Cap'n Refsmmat

I'm trying to figure out how to do that. At the least, I'll make the tooltip contain the full title instead of "View result".

Depends. Is the goal of morality to assign blame and praise, or to make people follow certain mutually beneficial rules? If it's to assign blame and praise, determinism means the actor was merely caused to act by other factors, and should not be assigned blame or praise. If it's to make people follow rules, determinism means that punishments and rewards will play a role in their decision-making, causing them to follow the rules, to everyone's benefit. Free will means morals aren't imposed, implying that those who follow morals are praiseworthy.

If you go to My Settings you can choose to have View New Content give you all unread posts, regardless of when you last visited. It seems to occasionally mess up and lose everything, though.

When viewing a topic, go just below the last post and just above the Fast Reply box, on the right in the light blue bar. There's a drop-down forum chooser there.

Why not? I can define what is right and wrong in mathematics because we have a set of agreed-upon rules and axioms that can be used to prove or disprove a conclusion. Similarly, I could construct a set of morals that could be used to prove or disprove that a given action is morally good. You are arguing that because God's rules are promulgated by God, they are absolute. Why do we need absolute rules when man-made ones, like mathematical systems, do just fine? I suppose the ultimate question is how one ought to behave, and one could choose to disagree with the basis of rules for what is right and wrong, meaning everyone does the "wrong" thing. God can't be wrong, so you can't disagree with His rules. But I'd argue that, as a species, we agree on many of the basic rules of right and wrong because of evolution. See The Science of Good and Evil by Shermer.

Got lost when we moved the site to the new forum software. I can put it up again sometime.

He'd be quite happy to discuss, if you didn't use a thread on a completely different subject to hold the discussion in.

Discarding the free will arguments for a moment -- they're irrelevant, as you'll soon see -- let's examine a specific scenario. Consider the numerous children who die within a short time of childbirth, at an age of only a few months or less. They are not yet capable of thinking about their suffering, its meaning, or religion in any way. Their free will, or that of any other person, is not relevant to the scenario. Perhaps their suffering is an instrument for a greater good, in some sense. Perhaps it teaches a message to the rest of the world, for example. Now, suppose one less child suffers and dies. Has that message to the rest of the world been diminished? Has that greater good been significantly harmed? Probably not. Furthermore, regarding the point that we have a limited perspective. That is, again, irrelevant. Consider the following logic: If God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent, then no blameless person suffers. God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent. Babies are blameless. Babies suffer. Therefore, from 1,2, and 3, no babies suffer. This is inconsistent. Furthermore, the addition of any additional propositions -- e.g. (6) God has a plan for the world -- does not change the fact that propositions 1-4 are still consistent. No matter how many propositions you add, the set will still be inconsistent. No amount of additional information or perspective will solve the inconsistency. You must instead find a problem with one of the original four propositions. Now, you could replace proposition 1 with this: If God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent and has a plan for the universe, then it is possible that a blameless person suffers. However, one must explain why this is true. Being omnibenevolent, God can only allow a blameless person to suffer if the plan that requires it is much greater than the individual's suffering; holding to the plan, which will bring great good, is more important than the individual good of the person. I'll let my philosophy of religion professor take it from here: Furthermore, an omnipotent, omnibenevolent God can certainly achieve his goals without allowing any suffering. Even if he allows free will, there is much suffering that does not result from free will. Why would God choose pain and suffering to achieve his plans rather than any other possible method, being omnipotent? If he does so, he is not omnibenevolent.

I think Severian is in a good position to remember theoretical physics, being a physicist and all.

Hmm. A lot of biology actually uses math, to many peoples' surprise. Get your integration and differentiation down. They'll prove useful later on.

Well, questions: What subjects do Calc 1 and 2 cover? What's your major? Is math important for it? Will you be taking any math-intensive courses in the future? It's hard to tell which course is better for you without knowing your major and plans.

I dunno. The Old Testament law as set down in the Torah gives specific direction in the case of sin: one makes appropriate sacrifices to God, performs various rites at the temple, and so on. Following the Law and not sinning doesn't mean never breaking the rules, necessarily; it means making the right sacrifices if you screw up. There's a mechanism to right your transgressions. The New Testament, of course, introduces Jesus to suffer for the sins of all mankind, so your individual transgressions are not important. Now, I'd agree that the theology of "any sin = infinite time in Satan's deep-fryer" brings conflict with the concept of a merciful God. But don't Judaism and Christianity provide ways to atone for, or be forgiven for, your sins?

Agh. View New Content has some serious problems. There are bug reports about them, but many are closed as "Cannot Reproduce" since they're so intermittent. One person reported that his search settings kept reverting to the default option, rather than keeping all unread topics. I need to track down the RSS problem. I add the post to the RSS feed when WordPress fires the "publish_post" action, which apparently doesn't include scheduled posts...

I would think it fairly obvious that the popularity of beliefs in God does not alter the likelihood of His existence. For example, consider the Jewish god (i.e. the one that Jews, Christians and Muskims worship). Before Christ, believers in the Jewish god were a significant minority in the world, outnumbered by believers in the Roman pantheon of gods. Does that mean that the Roman gods were more likely to exist then, while the Jewish God is more likely to exist now? You could generalize and just argue that the popularity of any belief in any God or gods implies that some form of god exists. But you can't be so hasty; historically, conceptions of god were vastly different, with different characteristics, different rituals, and so on. They can't easily be lumped together. More importantly, popular belief brings no assurance of accuracy. Just a few hundred years ago, the popular belief was that sanitation was unimportant during surgery; a dirty saw was not a problem. Being popular did not prevent patients dying from infections. The Clairvoyant, a question for you: suppose we accept the premise that current physics cannot explain the development of life in the time the universe has existed. Why does this imply the existence of God, rather than some principle of physics we have not yet discovered? It's possible that physics will change and be able to explain life, as it learns more about the universe. It does not suffice to demonstrate that current science is inadequate. You must also demonstrate that God is necessary, rather than just improved science.

The emails that SFN sends out should give you a link to jump to the first post that you haven't read in the topic. That'll help you to get where you want.

Unfortunately that's not an option.

You could use View New Content, near the top left of each page, to the left of the advertisements.

That's not what P = NP actually means, and P = NP has not yet been proven as it is. (It's more likely that it'll be proven that P [imath]\neq[/imath] NP anyway.) P = NP relates to whether certain problems can be solved by computers. This has no relation to how black holes may behave. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P_%3D_NP

(Before anyone complains about necromancy: this thread had been revived by a spammer before Marat posted.)

I thought there were already efforts underway to collect DHMO from rivers and springs and contain it in secure plastic containers to prevent it from further leaking into the environment. This bottled DHMO can then be safely used in a controlled environment.

I'm contesting that P=NP applies. You said this: How does this have anything to do with black holes? This has nothing to do with spinning or pulling.

And what role does P=NP have in that? Your explanation does not connect to your stated definition of P=NP.

Why would that imply that black holes spin? That's not the correct definition in any case.

Why does P=NP have anything to do with the big bang? Perhaps you could clarify your reasoning there.

I'll bet my sweet bippie we can have this conversation with fewer personal attacks. I understand that you may not value some people's contributions to the Religion forum, but there's no need to pollute it further with personal attacks and insults. Please try to remember the rules linked to on the top of every page in this forum. Responding to comments you don't see as constructive with a comment that isn't constructive always leads you astray. Question: I've heard this argument made by a few religious groups over time. However, in my so far limited Bible study, I haven't seen this doctrine spelled out. Is there a particular Scriptural basis or theological reason for it? I suppose Jesus' comments on leaving your life behind to join Him point toward this. I hesitate to jump to conclusions, though.