needimprovement

It's not as simple as it seems at first glance. My initial take was that Pinocchio is making a prediction, which shouldn't be necessarily be classified as a lie unless we know that the prediction was knowingly dishonest. Even at that, we're still left with what constitutes a "lie." Is a lie any knowingly dishonest utterance?

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****EDITED That would indeed be a pity. The better Christian motivation is out of love for God and neighbor, rather than fear of punishment. A greater pity would be if someone decided that in the absence of a truly objective grounds for morality, anything is permissible. You are fooling yourself if you think that no atheists have come to that conclusion. The thing I've never understood with proposed atheistic moral grounds is: why exactly should I feel beholden to a conscience that is either the product of social trends or of evolution? Consider - evolution has given me a particular instinct for catching myself when I fall. That instinct is to land on my hands/arms. Better than landing on my head, for sure - but very suboptimal when compared to proper breakfall techniques. So, if I want to improve my fall safety, I need to learn to ignore my instincts and develop new ones. Why shouldn't I regard my instinctive moral compass in the exact same way? A suboptimal vestige of a no-longer-relevant past environment, to be ignored at my discretion?

there is nothing "obvious" about their state of mind and to make such a judgement is highly presumptive. It is highly presumptive to judge either the state of mind or state of the soul of anyone who commits or attempts suicide, either. Unless you are privileged to know the minds and hearts of those who jumped best be silent.

This poser is'nt mine, but I love it for ingenuity, and hence wish to share it here. I am attaching the problem as a word document. Enjoy the challenge. expression.doc

While this is essentially not a puzzle, I think it presents an interesting subject for sciency people. It's called the Pinocchio Paradox, and is based on the idea that when Pinocchio tells a lie, his nose grows longer (see the attachment). Using the following definition of "paradox" from the American Heritage Dictionary: " An assertion that is essentially self-contradictory, though based on a valid deduction from acceptable premises" is this actually a paradox? Now, discuss.

What exactly does M-theory say about the Big Bang and Planck scale physics? I understand that M-theory’s beautiful symmetry visible on the Planck scale must be broken at lower scale. Do cosmologists use M-theory to model Planck-scale Big Bang? What does M-theory say about the Planck era where GR becomes a singularity? Does M-theory do what Hawking wants it to do, makes a falsifiable prediction of a multiverse, where other universes have different values of fundamental constants? What does M-theory tell us was the physics of the Big Bang in this energy scale? Can we take an M-theory prediction of planck scale physics in the Big Bang era, follow it forward in time into the future until it re-reproduces current Big Bang CDM model? How do the predictions of M-theory differ or similar to Loop quantum cosmology?

Who knows? Again, we lack the perspective to possibly answer this question. You seem to be unaware that the very concepts of good, evil, benevolence etc that you seem to rely on presuppose a God. Without a God they are meaningless uncountable nouns in a world blind to such concepts. One of the intellectual challenges facing atheism is an acceptance of this and other difficult cold and unattractive realities of life without God. If God - be He good or bad - does not exist then good evil etc have no meaning beyond subjective experience and that as de Sade with his adult and insightful understanding of the atheist conception rightly pointed out is irrelevant to all but the being doing the suffering. In short if a baby dies in agony so what?

Your assertions are incorrect because 1) they do not take into account the greater context of the mystery of suffering and 2) presume that you (a limited being) are in a position to judge God. The latter reason is self-evident. The former reason involves the greater context, which is about more than simply the victim. There is also the free choice of the perpetrator - even if only indirectly involved by creating circumstances for evil to be done. The evil choices of some can be inflicted upon those who have no choice - abortion is a good example. Additionally, you have limited yourself to the "instructional" nature of suffering while ignoring its redemptive value. Suffering, when united to the cross of Jesus, has redemptive, salvific value - and not only for the person who suffers, but possibly for others as well. I say "possibly" only because the person to receive the benefit must accept it in some way, at least at the moment of death. Suffering and evil result as the consequence of free will (even if it can be traced only to our fallen nature through original sin, such as the wolf example you gave above). We are given true free will in order that we my have an actual loving relationship with God (without free will, there is no real relationship). Thus, because the choice is genuine, the real consequences of choice for evil can be extraordinarily atrocious - even upon the innocent, and even indirectly. The infinite justice and mercy of God meet at the cross of Jesus, who is God. The sufferings of the innocent are joined with Jesus' suffering, and have redemptive value for others. Not only that, but by participating in Jesus' suffering, the innocent may actually enter into a deeper relationship with Him upon death, and thus experience reward greater than any suffering experienced here on Earth. In other words, God gave us free will that we may really come to know and love him, and thereby achieve the most profound state of happiness forever. Because our free will is genuine, we can choose evil. The consequences of evil choices affects the innocent and can even reverborate and affect others for ages. God's answer is to come down from Heaven, become one of us, and suffer with us in order to redeem us. Thus, when the full context of both the here and now as well as eternity are considered, God is all good. On the other hand, to the atheist, such evil is insurmountable - because the atheist limits himself to see only the physical world around him. Which, ironically, is itself an evil choice because it violates the first commandment. Yes, this is pretty much how Aquinas formulated it eight hundred years ago. He thrashed it very soundly. Peter Kreeft's "Making Sense out of Suffering" is a great book on the subject. As is CS Lewis's "The Problem of Pain". Really, this argument has been beaten so hard that it's kind of astonishing to me that it keeps coming back. The thing is, it doesn't have intellectual teeth, but it has emotional teeth. When we hear stories of terrible, pointless suffering, such as your woman giving birth in the forest, our hearts rend. "It shouldn't be like this!" we cry. And our tears cloud our thoughts. The thing is, despite our tears, you can't do anything but assert is that suffering is inherently evil. It is at least possible that our suffering, and the suffering of the woman in the forest, and even the suffering of children, is somehow a necessary part of a greater good. We can't know. Our lives are the lives of amoebas in a microscope slide; only the scientist on the other side of the microscope can truly see the big picture. And apparently, the scientist thinks that suffering is not inherently evil, because he voluntarily endured the worst suffering that our world has to offer. He suffered as much as the woman in the woods. He suffered every bit as much as the baby that was devoured, and he came out glorified on the other side and told us, "Be not afraid." I don't deny the emotional punch of suffering. But using it to tear down the belief structure which allows suffering to be redemptive rather than just bad luck is tragically misguided. You misunderstand the doctrine of omnipotence. What it means is that God can do anything which can be done, not that God can do anything which Edtharan can say. Asserting that he can control our every move and leave us with free will is like saying he can draw a four-sided figure and it will be a triangle. Jimmy Akin does an excellent job explaining this point here: My linkhttp://www.jimmyakin.org/2010/08/th.html So Cain swings his club at Abel, and is instantly transported to an alternate reality where Abel is some kind of simulacrum? In this new reality, Cain clobbers Abel; in the first reality, robot Cain gives Abel a big hug? So every sin results in the creation of a brand new reality populated with homonculi that exist only to do the sinner's bidding. It won't be long until every human on earth is isolated in their own little pocket realities, interacting only with these faked instances. You think this would actually be superior to the Christian view that God actually respects our choices? That our acts have some sort of impact on the world, beyond our private personal sandboxes? Suit yourself, I guess. But you're not presenting any sort of logical argument against God here, you're simply pouting that he doesn't do things the way you like. The set of all even numbers is limited, but infinite.

Thank you for the excellent replies. Do you think there is a gap between theory (the math) and reality (the experiments)?

Thank you for the excellent responses. Is there a specific timeframe for a theory to be proven (rationally) in order to be known as true?

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You know - there is a kernal of truth in what you say above about how there is a certain lack of toughness in many Christians (I wouldn't go so far as to say in "Christianity" as a whole), but unfortunately this point is buried under so much tripe and misinformation as to be completely lost.

M-theory is interesting, but I don't think it has a particular connection to proving the existence of God. Personally, I do not agree that a universe with a temporal beginning requires God but an temporally infinte universe doesn't. Both require a creator, because both sorts of universes are contingent, not necessary, realities. There are all sorts of infinities. The series of even integers: 2, 4, 6, 8, etc, is an infinite series. And it is exactly equal to the infinte series of all integers: 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. Because they can always be matched up one for one, with none left over. Sorry, I didn't mean to get into that......

Any example of this nonsense or is this just your opinion? At what time did this happen? EEK! Where are you getting this tripe? The Goose Step was found in ancient Rome? From Wikipedia The Swastika was Roman? Evidently, it was found everywhere in ancient Cultures. "The presence of Swastika is evident in various civiliziation such as the Egyptians, Mayans, Aztec, Inca, Native Americans, Romans, Greeks, Chinese, Japanese, ancient Troy and Celts to name but a few and that derived from the Vedic Dharma of Aryans of Bharat or India." From http://hi-in.facebook.com/pages/Reclaim-the-Swastika-symbol/128870393792705

Thanks ajb for the incredible information. What is a multiverse? I don't think that multiverse theory is a necessary part of string or M-theory. In some cases, it seems the multiverse hypothesis is used as a way to escape the "anthropic" problem--i.e. that the basic constants of the universe we observe, seem to be fine tuned to support human life.

confused

My profile says I have: Reputation: -2 Neutral Red (background color) How does this get increased? I guess Reputation is awarded by other users when they find your posts helpful.

What is really a string theory? What are the fundamental principles and how the final theory will look like (in terms of strings or other fundamental degrees of freedom)? what are the major obstacles (inherent to string theory) preventing us from identifying these underlying principles and constructing this unique framework or theory?

As a public servant, Steve Martin compiled the Atheist Hymnal. I would hope that no matter where you are on the belief spectrum, you can find humor in this:

This sounds like you want God to be a parent who plays tennis with their child but lets the child win every game until they're 21, lest their fragile self-esteem be hurt by losing. That child won't in any way grow or develop as a tennis player, much less as a person able to cope with both good and bad things happening, unless they learn a.) that they CAN lose and B.) that inevitably they sometimes WILL lose a game or two, but that it's not the end of the world because they can use it constructively to learn and develop greater skills, and can become a good player in spite of occasionally losing. See God, like any good parent, wants His children to learn and grow and develop their potential, and excel as human beings. In other words to become great as saints and people. Which involves a learning process, and also involves the risk of hurt and failure. He doesn't want them to be mediocre - not doing anything wrong, but being only moderately good and obedient, and that only by default rather than by choice. The often-used metaphor of gold or silver being refined to it utmost purity by being put through fire is apt here - the fire in our case being the trials and tribulations and risks attached to the possibility and reality of sin.