ydoaPs

So, religion is better suited to the task because it doesn't give any method to know what the right answer is? o.O

As why is a question of intent of a causal agent, "why" is a silly question to ask if there's no causal agent. You have said several times that physics does not show that there must be a causal agent. Purpose is similar, though it is not quite the same. With purpose, you can divide into the intended purpose (which is roughly synonymous with the "why") and actualized purpose (which is how it is used). There are two main ways of answering these questions and both are scientific. One way phenomenologically and the other is behaviourally; We either ask the intentional agent and/or we observe it and it's interactions with the byproducts of the causal event. If there is no overall intended purpose due to a lack of a causal agent, that does not mean there is no actualized purpose. If there is no purpose from gods, then there is still purpose from humanity; your purpose is up to you. All of our knowledge of the universe is via the senses. We map the universe from how the universe appears to us via our senses. We use these observations to build our models. In philosophy, your arguments are based on premises that are derived from other arguments, observed, induced from observations, or assumed. Bad philosophy uses assumed premises. In good philosophy, you can trace it all back to that which comes to us from our senses. When an area of philosophy gets sufficiently good, we call it "science". Science is the perfection of philosophy. If we can have knowledge of it (remember that all knowledge traces back to observation), then it is within the scope of science. If science can't answer a question, why on God's green Earth do you think Religion could do any better?

So, the price for one person is infinite, but the price for everyone can be paid by one bad weekend? The accounting doesn't seem to work.

I'm in Ignostic Agnostic Weak Atheist. Now, let's break that down a bit. Atheism is an umbrella term that encompasses a gradient of positions. Atheism is just a response to theism. Theists say "One or more deities exist". And atheism is just people saying "I don't believe you." This can take on varying degrees of forcefulness(ranging from Weak Atheism: "I don't believe deities exist" to Strong Atheism:"I believe that no deities exist.") Weak Atheism(the core of atheism) obviously requires no faith and as such is often blatantly ignored by theists. Strong Atheism, on the other hand, requires just as much faith as theism. All that defines an atheist is that they do not answer "yes" when asked "Do you believe in the existence of one or more deities?". "Agnostic" is a term that is misused as nausium. I suspect that it is mostly due to the social stigma(which is thankfully somewhat receding) of the term Atheist. Agnostic is a modifier of the terms Theist and Atheist, and as such cannot stand on it's own. You either believe in the existence of one or more deities, or you don't; there is no middle ground. Atheism and Theism are the only options. Agnosticism is merely one flavour of the choices. "Agnostic" merely means that one believe that one cannot know whether or not deities exist. Thus, one can be an Agnostic Theist(believe one or more deities exist, but it is impossible to know for a fact that this is the truth) or one can be an Agnostic Atheist(lack a belief in deities, but also believe it is impossible to know whether or not deities exist), but one cannot JUST be an Agnostic. There is no middle ground between belief and disbelief; you either believe or you lack belief. Much of the previous, for me at least, hinges on the Ignostic part. Ignosticism basically means that the question of whether or not deities exist is irrelevant until we can come to an agreement on a coherent concept of what a deity is. How can I know if something exists if I don't know what it is supposed to be?

Nothingness isn't a thing to be able to exist! It's the state of affairs where there is absolutely no something in existence.

QFT That is not unusual.

Owl and the unknown idiot who wrote the paper he is infatuated with are not representative of philosophy. No, it says "what happens if we don't assume this?" and then shows that they do intersect. It's removing an assumption and then seeing what happens. Despite what you believe since you're as incompetent at math as Ross, a geodesic IS the shortest distance between two points in a curved space. Interestingly enough, non-Euclean geometry has been experimentally confirmed more times than you can count. No, it's not. If you have a line intersecting a sphere, you have two points rather than a line connecting them. A sphere is a two dimensional object-it has no thickness. When we do spherical geometry, the sphere is the entire space. A geodesic does not curve in the space of the sphere; ie, its second derivative is a constant. If you were to take the sphere and cut it up and flatten it out, the geodesic would be perfectly flat. If we take a Euclidean space with a line on it and roll the space into a cylinder, the line is STILL straight. This is just you not understanding math. I'll go through Ross's "paper" paragraph by paragraph here if you'd like, but I probably won't get to it until tomorrow as I've got real philosophy to do. "Not invariant" is a very specific kind of varying. If something is "constant", it doesn't change within a frame of reference. If something is "invariant", it doesn't change when reference frames are changed.

What you call "deep analysis" was simply him not understanding math at all. The very definition of non-Euclidean geometry is a geometry that does not hold at least one of Euclid's postulates. So, by definition, the transition from Euclidean to non-Euclidean is a removal of assumptions. Yes, it's objective fact.

No, it's Ross hasn't got a clue what he's talking about, so his paper is crap. It amounted to "I don't know math". That's it. The entire paper. Well, not the whole paper. There was the part where he admitted that everyone in his field, mathematics, and physics disagrees with him, but we've covered that part already. It's an objective fact that non-Euclidean geometry is made by removing assumptions. In fact, that's the DEFINITION of non-Euclidean geometry!

Good; That paper was garbage. You know that the transformation from Euclidean to non-Euclidean is done by REMOVING assumptions, right? And I'm fairly certain the point of his post was:

As Trip said, you're incorrect. Agnosticism is not a middle ground. One is a theist or one is not a theist; it's that simple. What the (incredibly often misused) term actually refers to is the inability (either pragmatic or epistemic) to know whether or not a deity exists rather than referring to the belief about whether or not a deity exists. Nothingness is unlike anything you've ever encountered. It is NOTHING. There's no space, no time, no mass. It lacks completely all that there is to be something. It lacks the properties lending to regularity which allows us to create descriptions of its behaviour such as mathematics, logic, and physics. Since it lacks both causality and conservation of energy, who's to say something can't come from nothing uncaused? Furthermore, it's nonsensical to speak of causing something to begin to exist from nothing. How, exactly, does one cause that which does not exist to do anything? Nothing doesn't need a cause.

Actually try it. By the way, to scale, the Earth is smoother than a cue ball. How tall must your mountain be for your solution to work if it's possible at all?

I'm not sure, but I think he was talking about the fall of man stuff.

You may want to rewatch the film. Valerie was tortured by the government for being gay. Evey was tortured by V to force a shift in perspective.

Of course I knew what it was after I made a post and looked at it. I just had no idea what I actually set as my sig, you silly commie. edit: Valerie wasn't tortured by V

I'm not sure what mine is, so I'd wager there wasn't much thought behind it.

By the way this is false. This is the proper way to cite them according to every writing standard. Also, my quotes are KJV which has no copyright. Care to try again?

So, you're not familiar with a globe? Pick up a globe, put a pin in Palestine, and use a string to see if you can form a line of sight to the east coast of China.

So, how about the flat earth thing?

Not really. They shoot peaceful protesters already. They added that provision for a reason. You don't accidentally add legislation to allow the US government to detain citizens with neither warning nor charges nor trial and then torture them. They just have to say "you're a terrorist" and then you're gone and no one knows why.

As late as 2009, the DOD labelled protesting as "low level terrorism" in their official training manual.

Different altitudes give different readings. Which one is correct?

The whole thing. Take a ball and see if you can see one side from the other. "The tree grew, and was strong, and the height thereof reached unto heaven, and the sight thereof to the end of all the earth"-Daniel 4:11 "And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth."-Isaiah 11:12

"Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them"-Matthew 4:8

I thought you'd use a video like this one to make the point: