Cap'n Refsmmat

Sucralose springs to mind.

Then that's not "omnibenevolence." That's "semibenevolence." So again, we're retreating from the position of the three omnis. So the question is unanswerable. However. We can judge God's actions by our own standards, and describe Him with our own words. We describe Him as omnibenevolent, using our own meaning for that word. In the face of suffering of good people, is it safe to say that using our meaning of omnibenevolent is a mistake? Perhaps God is perfectly good under His rules, but what about under ours? Can we call Him omnibenevolent?

You could find a way to make synthetic food that tastes amazing but doesn't make you fat, much like current attempts for non-sugar sweeteners and such.

So when someone says "God is omnibenevolent", is that really meaningless because we do not know what "benevolence" implies in God's realm? So is this simply a question we have no right to ask, since we cannot force God to meet any particular definition or word?

Now we run into two other questions. If God is omniscient, why does He have to make Job suffer to test him at all? Doesn't He know Job's character? Do the ends justify the means? Job doesn't get his original children back, and he still has to suffer. Having a good outcome from a bad action doesn't make the bad action good; it just covers it up, so to speak. Unless the ends do justify the means, God still did commit an immoral act by allowing Job to suffer.

So are God's rules of morality different from ours to allow Him to commit acts described in Job? In other words, what's good for God isn't always what's good for us. But then we lose the ability to call God omnibenevolent. People suffer, so He's clearly not good by our definition, but He's good by some definition we do not know or understand? Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged To be fair, God heals Job, gives him more stuff than he had before, and gives him even more children in the end. That's not to say that making Job suffer in the first place is a good thing, of course.

Links? What links? Well, if you're real, I still do not condone cheating and it's very likely a violation of several of our rules against plagiarism and law-breaking.

As long as there were certain constraints ("no swinging an ax at yourself"), no. But how does this apply to Job? God explicitly allowed Satan to torment Job.

(whee, the first post in this forum) So, this is a problem that's been discussed over and over and over and over again, but perhaps SFN has something unique to say about it. Here's the problem. Suppose we create a set of propositions: If God is omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient, good people will never suffer disproportionately. God is omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient. Job is good. (I refer here to the book of Job in the Bible; see Job 1:8 for evidence for this proposition.) Job suffers disproportionately. (See Job 3 and the rest of the book of Job.) So, we have four propositions. What happens if we follow some to their conclusions? Job does not suffer. (Follows from 1, 2 and 3.) Job is not good. (Follows from 1, 2 and 4.) Clearly, these contradict our initial propositions. Now, the initial set of propositions is valid -- that is, if the premises are true, they do indeed imply the conclusions I stated. But of course the premises might not be true. Perhaps God isn't omnipotent, Job isn't good, or good people can suffer under an omnibenevolent deity. Which proposition is wrong? And why do you think so?

Everything's right but the 30m/s number. Remember, he throws it at an angle, so only a portion of its velocity is in the horizontal component.

Ever since 2006, SFN has longed to have its philosophy and religion section back. We closed P&R because of the tension and anger that flowed through the forum, but now we're bring it back, with new rules and new ideas to keep discussions going strong. It's an experiment, however, so the forums are subject to change. If we discover they should be rearranged, or removed altogether, we'll willingly do so. Your feedback and your cooperation in keeping them going well are welcome. Head over to look! http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=162 The rules are simple, and designed to prevent the heated discussions that destroyed our previous forums. All members with more than 100 posts and three weeks of membership are eligible to join in the fun, and we have just three simple rules: Never make it personal. Disagreements about beliefs should never be in the form of attacks on the believers. This isn't a place to air grievances. Civility and respect towards other members are needed here even more than elsewhere on SFN, even when you disagree. Disagreements about beliefs should never be interpreted as attacks on the believers, even when they are. If you can't handle having your beliefs questioned, you don't belong here. If you feel insulted, that does not excuse you from rule 1.a. [*]Don't use attacks on evolution, the big bang theory, or any other widely acknowledged scientific staple as a means of proving religious matters. Using scientific reasoning is fine, but there are certain religious questions that science cannot answer for you. [*]Do not post if you have already determined that nothing can change your views. This is a forum for discussion, not lectures or debates. Now, go and be philosophical!

Q1: Yes, that sounds right. Q2: Why would the acceleration and velocity vectors be the same? For example, a bar in free flight above earth will be constantly accelerating downwards due to gravity, whereas its velocity will change according to that acceleration. The maximum height wouldn't be 1.5m, either -- Mr. Smith throws the bar upward, so it'll go higher.

Pascals aren't automatically absolute. You can say "0 atm" and mean absolutely 0 pressure if you're working in absolute pressures. Think of it like Celsius and Kelvin. A degree of difference is the same in each; if the temperature rises one degree Celsius, it also rises by one Kelvin. But one starts at 0 and the other doesn't. That's like the difference between absolute and gauge pressure, and you can use any unit of pressure either way.

That's because any website that advertises unlimited bandwidth and unlimited disk space for $5/month is generally a fraud. One with multiple identical websites, I hear. And they're the sort to advertise unethically on random forums.

There were numerous specific Apollo missions. Apollo 11, for example, was the first to actually land on the moon, while Apollos 8, 9 and 10 just looped around it. Apollo 17 was the last mission. Apollo 1 was the first, which was intended to just go into Earth orbit but instead caught fire on the launch pad. So the number just refers to which mission in the Apollo series it was. Apollo 11 landed in the Sea of Tranquility on the Moon, hence the famous quote "Tranquility base here. The Eagle has landed." The Eagle's acronym would be LM (Lunar Module) or perhaps LEM (Lunar Excursion Module). Both were used, although LM became preferred over LEM. Incidentally, my username ("Cap'n Refsmmat") is named after an inside joke in NASA flight control -- Cap'n Refsmmat was the "ideal flight controller", with radar in his helmet and the correct de-orbit spacecraft orientation inscribed on his glasses lenses.

Times of change are upon us! In the coming months, SFN is going to be making the transition from vBulletin forum software to IPB, which we believe is a superior system with greater potential for further development and improvement. There's still work to be done to facilitate the transition, but we're gradually working on it and should be ready when IPB 3.1 is released. However, there's something we need from the community. We need a new logo! Our current logo will not fit in with the IPB design, so we need some modification of it or a completely new logo. If you're an avid Photoshopper, try making us a new logo! Here's how the contest will work: Create a concept logo. Try a few designs, tinker, but don't make it final just yet. Submit your concept by posting it as an attachment in this thread. (PNG or high-quality JPG preferred.) We'll select the best entries and have the membership vote on the winner. Once your entry is selected, we'll provide you with the official IPB graphic design PSD, which includes the background colors and button colors and so on. The winner will receive a free SFN polo shirt (or garment of their choice) with their logo featured. In fact, we may begin selling SFN shirts once we have our new logo. If you'd like to base your design on the current SFN logo, the PSD is available here. And if you'd like to see what the new forums will look like, visit our test forum. You'll note that the design is not final -- in fact, if your logo would work best by changing a few colors, or if you have suggestions to add to the design, feel free to add comments here. I think the design is incomplete, and suggestions are welcome, especially regarding colors and the display of threads. (If you register on the test forums, do not use your current SFN username, as things will be broken when we import SFN users to IPB.) Now, go off and make some logos!

Indeed. When I saw a picture and a name, I decided to look up who this person really was, and when mooeypoo noticed that his publications were all in evolutionary biology journals, well... My only regret is that I banned Fake Dr. Sullivan before I had a chance to see what his reaction to being found out was.

Well, it certainly helps that we found the real Dr. Sullivan. Fake Dr. Sullivan is indeed a liar trying to manipulate people into believing their is disagreement in the scientific world. I have banned him from posting, and changed his name, for that reason. Perhaps I should go looking around to see if he's trying the same tactic on other forums, and warn the moderators if he is. I don't like this strategy at all. If you have to resort to lying and cheating to make your point -- and fail, at that -- is your point really worth making?

"I'm not antisocialist! Some of my best friends are government welfare programs! But healthcare, you know..."

"Absolute pressure" isn't a unit but rather a specification of how you use the units you choose. You can still work in atmospheres, psi, torr, Pascals, or whatever, as long as you use absolute (not gauge) pressure and you use the appropriate R for your units.

Please don't attack our members, no matter how dumb their ideas may be.

Or part of the initial driver's education course at all. I don't know about many other states, but I was not required to remember "shift into neutral" and so on in my course.

In the best traditions of Fake Steve Jobs, we now have Fake Dr. Sullivan. That should clear things up.

Recently it has come to our attention that SFN has not had an official privacy policy for several years, which we think is generally unwise with the current legal climate. Thus, we've gotten together and drafted a new policy that should address any concerns. This policy is available as part of the SFN Forum Rules: http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/announcement.php?f=51&a=14 While updating the rules, I have also changed them to reflect the fact that SFN is now hosted in the United Kingdom, and is thus subject to the UK's laws. For your convenience, our new policy is also printed here: If you have any questions regarding the privacy policy, you can post here. If you have particular legal concerns or requests, it is best if you direct them to an administrator via private message or to our staff email, staff at scienceforums dot net.

I don't know if this is what you're looking for, but the value of g varies slightly at different places on Earth, depending on your altitude, the shape of the Earth (not perfectly spherical, of course), and other random factors (like the density of rock underneath you). Spacecraft like GOCE map variations in the gravitational field of Earth for scientific purposes.