, shouldn't all the scientists who thought the Steady State model was possible have dismissed it instantly as basically contrary to the most fundamental principles of Science? Many religious people today don't claim that it's fundamentally, philosophically impossible for the universe to have been around forever, without needing a Creation, let alone a Creator. Instead, they claim that the evidence we have points to a kind of universe that rules out those other philosophical possibilities.
As a historical movement, Atheism has gladly siezed on alledged disproofs of God, from the Steady State theory, to theories about planets being formed only when two stars pass close together, and so being very rare (which supposedly means God would be very inefficent and wasteful if He existed, ergo He doesn't), Atheist writers as famous as Sir Bertrand Russell have argued from the science they thought was correct. Then when that science turns out to be wrong, and a new theory comes along that says the Universe has a moment of creation, or planets are probably very common, and life may be abundant through-out the universe, those same Atheists have said, in effect, "Well, the new theory isn't proof of God even if it disproves my disproof, and anyway, the burden of proof is on you, not me". Once, I agreed with them on that point, until I read enough to realize they never said that when their disproofs seemed to be holding up from evidence, but only where impartial science shot them down.

St. Apatheism

There comes a point in time where science needs to take a step back and realize it's done all it can and if we can't live with what we have then too bad.

People have been saying that for centuries; in the mean time, we've come up with penecillin, flourinated water, antibiotics, cars, planes, and computers. Perhaps more importantly we've refuted the notion that bathing should be done at most twice a year and invented deodorant. Unless you want to go around smelling like a professional World of Warcraft player, you probably shouldn't be dissing science.

dan131m:

People have been saying that for centuries; in the mean time, we've come up with penecillin, flourinated water, antibiotics, cars, planes, and computers. Perhaps more importantly we've refuted the notion that bathing should be done at most twice a year and invented deodorant. Unless you want to go around smelling like a professional World of Warcraft player, you probably shouldn't be dissing science.

Not bad, but you're still way too blatent. You, son, are NOT the One.

The debate over creation with regards to theism and atheism end at having to accept something. Either you accept that God created the universe and nothing created God, or that the universe just IS. You can't become atheist or thiest over this point of contention, or at least you shouldn't. Took me analyzing free will to become atheist.

Headline makes it sound like it is a mandate, not a columnist's opinion....
should means should
not will

N. S. Radieaux

What in God's name was that?.

Atheists are equal to theists in my book, just two sides on the same coin. They don't even realize it is the orgasmic humor of it all.

I love hearing Atheists claim that they don't take it on faith that God exists and then they use science as a basis for what is essentially faith. (But don't tell that to an atheist cause they will get crazy zelot mouth frothings on your pants.)

St. Apatheism
then they use science as a basis for what is essentially faith.

What do the words "atheism" and "faith" mean to you?

RoachAC
Use this link to blow up that pic

Enjoy, if you actually get to reading this.

Franky17: What do the words "atheism" and "faith" mean to you?

Got a dictionary? Why are you not using them?

A bite so soon, I swear some of you never learn.

CygnusDarius: That, my friend, was none other than the truth -- for youth.

St. Apatheism:

I love hearing Atheists claim that they don't take it on faith that God exists and then they use science as a basis for what is essentially faith.

Well, science has one principle which conflicts rather badly with religion: Occam's Razor. Essentially, it says that an explanation should contain all necessarily elements, and no unnecessary. "God" is not a necessary element in any of the simplest explanations of the Universe, and so scientific explanations exclude Her. Religions, in contrast, are built around this element, and so indignantly proclaim that She *must* be a necessary element, for no rational reason.

mistergecko:

Umm, if NASA used physics to hit a comet millions of lightyears away, then I sorta think they know what they're talking about.

/waiting for someone to catch it


A lot of people have said a lot of stupid things in this thread - but that's the worst.
I'm really just hoping you meant it as a joke. Then again maybe you've travelled a few million years into the future to see if nasa has done this. Guess its possible and I just don't know.
If you are not joking or a time traveler? Then you are an idiot.

Sloth_DC: for no rational reason.

Religion is, and should never be, rational. So... what exctally is your point?

warning should read physics is extremely hard and will melt your brain. no matter how much you study you will pass becuase of the curve. At least that is how it was for me.

St. Apatheism: Religion is not, and should never be,

your dog needs more Preview

St. Apatheism
Got a dictionary? Why are you not using them?

Because I know what the words you are using mean to me. I wonder what they mean to you.

Ukh. I hate to get all serious in such a fun thread, but lines like "So I don't even have to earn God's love?" kinda make me sick. I'm not trying to put anyone down, but by my lights, that's a horrible thing to say. The idea that moral value - which is what God's love is to many (most?) Christians - can be had unearned seems very wrong to me. I've never been one for quoting "scripture," but in the interest of dialogue, here's a relevant quote from the definitive text of my beliefs:

"A rational process is a moral process. You may make an error at any step of it, with nothing to protect you but your own severity, or you may try to cheat, to fake the evidence and evade the effort of the quest - but if devotion to truth is the hallmark of morality, then there is no greater, nobler, more heroic form of devotion than the act of a man who assumes the responsibility of thinking." - Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

Sir Charles:

the warning label is blue, and it says "If this label is red, you are moving waaaay too fast"

I JUST saw this bumper sticker for the first time yesterday. Made me giggle. That's what I get for living near Lawrence Livermore and Lawrence Berkeley, Labs.

Franky17:

Because I know what the words you are using mean to me. I wonder what they mean to you.

Got a Dictionary? Look em up. Get your anwser.

St.Apatheism I agree with you completely, I remember reading a little bit of an atheist magazine. There seemed to be a structure to it that bordered on being an organized religion. Funny in a way. Personally I go the agnostic route.

I got to "Intelligent Creator" and stopped reading

TheSeer: of a man who assumes the responsibility of thinking.

What an interesting choice of a word.

smert: Personally I go the agnostic route.

Why be Agnostic, just switch on over to Apatheism where we don't even care anymore.

Apatheism: the religion for people sick of religion.

St. Apatheism
Got a Dictionary? Look em up. Get your anwser.

Is it entertaining to you to use words you refuse to define?

faith
Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.

atheist
One who disbelieves or denies the existence of God or gods.

How is one who disbelieves in God expressing faith?

Which word?

Franky17: How is one who disbelieves in God expressing faith?

That's not a loaded question, is it?

Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of the idea that God or gods do not exist.

You=pwnt

St. Apatheism sounds exactly like Graphic Addiction in his "I know everything and you all are asshats b/c I'm so superior, even though I give no proof" mode.

Asshats are as asshats do.

TheSeer: Which word?

Assume. Sorry, my html skill only has like 10 points in it.

FarkmeBlind: Asshats are as asshats do.

Actualy I'm a milner of gluteal hattery, I sell them by the dozen with a discount and custom to order if one is so interested.

St. Apatheism
Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of the idea that God or gods do not exist.

Disbelief
Refusal or reluctance to believe.

"I am reluctant to believe in God." is not the same as "I believe God does not exist."

An "atheist" can be someone who makes either of the two statements above.

Some non-atheists may make the statement that "Tuna sandwiches orbiting my head do not exist". Are they expressing the kind of "faith" that you love to hear atheists expressing?

You=pwnt
Oh. I'm dealing with someone who "owns" people on the internet. I see.

That's assume meaning "take up," as in, "assume the position," not assume meaning "take for granted" as in "assume a spherical cow." But Ayn Rand made a lot of interesting word choices. When asked why she used the word "selfish" to describe her ethics rather than choosing a less loaded term, her reply was basically, "Well, first, because it's accurate. But also, I wanted to piss people off."

St. Apatheism:

Actualy I'm a milner of gluteal hattery, I sell them by the dozen with a discount and custom to order if one is so interested.

I don't buy hats from someone who spells "milliner" incorrectly. No, the mercury excuse will not wash. Look up "actually" while you're at it.

Jesus, why does everybody treat "atheist" like it's such a dirty word and spend so much time arguing over semantics? Just say you don't believe in God and get along with it.

I have "faith" that Pluto exists, based on the fact that we can see it. I will probably never personally visit Pluto, and if I ever do, I'd then have to have "faith" that my senses are reliable.

If some people want to equate that with having faith in an invisible entity whose presence we can never detect and never influence, just go ahead and let them.

"It's not that I don't believe in God, I just don't believe in believing in God."

Christ.

Franky17: Oh. I'm dealing with someone who "owns" people on the internet. I see.

Hey i'm dealing with someone who hears "hey idiot" and turned around to see who was calling out for him. So we're both working in less than perfect conditions. And I got a grammar/spelling bashing semi-sucessful troll attempt.


TheSeer,

Yea I can red englush, that's the reason I noticed it as being an interesting time to use the word. Many others could have been transplanted without having a double meaning involved. I just happen to presume writers know what they are doing when they are doing things like, say, writing.

=)

lixivium: "It's not that I don't believe in God, I just don't believe in believing in God."

Not believing in believing in God is a religion!!!!!

/snicker

well color me trolled.

Believing in the absence of tomatoes is faith!!!

/I could do this all night

That's odd. I was under the impression that Bevets posted about two or three times per thread most of the time. Ah well.

St Apatheism your views interest me and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter

Bevets: Actually I have NEVER heard ANY Christian claim otherwise.

Interesting wording and emphasis, beevs.

First off, Apatheism, I didn't mean to insult your literacy, sorry. But I don't think Rand was going for a double meaning - first of all, because her literary style is very straightforward and literal, and second, because her philosophy wasn't really consistent with randomly taking things for granted. "Assume responsibility" is a pretty common phrase, and the only alternative I can think of is "take responsibility." The cadence and force isn't as good using the latter, and Rand certainly did pay attention to cadence, especially since the quote in question is taken from a character's speech.

Man, I'm even better than those "Summon Bevets" cards.

2005-07-07 12:22:21 AM Bevets


The difference between evolution mythology and the theory of gravity is that the theory of gravity was not devised soley to exclude God.

Quick1

Gravity doesn't exclude God? The Theory of Gravity means that God isn't the one keeping you from floating away, but instead, it's the force between two bodies of mass.

What is the source of the 'the force'?

Well, that's the whole point. "Gravity" is just a ploy by the secular scientists to draw attention away from the fact that it's God holding the universe together. Pay attention next time.

Bevets! apparently you have selective hearing

Bevets
What is the source of the 'the force'?

Can you rephrase that in the form of a scientific question?

RAND was an expert on the INTJ (Jung typology) character, the Architect. hemmmm...

TheSeer:

The cadence and force isn't as good using the latter, and Rand certainly did pay attention to cadence, especially since the quote in question is taken from a character's speech.

Then she's a horiable writer who cares more about asthetics which are only supposed to accent a work, not be the point of it. Duh? And you didn't insult me, I tend to devolve into random cussing and red faced yelling when i'm insulted. Tip for the internet: don't read emotion into forum posts.

Apatheism: the religion for people sick of religion.

every belief is like a religion. who wouldn't be sick of religion? it's been manhandled for centuries. apathy seems like a cop out. time for a new idea... OPEN YOUR EYES

I_C_Weener: Actually, dark matter fills about 30%, and then dark energy is basically defined as "whatever the hell it is filling the other 65%" (5% being visible matter). But yeah, we don't know what dark matter is, and we don't even have a clue what dark energy is. This doesn't, however, mean that we never will know. If science knew everything, scientists would be out of work, and we'd all have to learn engineering and get real jobs. If you're waiting for science to solve the universe to believe in it, you're in for a long wait.

collectivemind: OPEN YOUR EYES

...and see, i'm just a poor boy, I need no sympathy.

St. Apatheism: and see, i'm just a poor boy, I need no sympathy.

Plagiarist.

I_C_Weener:

Get an answer to that (one that does not start with "See, God was hiding it behind that nebula, all along") and I might, just might consider the no God theory.



Late to the party, but why would it be a no God theory? Is that the same thing as a God theory? You really can't prove it either way, because of the nature of faith. You have a theory that there is a God. You can't prove it in a scientific case.

Faith and science are different things, your either on one side or the other. People riding the fence between the two are just making it up as they go (personal options, not based on science or scripture entirely).

The answer to your question is we can't see the entire universe, aka. not enough data. Considering that most of the universal theories have been developed in the last 150 years we might have a better answer for you in the next 50 years. Please be patient. Also the math is wicked hard.

TheSeer: we'd all have to learn engineering and get real jobs

One of my engineering friends once told me that you could train a monkey to do engineering, he just plugs numbers into equations.

Actually, quite a lot of art is solely asthetic - I've never heard anyone ascribe deep meaning to Monet's "Water Lilies." But yeah, Atlas has both a strong story and a strong philosophical theme, and I never meant to imply that Rand ever lost sight of either for a moment. But when it comes to the frills she used to accent her work, she paid a lot more attention to cadence, voice, and tone than she did to double meanings and such. That's all.

Oh, by the way: I'm unusually reasonable on the point, but in general saying "Ayn Rand was a horrible writer" to Objectivists is a bit like saying "Jesus Christ was a dumbass" to Christians. I'm not offended, just FYI.

TheSeer: I've never heard anyone ascribe deep meaning to Monet's "Water Lilies."

You have yet to hear a drunken Art Major pontificate, kudos.

Nobody understands gravity/dark matter/dark enegery..... at least not yet. If anybody understands it please explain it to the rest of the world.

/Great satire.

First thing I thought of...



"That's because Christians don't believe in gravity."

not a rand fan, because objectivism makes an ass out of life

...and see, i'm just a poor boy, I need no sympathy.

confused?

TheSeer:

Oh, by the way: I'm unusually reasonable on the point, but in general saying "Ayn Rand was a horrible writer" to Objectivists is a bit like saying "Jesus Christ was a dumbass" to Christians. I'm not offended, just FYI.

Well, when the ass hat fits...

=)

Besides this is a religion flamewar and hyperbole is the word of the game didn't cha know?

collectivemind

Think Queen.
I know, I'm giving it away, but still.

I_C_Weiner - The thing about dark matter/energy is that very little description is attached to it. This is science at work. Since we don't know poop about it, we say as little as possible.

Bevets - The assertion that evolution was created soley to cut god out of the picture is laughable. The only reason have a problem with it is that they are very heavily invested in a notion of god, ornamented with lots of nice stories, that don't jive very nicely with evolution.

Everyone - Regarding atheism being a "religious" belief. Read William James' "The Will To Believe". I actually apply that to my life all the time. Most of the time, I hover around in an "Agnostic" kind of state. But sometimes, I end up with a genuine and momentous decision to make. When it comes down to it, my passionate volition that there is no God suffices to make me an atheist as long as necesasry. To stay honest, this happens so regularly that I could be called an athiest.

Also, keep in mind it was an addendum to "Open your eyes", if that helps.

...and see, i'm just a poor boy, I need no sympathy.

confused?

Well, duh. He's easy come, easy go. Little high, little low.

/shouldn't be /obscure

Bevets = unintentional troll

Who dat prancin' 'cross mah briyidge

Gift Bevets Gift

Who dat practicin' abortion until the 140th trimestah

Die Bevets Die

/gift = "present" not "poison", really!! I swear!
//what? It means the Bevets the?

Think Queen.
I know, I'm giving it away, but still.

no way, you're kidding. i must be from outer space.

i said "confused" because instead of answering the question, he answered with song lyrics. this probably implies that he was trying to think of something creative to say but confused himself and just decided to sing. HENCE, "confused?" (question mark implies it is a query not a statement)

I'm a big fan of science, and I don't think physics books should have warning labels or any mention of creation theory, but I do think textbook writers need to qualify a few things. Science, like religion, tries to explain everything. Some of these explanations are based on sound observations; others are little better than wild speculation.

People might think less of our current theories if they knew that gravity (as it's currently understood) only works on our observations of the rotation of galaxies if we assume most of the mass in the universe is invisible and with the exception of its gravitional effect, undetectable. Oh, and this dark matter is conveniently located in rings around galaxies. Further, expansion of the universe as observed requires a similar arrangement with energy. The big bang requires the laws of physics to change over a short time at the birth of the universe, then we expect them to stay constant for billions of years. Quantum mechanics has proven that either reality is profoundly weird or our theories are somehow wrong. No comment on string theory.

The approach I'd prefer is to teach why we know certain things in science. I'd almost go so far as to say it's worth not presenting the whole picture. People who learn why we believe things are probably more likely to make a big discovery than those who learn what the beliefs are and not to question them. This applies to religion too. I went to a Catholic grade school and a Catholic high school. The religion classes should have been about morality and cultural and religious anthropology, but instead they often focused too much on Catholic dogma.

OPM

No kidding huh? I wouldn't think so....

/Any way the wind blows.....

I've been trying not to flame, though. That's why I keep apologizing for stuff, and using moderate language, and all that. I'm of the opinion that, despite anecdotal evidence, it is possible to have an intelligent conversation on the internet. (Not likely, mind you, just possible.)

collectivemind

Thank you for restoring my faith in humanity.

OK, well, at least you.

And now I've gone and made an asshat of myself singing, and I can't sing.

Bevets: What is the source of the 'the force'?


Duck Tape???

Bevets:

If by 'faith' you mean 'scripture' and by 'science' you mean 'evolutionism', then I agree

Close enough for this hour of the night, I won't split hairs with you. It doesn't mean that you can not be a scientist if you believe in God, that is a personal thing. I mean that you can't mix and match theories. They are seperate. No labels in the texts. Teach physics in physics class, teach God in church.

collectivemind: confused himself and just decided to sing.

I just didn't see anything worth responding to in your post, so I responded with a coincidental song lyric.

TheCaptain: I agree with that entire list. Furthermore, I am willing to comment on string theory: speculative would be a mild term for it, and it has become the haven of "physicists" who are attracted by the fact that their work will never be exposed to actual data in their lifetimes. And indeed, to have a serious understanding of science you need to know why we hold certain theories. The problem is, those reasons are generally very complicated and hard to teach to high-schoolers.

One quibble, though: physicists do not make "wild" speculation. Our unfounded speculation is thoroughly reasoned and subject to stringient peer review, thank you very much. ;-)

I just didn't see anything worth responding to in your post, so I responded with a coincidental song lyric.

alright, cop out. fair. just don't preach about things you refuse to understand, you don't seem to like that

Well this thread has gone from entertainably stupid to stupidly worthless, I'm heading to bed also.

"I know God dosen't exist because I've seen the entirity of it all and he wasn't there," proudly said the young fish to the plastic castle.

N. S. Radieaux

Re: Insanely innaccurate and deceptive Taliban comic

That was some really farked up shait right there!! Religious nutjobs tailoring christian twaddle to children are no different than crack dealers.

They're both selling something that destroys a person's ability to think and function normally in the REAL world.

Bevets: You are a nutty loon, as usual.

TheSeer
The problem is, those reasons are generally very complicated and hard to teach to high-schoolers.

maybe when we're less closeminded. maybe when the truth cannot be ignored

now let's go get WASTED!

Re: Insanely innaccurate and deceptive Taliban comic

does everything you don't agree with have to be evil?

TheCaptain:

but I do think textbook writers need to qualify a few things. Science, like religion, tries to explain everything. Some of these explanations are based on sound observations; others are little better than wild speculation.


Basics text books are just that Basic. Most of the time the details are glossed over because:
a) You don't know the math to do the equations.
b) There is not enough time to explain it fully.
c) It is easy to confuse people who are just starting to learn the concepts.

That doesn't mean that something doesn't have a good basis in fact or good theories based in established math and physics. It seems like a lot of people here are saying "I don't understand the theory so it must be bunk"
I often wonder how many people posting on these threads have the degree and course work to back it their posts. It takes months of reading, sometimes years, to get to the root of most of these topics. You just don't know enough.

That is why you don't get me mouthing off on theories that I have not studied. Outside of my field I have a passing interest. Most of these theories are based on the current observed data, as more comes in they get revised. That is why they are theories, not laws.

Re: Insanely innaccurate and deceptive Taliban comic

does everything you don't agree with have to be evil?

to be fair, i don't agree with a couple of the things that comic says either. but it seems pretty bushist to say something that sounds a lot like "if you do/don't agree with [this comic/this treaty/etc] then you are [anti-american/a terrorist/deceptive Taliban]"

I find it useful to start such an arguement as this with simple questions and assumptions.

Assumption: Everything that exists was created by someone.

Questions: Who created the creator? What is this creator made of? Where is this creator now? Can I measure this creator?

At this point a christian (which I am not) will usually cite a bible passage.

Assumption: The Bible is the literal word of the creator.

Questions: Who actually wrote down the bible? How can you be sure they did not make any mistakes? How can you know that they did not have motives other than truth and accuracy when they wrote it down? Furthermore, how can you translate the literal word of the creator into another language, and from that language into another, and from that language into another, and still retain any accuracy?

Assumption: Faith

At this point there is no sense debating. The religious side has left rationality behind. There is no arguement against faith that will convince anyone on the other side, because faith will trump rationality all the time, to the religious.