Edtharan

True. But, the point I was making is that the Game Of Life (GOL) exists in our universe (even if on a computer), but that the existence of such a system has far reaching philosophical ramifications. The other thing that the GOL does is show that even in a perfectly deterministic universe, it is impossible to predict the future (so long as the universe allows for the GOL - or other systems with the same properties). If you add in randomness (and probability) to it, it makes it even worse for prediction, and back tracking. So a probabilistic GOL would absolutely remove any chance of a universe that you can pre-determine certain things. In a way, GOL paves the way for free will (where free will is not an arbitrary choice but a rational choice free will). Because the result can not be determined before hand, and you can not work back from a future state to a past state, the system gains a degree of freedom, even if it is deterministic. It is instead a logical outcome rather than an arbitrary result.

The theory of the strong force is not just "algebra". They use algebra to work out how to calculate the results of experiments where the phenomena they are describing exists and acts the way they expect. In other words, the theory is not the Algebra, but that the phenomena exists and works the way they describe. The algebra is the description, not the theory. The reason that the Strong Force was proposed was that there were forces occurring to particles (protons and neutrons) that could not be explained by any existing force. As an example we know that the electrical force repels like charges. So, why does the nucleus of an atom stay together and not fly apart, they are just made of protons (positive change) and neutrons (no overall charge). As the neutrons could not cancel out the electric charge, then the nucleus made of particles of like charge should fly apart. But it doesn't. Something must force the protons and neutrons to stay together, and it must be stronger than the electromagnetic force. This is the Strong Force that scientists talk about. Further examination of the nucleus of atoms show that the more neutrons there are the more protons can be contained. So this Strong Force is not electrical (as neutrons are electrically neutral - hence the name neutrons) but must reside in some other property of the particles and that both protons and neutrons must have this. It is through more careful examination and experimentation to test hypotheses about the nature of the strong force that has lead to the theory of the Strong Force. The algebra that we have just describes what we have learnt about the strong force. However, even if we didn't have any algebra, we could still have the theory of the strong force simply from the observation that protons and neutrons combine as the nucleus of atoms despite the electromagnetic force trying to push them apart. As we observe a force that is not electromagnetic, and far stronger than gravity (as well as stronger than the electromagnetic force), the name given to this force is the Strong Force.

Oh yes, Humans will be Humans, and we would probably start something. It is just that in most scenarios that are stated, it is the robots that start it. But as I said, they would have the ability to change their appearances (as their existence would not depend on a specific form like organic beings do). Thus knowing that we would attack them, they could refashion themselves into cute forms that we would not feel so xenophobic about. That is if they follow the symbiotic path rather than the exodus path.

Have a look at Conway's Game of life. This is a system where if you know the state at one point, even though it follows a completely deterministic set of rules, you can not predict the outcome without running the system (even if it is just a copy of the system). Now, as such a system can exist in this universe (even if run on a computer, that computer is part of this universe and the state of that computer is dependent on the outcome of Conway's game of life), that means that this universe, even if it is ultimately determined to be completely deterministic, can not be predicted just by knowing the current state of the universe. The other thing about the Game of life is that it can't be reversed. That is you can't start with a state and work out what an earlier state was (you can do this on small scales though). Thus also means that you can't just design how you want the universe to end up as and work out the earlier state it will have to be in to produce this end state. This means the very existence of Conway's game of Life negates the possibility of predetermination and prediction.

If these disasters were caused by God, then God must be evil. God is supposed to be all powerful and all knowing. So He would know of a way to let everybody know of His existence with no room for doubt (there would be no "maybe" about it) and no loss of life. So if someone claims that God created these disasters just to let us know He is there, then He willingly and without purpose murdered (as in first degree murder) tens of thousands of people. Also, if God is all powerful and let these things occur (even if we caused them - and we certainly didn't cause the earthquake), then He is negligent leading to Manslaughter. It is people who try to use the suffering of others to prove God exists that actually have the best arguments for Atheism. If God does willingly cause the needless suffering of people (as these people claim), then He is not worthy of worship. If God does nothing to prevent such disasters, then He is either uncaring or not all powerful and thus not the God of the bible and not deserving of the worship of people who follow the bible. So by their claims that God caused them (or allowed them to occur), God becomes a psychopathic monster, or a weak uncaring entity. In other words, exactly the opposite of what they claim God to be. So, if God really exists, these people are breaking the commandment to: "Not use God's name in vain". They are using God's name to further their own ends, their own wants and desires and not Gods (because the God they believe in would never do those things or allow them to happen).

The reason Atheists use literal interpretation of the bible is because in arguing against religion, this is the only logical stand. If the bible is allegorical, then could God be allegorical, and if God is, then God can be said to not really exist and the religion is also not real. So, if the bible is not meant to be interpreted literally, then the religion has no grounds for claiming it is true and the atheist are right. If the text is meant to be read literally, then reality actually proves the bible false (eg: did you know there is no archaeological evidence that the city Jericho had walls so what does that mean about that story in the bible). If one is free to pick and choose which parts of the bible you want to take literally or not, then on what grounds do you make that decision? If you have no rational reason for doing so, then Atheism is right (that religion has no rational grounds). And I have never heard a rational reason for selecting parts of the bible as literal or non literal that does not suffer from the problem of factual errors.

First big problems with this is that you talk about vibrations, waves field, etc as causing or existing at the big bang, but these all require space and/or time for them to occur in. A vibration (and a wave is just a vibration) is a change in position (and position is reference to space) that occurs in regular period (and this is time). In other words, you require space and time to already exist for space and time to be created. You need to look at the maths. The only things that could exist at the Big Bang are things that take up 0 dimensions. In maths, these are called Points. But, these points can have a value associated with them called Scalars. This means the only things that can exist at the Big Bang are things that have 0 dimensions and Scalar properties. Nothing of which you proposed fit these requirements and thus could not have existed at the big bang. There are things in our universe today that do fit these requirements though: Charge, is a scalar property and so objects with that property could exist, although an electron has no known size, it is not a 0 dimensional object. Even massless particles, such as photons, still occupy space. A photon has a wavelength (which is the energy it has), and a wavelength requires space/time to exist in, so not even photons, massless particles, could exist at the point of the big bang.

This boils down to what you can consider as Truth. IS there anything you can be 100% sure of as true. The closest is "I think therefore I am". But, even this can be shown to be doubtful. If you were a simulation in a computer, then in what sense can you be thought of as "existing"? (or thinking for that matter). So, although the translation of the original might be closer (or not) to "assume nothing". It is probably still better stated as "know nothing" because there is nothing that you can know is 100% true. But this will bow your mind: If nothing can be known to be 100% true, can the statement that "you can not know something to be 100% true" be shown to be 100% true? If it can be then it proves itself false, if it can't be shown to be 100% true, then there can be something that can be 100% true, and therefore the statement could be true... I disagree here. The problem with infectious thoughts is that they are infectious. Now an infectious thought may be true, or it may be false. But how can you tell without prior knowledge? or, how can you tell if a thought is infectious or not without prior knowledge. It is so common for people trying to sound mystic to say "let go of what you have learned...", but when you think about this, it really makes no sense. The only way to learn is to build upon what you have already learned. Letting go of what you have learned will not make future learning easier, it will only allow lies to enter easier. A better mantra is to examine what you have learned and to check its consistency with the other things you have learned and with external reality. Of course, that is a lot harder (it can take lifetimes to do) and doesn't sound as mystical (and doesn't make as good a sound bite). Yes, and all these scientific advances were not brought about by people "let[ting] go of what they have learned", but instead of patiently checking what they have learned for consistency with other things they have learned and external reality. As for the Strong Force, it certainly does exist, not because anybody rejected what they already learned, but because they built upon what they already knew, checked it for consistency with what they knew and external reality and checked what they knew against external reality. In other words, they did real science, rather than use mystical sounding sound bites.

Why is it that when people think of something that thinks logically and is far better than us at doing so, they think that the first thing it will do is to wipe us out? Sure, it makes great science fiction, but it is just fiction and done for drama (it wouldn't be a good story if someone makes a super AI and it just gets on with what it does and doesn't interact with us at all). Basically the problem is that they say they think logically and without emotion, but then apply emotional thinking to the robots actions (eg: their actions are the same as a psychopath or socio path would do, but these type of people lack empathy but still have emotions). You sort of hit on it in your post: They would be able to use biological weapons or starvation or diseases as they are not biological, but this means they are not going to compete with us for food. They would have no use of us as slaves. But that means they have no reason to try to conquer us (we don't have food and we aren't good labour). About the closest you come is that they might wipe us out for being in their way. But remember they think logically. Sure, we might be in their way, but they will sustain losses on their side if they do try to wipe us out, it will take a lot of effort to wipe us out, etc. However, compared to that leaving Earth is trivially easy, especially for a "race" that can rebuild their bodies to fit their needs (as AI is a computer program, then as long as that core processor and program are functioning the rest is arbitrary) and does,'t have the weaknesses of biological entities to space, then it would be logical to leave Earth and the problems of dealing with humans behind. The other option is to become symbiotic with humans and work with them to improve them to the point we can function on their level. A forced adoption would not work as it has the same drawbacks as war (and result in a parasitic - rather than symbiotic - relationship between us and them). It would require a willingness on their part and our part to work and that gives the a reason to not go on a killing rampage. As for where I think humans will be in the year 3000, well I think the species will be still here, but society will be very different. What that society will be like is something that can not be predicted.

The way I read the OT about the devil was that he was more like the prosecutor in a court case. In this sense being an adversary is not about hatred, but about having different goals (prosecution vs defence). In this light, a lot of the actions of the devil (as far as the OT goes) is about sorting out who deserves punishment vs who deserves reward. This way of viewing the relationship between God and Satan has occurrences in many different religions too, such as Hades in the Greek mythology and many others.

One thing to remember, the Weekends were originally a religions holiday (the Sabbath). Nobody (at least that I have known) objects to having a weekend, even though it is historically a religious observance. To me, Christmas or other religious holidays are a cultural observance (and yes not all see them the same way). They also fulfil a social need to break up the monotony of working. They essentially raise the morale of the society and for that they are worthwhile. So to me as an atheist, the origin of these observances are not important, but the function of them is.

So your true religion would not change (become corrupted). Thus the only evidence we need to discredit any religion (according to your claim here) is to show that they have changed. As we know all current religions have changed over time, then this according to your requierments, disproves every single religion. As all religions have now been disproved, the claim "there is no proof that God exists" is therefore true as the only proof of God is religious (by definition) and all religions are false, then we are all Atheists (contrary to your claims you made). But, by your own requirements, you can not accept anything from these religious texts as they are not talking about the real God (as they have changed, they fail your non-corruption requirement). Would all true Scotsmen step forward please... : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman This is because a religion that claimed that it was false and that the followers should go and worship some other religion would not last long at all. You have said that you accept evolution. Well, apply evolution to belief and answer this question: If the selection for religion is that people believe in them (not that they are true), then can a religion that requires the followers to believe it is not true exist? Of course not. So this statement that: "there are an overwhelming number of religions which suggests in the existence of one or more gods while very few (if any) which suggests in the existence of no god/s" is completely worthless as a statement. Now, I can suggest that I, myself am God, I can even write a holy book claiming that I am. But I doubt that you would accept me as God (although I am sure that I can find some somewhere that would). So just because someone, or something suggests that something is so, does not make it so. There is as much evidence for me to be God as there is for any other God to exist. So by your reasoning I expect you to get down on your knees and worship me. But will you? If you don't I'd like you to explain why you are not willing to accept me as God. I can also claim that the religion of Me has not changed since it came into existence (and thus fulfils your incorruptibility requirement too). With My religion, I planted all the evidence that other Gods exist and even erased evidence (but not all) that I really do exist just for a laugh (I am a trickster God - Even Edtharan is not my real name - see, proof I am a trickster God). See how easy it is to prove a claim if you don't actually require evidence for it. The scientific method works by establishing the reality of a claim. You need to provide evidence that the thing you are trying to explain exists. The second is that your explanation for it is subject to disproof. Think of it this way: How can you tell if someone is lying to you? The answer is simple: Test it. Check to see if what they are claiming is true. So if someone told you that: You own me $1,000,000. You would check to see if you borrowed $1 million, or that you had some legal requirement to pay me that much. This is the scientific method. It is about checking the validity of any claim. It is about testing if there is a lie (and we know our perceptions can lie to us - ever seen an optical illusion?). Where are all those true Scotsmen? Actually, as I explained above, one doesn't need to examine all religions to conclude they are false. If the religion is the result of false premisses, then the chances are that it is false. If the foundation of all religions is false, then any conclusion about those religions is worthless. Also, as per your own requirements, that the true religion is incorruptible, can be shown that all religions have changed (been corrupted), then this is proof that all religions are false. Now, here is a little test: Have your beliefs about God changed? Have your own religious beliefs changed. As you claimed the true religion (and thus belief) is incorruptible, thus, if your beliefs have changed, then by your own requirements you have to reject your own beliefs as they are not indicative of the true religion. Interestingly, because part of your beliefs is that the true religion is incorruptible, then this belief is also abandoned and you can now believe in a religion that is corrupted. Congratulations, by that one requirement, you have effectively destroyed all your own arguments, including that argument too. The trickster God is common to nearly all religions. I am claiming to be the trickster God. As there is so many references to me in all the holy books in the world, I must therefore be the one real God. Or am I. Being a trickster God I could have planted all the evidence of my existence to make you think I am real (just think about that for a moment ). PS: I don't by the way think I am the God or even the trickster God it was just a litterary device to demonstrate a point. PPS: Actually if I was the trickster God, I would say that wouldn't I

If you are punished and not told what you are being punished for, then that punishment is completely ineffective and just brutality for the sake of brutality. Imagine this scenario. You are at school. As you leave the class for lunch, you are put into detention. You are not told what you did to deserve this just that you did something at some time before this (you are not even told what day you did the thing that was wrong). Now, what have you learned from this experience? Nothing. What the punishment effective, will you stop doing the wrong thing? No, you don't even know what that thing was, so how can you avoid it in future? In other words the whole thing has no value. It is completely and utterly pointless. The punishment doesn't stop the bad things from being done and could likely stop good things from being done. It would, in effect, be the ultimate evil (and so who or whatever came up with this should be punished themselves for creating it). The Élan Vital belief has long been discredited. There is no evidence that it exists and there is no reason that it needs to exist (so if it does exist it has no influence on whether something is alive or not and thus if it exists, it actually disproves its existence). What you are looking at here is "Processes". A living organism is a set of processes. these processes are just the well known physical and chemical (ie: naturalistic) processes that have been known about for a long time. Think of it this way. On your keyboard you have all the letters and symbols that Shakespeare used to write his plays. However, it is the order that these letters and symbols are used that makes Shakespeare's plays what they are. There is no magical ingredient, not Élan Vital that turns normal letters and makes them something else entirely. Thus it is with living systems. All the parts that make up a living organism are just the natural chemicals that exists in non living systems. It is the arrangement of them that makes a system living or non living.

The important words here are: "everything possible". If it is impossible for you to leave heaven, then you can be in heaven for an eternity because it is impossible for you to leave it, thus you would never leave it no matter how long you were in it.

As I said: "based on the first paragraph". Besides, the moral alignmnet of an entity would be revealed by their actions and inactions. So it would be imposible for such an entity to hide their moral alignment as they are the controlling entity in the universe (being all knowing and all powerful). Being omnipotent and omniscient, the God would know everything and would have the power to prevent any evil (without violating free will as well). So the existence of any evil at all, would be proof that such an entity is not moral. Actually it is the acceptance of the lesser of two Hells. In the one where I worship the evil God for eternity I would have nothing to offset the suffering, in fact the experiences designed to be pleasurable there would only act to increase the suffering I would experience. However, in the Hell you get for not worshipping, I would have the knowledge that I acted morally to offset the suffering, thus to me it would be the less of the two Hells. On top of that, the worshipping of the God would be a loss of my free will, something that I consider extremely valuable and central to who I am. Thus to worship the God would be to reject this of my self and so I would not even considerer it to be "me" that does the worshipping. So to worship the evil God, I would have to reject my morality, reject something that I consider essential to who I am and end up with greater suffering. To me, worshipping such an entity would be worse than Hell (and thus I would, with morals and free will, choose Hell).

Sorry for my delay in replying (I have a chronic pain condition and it has been difficult for me to reply). The thing is ritual is a cultural phenomena. There are many such rituals we have that are completely dependent on the culture. A good example is when we touch glasses as part of a toast. We, in modern western cultures, see this as a polite ritual. But, this originated to demonstrate to your drinking partner that you have not poisoned their drink (as the aim of it was to spill drink from one glass to the other). SO asking someone to "clink glasses" in a toast is actually saying that you don't trust them because you think they could have poisoned your drink. But of course, the culture has changed and so too the meaning of the ritual has been down graded to a polite gesture of friendship (when it was originally the exact opposite - one of distrust and enmity). Thus, ritual and culture does not come down to a simple A B formula. You need to look at the culture the behaviour originated in, modern culture and the journey that behaviour took through the cultural continuum to reach modern times. There are no absolute morals. Even just reading the bible show this to be the case. The early stories (eg: old testament) has a completely different set of morals to the new testament. In other words, the bible proves that not even God has absolute morality. So, if morality is not absolute, then what is it and how can we determine what is moral or not? It is a common claim by the religious that Atheism has no moral groundwork (however, it does - it is just not an absolute morality), or that you can call anything moral if you don't have a groundwork for morality (this is not true either). Morals are behaviours that allow groups of people to trust each other and to work together for common gains. Thus behaviours that cause disruption to the greater benefit of the group are immoral. This is why stealing and murder are immoral because they don't (usually) give a benefit to the group. However, war is really just murder, but even the bible calls this moral when done for the benefit of the group (and there are passages in the bible where God aids war and even genocide - and if God is moral then these must also be moral according to the bible). War only becomes universally immoral when one thinks of all people as belonging to the same group. However, if the belief is that cannibalism benefits the group (eg: part of war, or to appease a God), then you can see it as moral (as doing so avoids a greater harm - but what is wrong is the belief that it is necessary). Over time the beliefs changed, which made the actual act of physical sacrifice as being bad for the group (the society). However, the rituals still were needed as they were still part of the religion. By abstracting the ritual from a physical sacrifice to a symbolic one, the society could still keep the religion, and not violate their morality. What I find interesting (anthropologically) is how such rituals developed in the first place. What leads a society to institutionalise a behaviour that would otherwise be considered bad for it into something that is believed to be good for it, but that is a whole other discussion... . And this is the discussion . When you have done something to annoy someone, you try to do something to appease them. This might be a gift, and apology, or some other action that you hope will show that you are sorry for what you did. In societies where the causes of natural phenomena are unknown, it is human nature to try and explain them. Thus these events and even other things (like animals, and such) become anthropomorphised. We give them human characteristics (think of the pet rock craze a few decades ago). Now, imagine you believed your pet rock had the power to make it rain. Perhaps there was a long drought and one day you spilt water on your rock and the next day it rained. This could lead to the belief that pouring water on your pet rock caused it to rain. So, the behaviour develops that pouring water on the rock, will make it rain. But as it has been anthropomorphised, it is not as simple as this. The anthropomorphising of the rock gives it emotions. So even though pouring water on it might usually cause it to rain, if you have said or done something that might have displeased it, then it might be angry with you and this might require a greater payment to give rain. This kind of behaviour is not just limited to people. There have been experiments done with pidgions where they randomly dropped food into a hopper for the pidgion to eat. However, the pidgion was usually doing something unrelated at the time (maybe just turning around, or pecking at something). However, if the random drop of food just happened to occur when the pidgion was doing the same thing again, it would quickly develop a superstition that it was that action that caused the food to drop. When the food didn't drop when the pidgion did this action again, the pidgion didn't just stop the behaviour, they became obsessed by it and increased the intensity of the action. This is the exact same effect that I am describing for the pet rock example, and also can be used to explain the development of sacrifice and even cannibalism rituals and beliefs. But as I said above, cultures change. It might go noticed that the effect (eg rain) still occurred even if the "payment" (sacrifice) didn't occur. However, it is still useful for the subgroup (the priests or whoever decides who gets sacrificed) to continue the acts of sacrifice. So the culture changes and the action (sacrifice) becomes necessary for the benefit of the group (to maintain the social order - and cynically - to eliminate those that question why things are done the way they are). Ahh, this is truth vs reality again and the confusion between them. Religion defines its own truths, but it doesn't define reality. For example, history books. The reality is that they exist. No matter how much somone might not want them to have existed, the realirty is that they did (or do). Religion might not don't accept history books because they believe it is the work of Satan. To them it is true that Satan wrote the history books and so they can't trust that the history books reflect reality. However, if you don't ascribe to that belief, you don't have to accept their conclusions. You might have real reasons to not trust everything in the history books (eg: they believed in things that were not real - for example the belief that everything is made up of only 4 elements, or that Gods live on a mountain, etc). So in both cases the reality is that the history books might not be able to be trusted to reflect the reality that existed in the past. But, the truth can be different. In one the truth is that the history books contradict what is believed to be true and thus must be rejected least that make people believe in untrue things (and disrupt society), and the other is that the history books contradict what is believed to be true, but might still contain something of value (and thus add to society). It comes down to what is valued (stability or change). In mathematical terms using Set theory: Truth is a sub set of Reality. That is all Truth must be real, but what specific parts of reality and what they mean is not necessarily part of reality. As an example: It might be true that two countries exist. However in reality, there is no line that really separates them. It is true that the land the countries occupy exists, each country occupies only a subset of that land. It is up to the people (of both countries) to define what part of the set of all land is part of their country and what is part of the other (and I suppose what is part of neither), and what those subsets mean to them. In another way: Reality does not care for or influenced by humans (it is agnostic to us). Truth, on the other hand is a subset of reality defined by humans, and finally, there is the interpretation of that truth. Thus no religion can define reality. Either their beliefs are real or they are not. Just believing them to be true, no matter how strong the belief, can not make them real. However, their beliefs define what subset of reality they accept (truth) and how they interpret it.

When dreaming you are aware of the non dream world (even if at the time you can't distinguish them). This is evidenced by your awareness when dreaming that things are not quite right. In other words, even though you might mistake certain parts of a dream as real, there are events that occur in dreams that don't fit with what you know of as reality. This means that when dreaming, we can actually test if we are dreaming. It is not testing if something is weird, but testing if we have an awareness of an overlying reality (a non dreaming state). When we are in what we call the waking world, we don't have this sense of another non-dreaming state. Thus it seams that our waking state is actually our waking state and life is not a dream.

Ahh, but to be enlightened, you have to know yourself, and only someone who knows themselves would be able to make the claim they are unenlightened with any certainty. It is also said that enlightenment is to show true wisdom and that the only true wisdom is that you know nothing, so by these arguments Ophiolite must be enlightened as Ophiolite has shown true wisdom in knowing that (s)he is not enlightened. Ok, now that was in a bit of humour, but there was also a point to it. It is possible to make valid English sentences, that make sense, but have no meaningful content, as the paragraph above proves that Ophiolite is both enlightened and unenlightened at the same time, in other words, a meaningless claim. Now, in your opening post, and subsequent posts, you have attempted to use scientific terms, but have not used their proper meanings. It would be a bit like me making the claim that I am enlightened because I have a light on in my room. The word enlightened does not mean the state of being lit (although it sounds like it could as to be entranced is to be in a state of trance and enlightened has the same prefix "en" and the word "lightened" in it). It is this same misuse of words and miss understanding of their meanings that has lead to your post. Communication is about getting your ideas across to other people, so it is vitally important that for your communication to be effective (and thus not a waste of your time and the readers time) is to make sure that you and the reader have the same meanings of words (even if this requires a discussion of the meaning of the words). Also, if one uses a completely different meaning of a word than what is accepted (ie: you make up your own meaning because it sounds like it should be that - remember the enlightened/entranced example above) then you are not going to be a very effective communicator regardless of the validity (or otherwise) of your claim. Now, all that being the case. We know what evolution is: It is a process that certain systems undergo if the show the properties of replication with inheritance and variation, and selection. Any system that displays these properties will have evolution. This extends beyond biological evolution and even included computer programs. The circuits of your computer were developed by using an evolutionary algorithms (a computer program that uses evolution). Even the way that information is passed around the internet is dependent on evolution (however it is not an explicit program doing it, it is a property of how it works). So evolution is not dependent on consciousness. There are plenty of example where even natural processes (without any concious effort) displays evolution, and as even completely mathematical computer programs also display evolution this puts the final nail in the claim that evolution need consciousness (unless you are also claiming that a sum like 1 + 1 = 2 is conscious). Conciousness can understand evolution, but understanding is not causation. Also as evolution is mathematical (algorithmic) it does not require consciousness to operate, you can not reach the conclusion (as you do in point 4 of your opening post) that there is a causal link between consciousness and evolution (even universe evolution).

If you assume that he won't and so not even try, then of course he won't. However, prove your self right on two accounts: 1) That you really do have telepathic abilities 2) James Randi won't pay for proof of telepathic abilities and actually do the test. If you really believe that you have this ability, then you have nothing to loose by undertaking the test (even if you don't claim the money, or donate it to a worthy cause). However, if you have doubts that you really have this ability, then taking the test will reveal the truth to you (and the world if you are right). In other words, if you think you have this ability, then there is no real reason that you should not undertake the test (even if you don't think he will pay up).

There are two main processing paths in the brain: There is a quick and a slow path. The quick path allows us to react quickly to a situation. It strips out a lot of information that is not necessary for us to be able to react to a situation. If we need to react quickly the slow path is discarded and the information in the quick path reaches our consciousness. If we don't need to react quickly to a situation, it is better for us to have more information, and so the slow path, which contains all this information is allowed to reach our consciousness. However, glitches can occur (like from a head injury - as guitarborist story shows, or they can just occur for no obvious reason). When you get such glitches, both information paths reach our consciousness. However, the fast, information poor path doesn't contain any information to enable us to link it to time. Thus memories associated with it can be scrambled (and either be non existent or filled in at the time of the deja vu). Because we become conscious of one then the other, we get a feeling that we have experienced the situation before, because as far as our conciousness is concerned, we have just experienced it twice (and because of the lack of time detail in the fast path we can't quite remember when or we get a false memory of when we think we experienced it). This was discovered, by chance, when someone undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging of their brain experienced a deja vu episode (I can't remember the details of it, but a bit of research should bring it up).

This is the most common misconception about the Big Bang. It was not "Something From Nothing", but "Space and Time" from Something. As Time was created at the Big Bang, there is no before, just as if you only walk along the surface of the Earth, there is no North of the North pole.

For a start, evolution does not need biology. There is evolution and then there is biological evolution. Biological evolution is just one implementation of evolution. Evolution is technically a process, and more specifically an algorithm. The existence of the process and algorithm of evolution is not in doubt, it has been proved mathematically, and, just like all other mathematical proof, if it has been proven mathematically, then we have a 100% certainty of its existence. So, when talking about evolution like this we are really talking about whether it is valid to consider that the algorithm of evolution applies to biological systems. For the process of evolution to be validly applied to a system the system needs to have certain properties and processes that go on in it. These are: 1) Replication of packets of information with variation 2) Selection of these packets due to a criteria Now, it is actually trivial to write a computer program that has these properties and processes and such programs are in wide spread use (you could not be reading this post without them - from the design of the circuits of your computer to the way the internet operates are all applications of the evolutionary algorithm in operation), but do biological systems demonstrate this? Do biological systems replicate with variation? Yes, genetics has proven this occurs. Do selection pressures apply to biological systems? Yes, extinctions and invasive species also prove this. So we have now proven that biological systems have the requierments for evolution to occur, and thus it would take direct intervention for it not to occur. Actually evolutionary theory states that this is perfectly possible. Remember it is survival of the fittest. So over time a species will evolve to become very good at surviving in a particular ecological niche. But then if that niche does not change, then why would that organism go extinct? The only reason that an organism goes extinct is if the niche they are in changes or some other organism becomes more fit in that niche. So your criticism actually contains its own disproof. You criticism is that crocodiles have evolved to be good at their particular niche, but then when that niche doesn't change and no organism becomes more fit than them for that niche you have shock that they didn't go extinct. Actually there have been plenty of examples of this, moths, fruit flies, bacteria, etc. This claim that there has been no examples is pure misinformation put out by those that don't want you to know that such evidence exists. Do you have cousins? If you do then this is what Neanderthal is to humans. So, would you consider the existence of your cousins to be proof that you never had a grandmother? No not at all, it is actually proof that you had one. The definition of a cousin is that your parents and theirs were siblings, that is they shared the same parents (your grandparents). Now to determine if someone is your cousin, you can use DNA to trace family history. You can also use objects and other persistent evidence to prove a shared family connection. This has been done for Neanderthal and shows that they are a cousin species to us. And, just as the existence of your cousin proves you had a shared grandparent, so too does Neanderthal (and the accompanying DNA, archaeological and fossil evidence) show that we shared a common ancestor, a "grandparent species" if you will. When you look at further evidence (DNA, archaeological and fossil evidence) we can do this for other species (essentially second cousin species and so forth) and we can trace this back to the point where apes and us share a common "great-great-great (with many more greats) grandparent species". Evolution is a process, thus once the components properties and processes needed for it to occur exist, then it too will exist. Evolution is just a description of a general class of processes that we have observed occur in many different types of systems (from living organism, to computer programs). So the existence of evolution is in no way in doubt. As for Abiogenesis: I have covered this in other threads, but I will repeat it here as it has been a while since I posted about it. The first thing to note is that there has never been observed or the need for the existence of something called: Élan Vital. This was a theory put out a long time ago that living things had some substance or property that made them different from non living things. Many bad science fiction stories use the elan vital as a story element and thus this can propogate the beliefs that it exists. But remember science fiction is just Fiction. Think of it like this: Your computer keyboard has all the letters and symbols (and more) that Shakespeare use to write all his works, but it is only the arrangement of them that makes Shakespeare so great, there is no magical substance in the keyboard that turns a bunch of letters and symbols into a great work of art, it is just the arrangement. Thus it is with living systems. All the chemicals and the elements they are made up from in living organisms are exactly the same as those in non living systems. It is only the arrangement that is important. We know that certain chemicals behave in certain ways due to the way the elements in them behave. For example Lipids, have one end that is attracted to water and one end that is repelled by water. This property of lipids, when immersed into water causes them to align with their water repellent ends together and the water attractive ends pointing away form each other. When there is enough of them this causes them to form what is called a bi-layer. That is a membrane where all the water repellent ends clump together to form a sheet which eventually wraps around and joins up to itself into a small sphere (called a vesicle). You are probably very familiar with this: the foam you get with soap is exactly this effect (soap is typically made from lipids). Lipids are extremely common. They can be formed from biological or even non biological processes, they have even found evidence that lipids can be found in molecular clouds in space (remeasurement of supernova that are forming into new stars and solar systems), and even on comets and asteroids. They are everywhere. Another type of chemical I need to talk about is Nucleotides (these too are common and have been detected on comets). There are many types of Nucleotides, a couple that you would be familiar with are Deoxyribonucleic Nucleation Acid (DNA) and Ribonucleic Acid (RNA). One that you might not be familiar with is: Phosphoramidate Deoxyribonucleic Nucleation Acid. Like regular DNA, this comes is several types that pair bond (just like DNA) and it can spontaneously form polymer chains. Also, like DNA the pair bond is able to be broken apart by heat. Now, with the Lipids, the bi-layer is not a solid sheet, but has small holes (pores) in it between the lipid molecules that will allow small molecules to pass through. Phosphoramidate DNA monomers are small enough to pass through, but Phosphoramidate DNA polymers are not. So if Phosphoramidate DNA monomers polymerise inside a lipid vesicle they can't get out. This means that lipid vesicles will accumulate Phosphoramidate DNA polymer chains inside themselves. This is not life, but it does seem to resemble life. We have lipid vesicles (our cells are made from lipids and are essentially a lipid vesicle), and there is chains of pair bonded nucleotides inside them. But as far as this goes they can't self replicate. But this does not mean they can't replicate. If the vesicle experiences a cycle of heating and cooling, such as set up by a convection current near a underwater volcanic vent, or in a rock pool heated by the sun and cooled at night, then the Phosphoramidate DNA pair bonds will break and then be allowed to reform, and as new nucleotide monomers can enter the vesicle, this will cause the nucleotide polymer chain to duplicate (but it won't likely be a perfect duplication - I'll get to this in a bit). Lipid vesicles can also duplicate too. Lipid vesicles will integrate any free lipids it encounters into itself, and, also incorporate lipids from other vesicles if there is a difference in osmotic pressure (the more nucleotide in the vesicle the greater the osmotic pressure). This causes the lipid vesicle to grow, and large lipid vesicles can be split by purely mechanical forces (eg: hitting rocks, or just lathering soap). When lipid vesicles do this the contents of the vesicle don't spill out. Which means the nucleotides inside don't escape. To review what is going on here: We have vesicles that contain and accumulate nucleotide polymer, pair bonded chains that through thermal variation can cause these polymer chains to duplicate, and through mechanical forces the vesicle can break into two or more independent vesicles without spilling its contents out. But, then the nucleotide polymers in these new vesicles will also duplicate through thermal variation too. This is not life, but it is assisted replication (assisted through natural forces - temperature variations and collisions). But, as this replication is not perfect, there will be variations, so any variation that increases the ease that this system can be replicated, such as reactions that eliminate the need for an assisted step (such as the ability to produce lipids internally and not need to encounter them in the outside environment to gain them) will lead that vesicle to end up replicating faster than others. Now, because vesicles can steal lipids from each other, the vesicles that do this better, can reduce the number of vesicles that are poor at doing this, and thus we now have competition and a selection effect. Remeber eariler that I said all you need for evolution is replication with variation and selection. These non-living (that is important) chemical and physical reaction systems show evolution. Now there are small steps that can be taken from this system to reach a fully self replicating systems (eg: producing lipids, producing monomer, chemical breaking of the pair bonds rather than thermal breaking of the pair bonds, etc). And as each is independent, the existence (or not)of this in one system has no effect on the likely occurrence of another one appearing. However, as each gives an advantage then any system that developed one will quickly dominate the population. This will lead to a system which, by all criteria we have, would be considered alive. This takes us from basic chemistry and physics to a living system, and also show the emergence of evolution as well. To now say that you can't imagine that such a development is now invalid. This system would cause non living systems to develop into living systems. And, it does not require anything beyond known physics and chemistry. It is a "naturalistic way" that evolution and life can get started. Thus your claim has been invlaidated. Of course, life might not have started this way, it could have started a different way, or yes, it could have been started by a creator being, but, it is a naturalistic way that it could have got started. More so, all these steps have been confirmed in lab experiments, so we know that the processes I have described here really do work as I have described here. See this for more information: http://www.youtube.com/user/cdk007#p/c/0696457CAFD6D7C9/0/U6QYDdgP9eg And here is the Wikipedia link to the scientist that did these experiments: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_W._Szostak As the above shows, this is false. Also evolutionists are not interested in Abiogenesis just as builders are not interesting in mining. Abiogenesis is about how a system can get to the point it can be considered alive, and biological evolution is concerned about what happens, give that living system already exist. As there are scientists actively studying Abiogenesis. Evolutionists don't need to study it as it is already being studied.

Water is a meduim that doesn't react with the molecules needed for life and thus allows them to exist and interact with each other easily. If temperature is too high, it can cause damage or destroy the molecules necesary for life to form. If it is too low, then the reactions that need energy won't have it (and if water freezes then it stops being a good medium for the molecules to interact in as they would stop moving around). However, it appeas that a periodic variation in temperatures is necesary to assist with the initial stages of the formation of life. Carbon is a very interesting element as it can combine with itself and with other elements in many different ways and produce many different types of molecules with a vast array of properties. So gasses with high carbon contents are probably necesary for life. Light has energy, and as thermodynamics requiers a source of energy for a system to remain in low entropy (that is a highly ordered state). Light is one such source of energyas are hydrotheremal vents, black smokers, lightning, and so forth. Have a look at this video for a good way that life might have formed: http://www.youtube.com/user/cdk007#p/c/0696457CAFD6D7C9/0/U6QYDdgP9eg

Yes I was educted after 1958 . However, what I was pointing out was that you made two statments that are logically inconsistant with each other. The first staement was that religions agree with each other about morality. But then the next stament was about how they don't agree with each other's morality. Both can not be logically true. Put formally: B is not equal to A A is not equal to B Both A and B can not be true. However, if you wish to abandon logic, then you can make the claim that they are both true, just that it is not a logical or rational statement. Actually, I wouldn't say that the biggest problem is that they are based on mythology and not science, I would say that it is they reject reality over authority. This is what leads to a lack of thinking, that one just accepts something as true, or right or good because someone in authority says so. It is a "don't think" mentality. If God/s created us, then they gave us inteligence. This would be for a reason. In virtually every religion there is some kind of trickster God/Entity that tries to trick us have us believe their lies (or divert us away from worshiping the true God/s). Our inteligence and ability to use logic would be a form of protection against such manipulation, so a loving God/s who wished to give us a way to protect ourselves from this would give us inteligence. I disagree. rejecting a religion is only a rejection of the reality of the mythology. Now, I am being carful of my language here because there is an important, but subtle difference between reality and truth. A mythology, although not a representation of reality might still hold some truth. For example, the parable of the Hare and the Tortoise. I don't for a second (and I think most people too) think that there really was a Hare and a Tortoise that had a race as stated in the parable. Howver, there is some truth to it: That patience can succeed where haste will fail. So even though it reject the Hare and the Tortise as "Reality", I can still accept that it is in some sense "True". Actually, you criticised me for an "absolutism and binary, either this or that thinking", but then you yourself have done it here with the rejection of religion also rejects its mythology. I agree, God and morality are not just a theological subject. If God is real and wants our worship, then there will be proof (either through deliberate acts or out of necesity of the universe), and if He/She/They/It exists and don't wnat our worship, then we probably won't find any proof, but then we loose nothing by not worshiping. So if God/s exists and want our worship, then we should be able to find He/She/They/It existance by looking for enequivocal proof of God/s existance. In otherwords, if God/s wnat our worship, they will have left hard evidence of existance. Morality has already gone beyond religion, through psychology and a branch of mathematics called "Game Theory". My favourite game theory example is one called "The Ultimatum Game", because when played in a social network, or with repeated encounters, morality ends up being the best solution, but played normally morality is not the best solution (it shows how because we are a social species morals are the best solution and gives it a mathematical framework to prove it). You could reject both the religion and mythology, but this would be that binary either/or thinking you were not happy about. I think the mythology is important, even if the religion is false because it gives us a window into how our ancestors thought, or how different cultures behaved. It gives us insight into what it means to be human and where we came from (as in culturally). At worst, the quote: "Those that fail to learn form the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them", is appropreate. If all we learn from them is what not to do, then that is worthwhile keeping these mythologies alive, but just as myth, not reality.

I'll answer this by saying what would make me worship a God. 1) Prove that Supernatural things exist (If supernatural things don't exists, then there can be no gods or such to worship). 2) Prove that the God you are claiming exists, actually exists (just because supernatural things exists, does not mean that your beliefs are right). 3) That your God deserves worship. (If your God demanded that I act immorally to worship them, then their version of Heven would be my Hell and thus I would prefer to be punished for sticking to my morals than punished for givng them up). As there is no proof of supernatural things, then my conversion to a religion fails at the first hurdle. This also means that they fail the second hurdle as well. However, I have read the bible, and in reading it I found the acts of God to be immoral (and actually fit the clinical definition of a Psychopath). As such, even if the christian God was shown to exist, I would not worship such a monster. eg: Stopping the sun so that those that worshiped Him would be able to commit genocide, killing not only enemy combatants in the war, but once all they are dead, to go on and kill women and children and non combatants, even the livestock (what did cattle and chickens do to deserve that?). The way I see it, God (if He exists) is not the God of the Bible. If God created us, then He gave us inteligence and the ability to us logic and reason. Thus to not use these gifts would be a sin against God as you would have rejected His gifts and thus rejected Him. And, if you think aobut the bible, the devil is supposed to use lies to try and trick humanity away from God (as God allows us free will and the Devil could not posibley defeat an omnipotent, omnicient God through acts of force). The only way to determin of something is a lie, it is use reason and logic (and evidence) to test if it is true. Blind faith is a rejection of this and opens the door for the devil to get in. In this light, it seems quite rational that a God would have given us the ability to use logic and reason and would want us to examin any claims of His existance where we have to "take it on faith".