zapatos

I think the question is how the mass contained in the singularity prior to the big bang could have spread out in the first place. It is like asking how mass within a black hole could suddenly spread out (it can't). If there is not enough energy available to cause the mass in a black hole to spread out, how could there be enough energy available to cause the mass at nearly t=0 to spread out? Expansion should have nothing to do with it as it is not a powerful enough force to separate matter that is gravitationally bound.

Thanks everyone for some really great ideas and for sharing first hand knowledge! We're looking into all of them and making a point to think seriously about options we've never previously considered.

Can you explain this a bit more? How is government funding religious endeavors?

In January my wife and I will be celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary. We live in the midwest portion of the US and plan to visit another country (or more) for two weeks sometime in 2013. At this time anywhere is a possibility and we are trying to narrow it down. We tend toward more simple things, such as eating where the locals eat rather than in high-end restaurants, or staying in a local lodge rather than in 5 star hotels. We spend a lot of time outdoors although we do like cities and museums. Our last few vacations were in the US and included hiking in Colorado, renting a cabin on Lake Superior, and exploring the Pacific Northwest and Vancouver, Canada. We've also done resorts in the Caribbean. We usually schedule vacations that include staying at more than one location. We've been thinking of visiting places like Italy, England-Scotland-Ireland, New Zealand-Australia, or maybe even a safari in Africa. Wherever we go, my wife needs to feel safe, so for example we won't be visiting the pyramids on this trip. I have no desire to take a cruise with thousands of others. We haven't done much overseas travel, so what I am hoping is that you can give me some suggestions based on something you've really enjoyed. Either where you live or someplace you've visited. Anything from 'visit Spain!' to 'take a barge down the Danube'. Lots of detail or not, I'd love to hear anything you have to say. If you think we should stay away from something/somewhere I'd like to hear that too. Being Americans we are fluent in all the languages that begin with Eng...., although I can converse fairly well in Spanish if the person I am talking to is about 10 years old. Thanks! I'm looking forward to your feedback!

Interesting question. I guess the ability to tax a church suddenly gives the government a lot of influence on religion. Being tax exempt keeps a nice barrier between church and state. Religion also takes some load off government that they might give back if their funds are reduced, such as education, feeding and sheltering the hungry, etc. On the other hand, if religion is going to use funds for politics and other functions, maybe some taxes would be in order. For example taxing activities outside the realm of supporting the congregation. Similar to the way the government lets individuals write off parts of their property taxes if some part of the home is used for business. No. Congress can tax anyway they want.

If you have a choice between disproving dark matter or dark energy in your project, you will find more arguments against dark energy.

Yeah, I was hoping for a little more intrigue. Maybe the NSA or MI5. Unless of course Cap'n's avatar is really just a photograph of him. Hmmm.

Is the ownership information about this site confidential, or is everyone just having fun? Maybe both?

Maybe in America, but not in Brazil... What is so significant about American Catholics? Are they the only Catholics worldwide who matter?

What do you mean 'it doesn't run all the way to the end'? Are you saying the bat is hollow at some point?

Most Christians are Catholics. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_denominations_by_number_of_members

Lucky for me our local utility is rapidly approaching the point where electricity demand will exceed supply. In order to delay that time while new plants are being constructed they are decreasing demand by subsidizing the cost of CFLs, thus encouraging people to buy them. I can usually buy 60w equivalent CFLs for about $0.25 each. I have at least 100 CFLs ready for use setting in my basement.

For me the 60w equivalent CFLs all seem to last a longer than incandescent. It is the CFLs with unusual shapes that give me problems. For example, the 'flame tip' CFL bulbs I place in my chandelier burn out much faster than incandescent bulbs. I've also noticed that putting a normal CFL in an outdoor lamp doesn't work well if it gets cold outside. On the other hand, CFLs do much better in places where vibration occurs, such as the vibration in my garage due to the opening and closing of my garage door.

Correct. It is related to density, but more generally gravity decreases with increased distance from the center of mass. The earth exhibits a certain gravity now. If the same amount of mass was in a larger earth the gravity would be less at the surface due to the fact that the surface is now further from the center of mass. Similarly, if you have a black hole the 'surface' is now closer to the center of mass, and gravity will consequently be stronger on the surface. If the sun were to suddenly become a black hole and lose no mass in the process, we would notice no change in gravity from the sun, due to the fact that we remain the same distance from the suns's center of mass.

How does your theory account for dark energy?

My mistake. When I was reading through old posts to get my quote I found it on page two. We didn't have the exchange you just listed until a bit later and for whatever reason it slipped my mind. You are correct, you did respond, and while we did not come up with a precise location to draw the line, I agree with you that the bar should be set very high for such an extraordinary claim. Yes, I wasn't trying to suggest they were strong evidence, simply some kind of evidence. I know anecdotal evidence is very weak and doesn't mean much. As far as the idea of God being complex, that is not one of the assumptions in the OP. Belief in God means any belief that any person has about God, whether personal or not, complex or not. I think I know why I was struggling with understanding how I created a strawman. It was because I didn't create a strawman. According to Wikipedia: A strawman requires that I misrepresent an opponent's position. I didn't misrepresent anyone's position. (Please tell me whose argument I misrepresented if you disagree.) What I did instead was make an assertion of my own. I think you were right when you said that my assertion is wrong unless I can link belief in a scientific theory (falsibiable) with belief in the supernatural (not falsifiable). That is the weakness of my assertion. I realize it doesn't make much difference either way, you still think I'm wrong, but I'm still trying to figure all this out for myself. After re-reading posts from you, iNow, and doG, I was about to give in. I am convinced that belief in the BB (and other scientific theories), with its falsifiability and robust requirements for data is really in a different catagory than belief in God, with no ability to falsify and paltry 'evidence'. Between the three of you I now see that. The only thing I still cannot get past is the lack of constraints in the OP. The example I used before was: "if a theist has no knowledge of the tons of research and the confluence of research supporting a scientific theory, for that person it can be considered not to exist. It therefore would put belief of God and belief of that scientific theory on the same footing. You cannot fault someone for equating the likelihood of the Big Bang and the likelihood of God if he knows of the exact same amount of support for both (i.e. Nothing)." In this case I think I have linked belief in the BB and belief in God within the constraints of the OP (i.e. no constraints). What this means to me is that my assertion ("If you are broken for believing in God then you are broken for believing in anything else that could turn out to be untrue") is correct for a subset of the population of theists. If anyone is not yet tired of arguing with me, I think this would be a good place to start continue.

When you said "It is hard not to consider it a purposeful strawman when I keep pointing out that there are other differences between the beliefs", you were implying that I purposely created a strawman. And the only reasons I can think someone would do so would be to purposely mislead or to argue unfairly. If someone was doing that to me I would question their integrity. I therefore thought you were questioning my integrity. Since you say you weren't it was my fault for interpreting it that way. My apologies. That quote only makes sense if "lack of evidence" is the sole quality of belief in god which makes a person broken for believing it. Imagine I made the argument that belief in god makes a person broken because it is an unsupported and unfalsifiable belief. Your response -- that belief in the big bang must also make a person broken because it is not fully verified -- would be a strawman of my argument. I shouldn't have to explain this in such detail. I know what a strawman is, I didn't know what part of what I said you believed I was making up myself. As recently as post #1063 this was said: I am not judging anything. I stated a fact. I only said that here to show I was not creating a strawman. I was showing that everything I said in my disputed statement was true. And here I have to thank you. That has been my position all along. I have been arguing that the OP without constraint is trivially falsified, and have given many examples of people who should not be considered broken simply because their belief lacks evidence or 'quality' evidence. I have been nearly universally shot down for saying that education, experience, maturity, and other factors should be considered when determining if someone broken. That was my quote, but to see an example of iNow saying something similar see above. I'd be happy to look up some for you. However, the whole gist of the thread is based on the idea that belief in God without evidence is broken.

That is a bullshit dodge of what you said. Starting your accusation with "It's hard not to consider it" only makes it more socially acceptable. Do you think if someone said to another "I have a hard time believing you are not a total asshole" that they wouldn't have considered themselves insulted? I don't think the OP suggests that and I know I've personally refuted the premise to you a number of times, yet you continue arguing against it. I'm sorry to call that a strawman, but I honestly don't know what else to call it. Can you be specific about which part the OP did not suggest? What exactly am I arguing against? iNow, either in the OP or later in the thread has suggested that there is no evidence for belief in God. iNow has suggested that people who believe in God are broken. iNow did not list in the OP what level of evidence is required to be considered not broken. iNow did not respond to the level of evidence required to be considered not broken when I questioned him in post 23: "You are drawing a line that says your level of required proof is sufficient for belief but their level is not. That seems exceedingly unfair to me. Why do you get to draw the line? Why not criticize everyone who believes in anything without absolute proof?" It is true that there is incomplete evidence for the existence of God. It is true that there is incomplete evidence for the Big Bang. It is true that there is incomplete evidence for String theory. Starting at around post 230 we talked a lot about evidence. In post 253 I gave examples of evidence of God based on another posters requirement for type of things that constitute evidence: What exactly have I misrepresented and where did I then say that misrepresented statement was false? Logical fallacy. Strawman. Convenient of you to leave off 'more or less' in the rebuttal as it makes your argument much stronger that way. Logical fallacy. Generalization. An agnostic theist does not "know" there is a god. Same as you've been doing all along. And I really don't care if it bothers you that I'm being blunt or if it saddens you that your integrity is somehow being questioned based on my doing so.

No, I didn't misinterpret. I resented you referring to my father as a sociopath.

Maybe it is a weakness in my personality but I find it difficult to maintain any desire to continue a conversation with someone who questions my integrity. Live and learn. When I started on this site I had no idea where the hostility toward religion came from. Living in my isolated Catholic community I only saw a helpful, harmless group. You and others have certainly opened my eyes to many aspects of religion that I was ignorant of.

I think I understand what you are saying, which is summed up in your last line, "there are things that make some unverified beliefs more broken than others". In addition, you believe that due to the line you quoted, that I think that belief in God is the same as belief in the Big Bang (and others). Please correct me if I got that wrong. My position is that belief in God does not in and of itself mean you are broken. I believe that the more evidence you have for something, the less likely you are to be broken for believing in it. I believe that if belief without complete evidence is to be considered broken, then the more complete your evidence, the less broken you are. This of course means that belief in the Big Bang would be considered less broken than belief in God. There are some things that you can believe in that have a complete lack of evidence. There are other things that you can believe in that have nearly total evidence. And of course other things that fall somewhere in between. The OP is suggesting that belief in something with no evidence (god) is to be considered broken, but remains quiet on what level of evidence is required to not be considered broken. I listed various beliefs that had different levels of evidence supporting them (string theory, big bang, etc.). My contention is that you cannot draw a line at what level of evidence defines broken vs. not broken. That is why I said "If you are broken for believing in God then you are broken for believing in anything else that could turn out to be untrue." My point being that in all cases (belief in God to belief in the Big Bang), you are relying on incomplete evidence, and you are therefore all in the same boat, either all broken or all not broken. If they are all broken then I concede that there are different degrees of being broken. I also think there are other factors to consider when determining broken (education, maturity, etc.) but that was not what you were talking about so I won't address here. At the moment I don't see a flaw in my logic but would be happy to change my position if you could convince me otherwise. As an atheist I don't really have a vested interest in being right. Sorry to disagree again but I find them very much different. I can know how someone would think (more or less) in a given situation if I had read about them, studied them, etc. Many times I've heard on this site that Einstein believed this or that. That does not worry me, but I would be very worried if they said Albert told them such and such last night.

No kidding? My theists are mostly Catholic, what are yours? And do they claim to literally hear instructions, or is it more of a figurative instruction, as in 'being a teacher is God's calling for me'?

Just to avoid mistakes, when you say 'theistic god', are you saying a god that is all good, all knowing, etc.? If so, then yes with a clarification. I am asserting that belief in a theistic god in and of itself, does not make someone as broken as someone else who believes their neighbor's dog is telling them to kill. I think that if other factors were included for the theist then possibly they could be as broken as a Berkowitz type. For example, a theist who also hears god talking to him is probably just as broken.

Do you have any evidence of this claim? I am not equating any beliefs. I am equating people. I never claimed religious people are just as broken as Berkowitz. You may wish to reread post #1033 where I specifically said they were not just as broken as Berkowitz: "And yes, I believe that neither group could be considered menatlly ill in the way DB is." As far as 'laying it at your feet', I have no idea what you are talking about. I simply asked you one question to clarify what you were saying. Think again. I agree that you cannot prove God false. He's supernatural, and by definition you cannot prove or disprove his existence. On the other hand, the preponderence of the evidence against him can and does cause many to become atheists. Again, by definition of 'theory' I agree with that. Yes they have a different character, but that difference is not necessarily known by the person in question. And if you don't know there is a difference then it is reasonable to equate them.

I think that hearing instructions, whether from gods or dogs, is an indicator of mental illness. Do you think most theists hear instructions from God? I for one have never known a theist who made that claim.