Iggy

It takes a lot to make me feel bad for Christians, but you've managed to do it. They've been putting up with your kind of crazy for 2,000 years. They've had to hold ranks against the Jim Jones and David Koresh types -- people who build mountains of insanity on top of christian beliefs. The secularists can dismiss you with the same indifferent trollishness that your writing takes, but sincere and devout Christians unfortunately have to deal with you which makes me feel orders of magnitude more sympathetic towards them. And, you chose to regurgitate it on a science forum? I don't get that at all. You make positive claims about "33 Aeons" on a science forum and you aren't swatted back like a delusional fly? Whatever. I don't have to put up with it. The best of luck to you.

They are stretched over vast intergalactic distances. Yes, it would if it wasn't in orbit. There is an attractive force toward the center, but it is balanced by a centrifugal force when it rotates around a center. Yes, it is wrong because it only accounts for the mass of earth, mars, and the sun. Over large scales the universe can be approximated as homogeneous. If you want to do a Newtonian calculation to find out if a volume is gravitationally bound you have to ask what the density of that volume is and you have to know the velocity at which the volume expands. Let's say the density of the volume is [math]\rho[/math] The distance between one star (at the center) and another star (at the edge of some volume) is [math]D[/math] Over intergalactic distances things don't rotate, or orbit. They have a velocity directly away from a center. If the velocity is less than the escape velocity for that volume then they are gravitationally bound, if not then not. The escape velocity depends on the mass of the volume of space which is, [math]m = \rho \frac{4}{3} \pi D^3 [/math] The escape velocity is, [math]V = \sqrt{ \frac{2GM}{D}} [/math] combining the two gives, [math]V = \sqrt{ 2 G \rho \frac{4}{3} \pi D^2} [/math] The large density of a galaxy (or the density of a cluster of galaxies) makes the right hand side larger than the left hand side making them gravitationally bound. What you end up with is typically called the critical density. If a volume of space is above the critical density then it is gravitationally bound. The actual velocity that things expand in our universe is given by the hubble constant. The velocity that a galaxy moves away is its distance times the hubble constant, so the critical density is easy to solve from the last equation given... [math]V = \sqrt{2 G \rho \frac{4}{3} \pi D^2} [/math] [math]H \cdot D = \sqrt{2 G \rho \frac{4}{3} \pi D^2} [/math] [math]\rho = \frac{3 H^2}{8 \pi G} [/math] If any volume of space comports to the hubble constant and is above that density then it will be gravitationally bound, and if not then not. Galaxies are.

That's the Christian-based secular world. People of other cultures/moralities can act far differently than westerners. Christians in other cultures act different from you. Christians in the second century acted far different from you. You don't have a point. The Bible is an invariant source, although interpretation may change slightly over the years. You can't hide behind "slightly different interpretations". There is only one way to interpret things like "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live". Either you favor burning witches at the stake or you do not have an invariant source of morality in the bible. There is no wiggle room. You are wrong primarily three ways. 1) No one has suggested that atheists have an invariant source of morality. They do not. No group of people (no culture, no religion, no society, no country) has ever had such a thing. 2) An invariant source of morality wouldn't make a group of people 'better'. It is only fit for a people's moral attitude to improve as people learn more and become more civilized. 3) There is no such thing as "atheist morality" because it is a nonsense idea. Atheism means that you don't believe in god. That has absolutely nothing to do with morality. An atheist could be a sadistic killer or a kind and empathetic advocate for truth and justice. Atheism is not an ideology like Christianity is so it simply isn't related to morality the way christianity is. It's like asking "what is the morality of left handed people"? Being left handed has nothing to do with morality so it is a nonsense question. I'm a humanist. What the hell do you know about my moral code? Thinking that an atheist doesn't have a moral code is like thinking a helicopter doesn't fly because it doesn't have wings. You have to know next to nothing about the topic to think it. You can't imagine how evident it is from an outside perspective... how thoroughly you've been lied to and how completely you've been fooled. It is good that you're here on this forum. You really need to get out and meet some people who are different from you. Acquaint yourself with the family life of a Buddhist or a secular Jewish person. The world outside the box you've made for yourself is very different from the way you imagine it. Citations are necessary and scientific. What does that mean? I gave the verse. The same way I interpret "the Lord hardened the heart of the Pharaoh". It means that your God occasionally abandons people then pours liquid fire on them because that's what genocidal dictators tend to do. Slaves would do well to seek favor with their masters. No, that's morally disgusting. Slaves should resist their masters. Evil should be resisted. Really? Submitting to be whipped will make the slave master feel like a jerk and trying to be a good slave will make the master reconsider the arrangement? You wonder what is wrong with your moral code. Wow! Please link to what you dubiously (and repeatedly) claim. Your repeated failure to give a link is beginning to speak for itself. I quoted you exactly. I don't see any links to my posts when you quote me. If you want to know where you said it then I welcome you to go back and look at your old posts. It is a claim that you continue to repeat so there would hardly be a point. Innate morality, secular humanism, culture and family, logic, philosophy, experience, and education. From an emotional standpoint I try to base moral decisions on empathy and solidarity, but I sometimes fail when anger and divisiveness get the better of me. I dare say those are the things you base your moral decisions on as well, but your recognition of that fact has been hijacked. Your dignity and self respect should not so easily surrender something that is innately yours -- your knowledge of right and wrong.

One minute you're saying that the core of religious experience is so similar among all religions that it must be true and the next you're saying that most religious people aren't religious at all. What a mess your quest for secret truth has made you. Forcing children to be educated on religion is the surest way to produce young atheists. What a stupid thing to say. Tertullian knew the gnostic fathers personally. He heard them speak. He had access to all of their writings. You suggest that we know more because we dug up 12 books buried in a jar? You have no sense of proportion or historic truth. You're just arguing as a pretense to preach your cultish beliefs, and frankly no form of communication could be more boring. There is core agreement between atheists of every culture that supernatural claims are bogus and it should be accepted that they are able to access an objective truth on the topic. This is undeniable. The evidence is too great to ignore. Who can't play this boring game? Trying to discuss anything with you while you use the exchange as an opportunity to proselytize your bizarre theories would be a double standard on my part.

Your common sense disagrees with the common sense of 99.9% of religious people. There is therefore nothing common about it. If what you are saying is true then your sense is extraordinary. You have information denied to mortals. If you refuse to make a list for us, I suggest you at least take to the streets and announce from a soapbox that you know who has the favor of God. Don't you think they deserve to know? That's cute. You're quoting the online Gnostic Society Library. I prefer to quote Tertullian, who summed up everything that Valentinus was and everything that you are 1800 years ago in one shot: Valentinus expected to become bishop because he had great abilities of mind and tongue, but another was preferred for the position because he suffered as a martyr. Angry at this, Valentinus broke with the legitimate church. Just as minds who have been excited with the hope of advancement usually burn anticipating revenge, he turned to overthrowing truth. Having discovered the trail of some old teaching, he paved the way for Colorbasus. Afterwards Ptolomaeus travelled the same path; he segregated those attributes--such as feeling, influence, and motion--which Valentinus had included in the totality of the godhead into names and positions, i.e., Aeons considered as animate individuals having their existence apart from God. Heracleon cut a few footpaths from there, as did Secundus and Marcus the seer. Theotimus evolved many things about the "forms" of the law. As you see, Valentinus has disappeared, yet these are Valentinians who derive from Valentinus. At Antioch alone to this day Axionicus consoles the memory of Valentinus by a full obedience of his rules. The other heretics allow themselves to change their teachings with the same frequency a prostitute changes her makeup--and why not?--since each of them discovers that well known spiritual seed in himself: if they invent anything new, they immediately call it a revelation; they call their audacity a spiritual gift. They do not claim their sect is united, but admit it is diverse; consequently whenever they abandon their usual equivocation, we see that most of them are at odds about the meaning of certain dogmas, some saying in good faith, "this is not so"; others, "I take this in a different sense"; others, "I don't admit that." As we see their list of rules has been painted over by their innovations and looks as if it had been scribbled on by an ignoramus. ADVERSUS VALENTINIANOS No sooner had that argument been made, Bertrand Russell refuted it. In fact, the website you're quoting goes on to say: Russell’s position is the stronger, because his argument uproots a fundamental element of Broad’s argument. By taking away the religious experience’s gift of moral information, Broad very little to argue. Broad’s only evidence for the veridicality of these experiences were ethical truths. If the experiences have no evidence of being veridical then there is no reason to believe that they are anything other than delusions. Broad admitted this when he said that the experiences could be considered true "…unless there be some positive reason to think otherwise.(Broad 2008, 217)" It is for that simple reason that Russell has the stronger position. This is a good example of how an argument doesn’t have to be long or complex to successfully refute a long or complex argument. Broad’s analysis was in-depth, and very thorough. He considered many rebuttals, and defended his hypothesis very well. However, he left a glaring hole in his logic, which was immediately seen in another situation by Bertrand Russell, and much like a complex machine, that missing piece was a fatal flaw in the whole. Religious Experience: An Analysis Were you purposefully taking your quote out of context, or did you just not read the rest of the page? I'm afraid of being bored senseless by this discussion.

I admire your ability to recognize those who have divine inspiration. Would you consider making a list of which ancient authors have God's approval? I see no reason God couldn't relate this list to you. It could potentially help many of us who do not have superhuman powers so that we are not led astray by false prophets. It's kind of funny that you can get away with that on a science forum. It's proselytizing (unorthodox preaching, in fact) and you couldn't support it with a team of sympathetic researchers. Just so we're clear... at the heart of the problem is the following... and that nobody recognizes that such things exist? That is the heart of the problem? I'd just like to be the first to say that I'm glad I don't share your problems.

By the way, Ewmon, I thought this went without saying in my last post (since I pointed it out previously), but I realize you need it spelled out. The verse I gave you about gay people being justifiably burned is in the new testament. It was Romans 1:26 and 27. It isn't the only one. Paul was quite the gay basher. You keep appropriate company. You can find the warrant for slavery in the new testament too. From Jesus himself, "blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes" in Luke 12:37. Some people take that seriously. You probably would if you knew anything about it. But, no, you apparently don't even know that the old testament is part of the Christian bible. It's really sad. You've been lied to your whole life by religious authorities, never asking yourself what motives were behind their pontific smile. You just smiled back, handed over your money, and believed every word of it. A few days ago you said that atheists don't have morality. You said "a Christian is able to admit that some acts are wrong, whereas atheists tend to think that, if doing something feels good, then do it." How insulated must a person be from the real world to think that? I feel for you. It's extremely sad.

That's the first time you said that to me, [edit]ok, the rest of this paragraph was a bit much for polite company[/edit] Thank you, I've read both and know far more about it than you. I've read the boring bits. I've pronounced the names in the chapters dedicated entirely to genealogy which requires the symbols signifying long vowels, and things about that book you couldn't imagine not knowing. But, please, continue... Everyone who has yet spoken to you has amply demonstrated their ability to speak on that subject far more intelligibly than you. Those are called the beatitudes. Read about them in the secular world. Gain about 20 years more education, then get back to me. You don't have one. What part of those four words don't you understand?

I wouldn't trust that fact to work on Ewmon. I tried the same thing as far as "burning homosexuals alive" being immoral. His response, which was admirably un-hypocritical, was that they deserve to be burned alive. They sin, and spread disease, and whatever the hell else he said... it was altogether awful. So, I think we have a fairly straight firing line. The religious want to kill and maim (and keep slaves if they're consistent), and they think all of humanity deserves to suffer. The anti-religious think the opposite. Let's just see who wins the moral high ground here. "invariant morality" HA!

No, no, it shouldn't be removed or replaced. It would be like asking what replaces Stonehenge once we demolish it. I mean, there are no druids any more so we might as well demolish it, eh? No. There's a good poem on the topic... Larkin

"Don't worry, there's hope!" Of course that's what the cult and the Christian church say. First they say, like you said, 'you're worthless and broken and you deserve pain, suffering, and death'. They try to break you down. Then they build you up. They say, 'Don't worry, there's hope! The leader can fix all that if you'll just agree to be his slave. Give him your money. Confess to him your secrets. Do whatever he says and let him own your soul'. I have a hunch that you've been indoctrinated from such an early age that all of that sounds perfectly normal to you, but I can assure you it is not. The normal human condition is freedom. You can only be free when you own your own mistakes and plan for your own future. You don't throw your past on to a scapegoat and trust the cult leader to lead you into tomorrow's dark room. You can think for yourself and get past all that. can you support the notion that non christians don't believe certain things are wrong

Because if I ever had to put a quarter in the swear jar I would deserve pain, suffering, and death? What, Sir, are you talking about? You excused the burning alive of homosexuals by saying "all of humanity deserves pain, suffering, and death". What could be more disgraceful and immoral? Good moral character comes from dignity and self respect, not guilt and shame. "Oh, God, I am a vile sinner deserving pain, suffering, and death", is a guilt and shame producing declaration, and that's just when one says it about themselves and devalues their own personality. When you say it about all of humanity you devalue others and break the golden rule.

It's a mad preachment. Christians may believe it, but that doesn't make it moral.

I'm glad you didn't think it was impertinent to ask. How do you mean that atheism is a way of living one's life? That sounds strange to me. If someone you didn't know rang you up and said "My name is Jim, and I'm an atheist" what would you know about how that person lived their life?

I'm afraid that isn't how the terms are understood. Energy is not dimensionless. A dimensionless quantity is the same regardless of what units you decide to measure it in. So, for example, mass (specifically say the mass of a boat) is dimensionful because you could use units of kilograms or you could use units of bananas. A boat weighs more bananas than kilograms. Energy is dimensionful, you know, because the energy (let's specifically say the gravitational potential energy gained by lifting a banana 2 feet off the floor) is different if you express it in joules as it is when you express it in ergs. The dimensionality of energy is mass * length * length / time / time. If energy were dimensionless then those would cancel. An example of a dimensionless quantity is Mach number (let's say the Mach number of a North Korean missile targeting a banana). [math]M=\frac{v}{a}[/math] where v is the velocity of the missile relative to the air and a is the speed of sound in the air. Both are measured in speed: [math]M=\frac{\mbox{speed}}{\mbox{speed}}[/math] and speed is length divided by time [math]M=\frac{\mbox{length / time}}{\mbox{length / time}}[/math] You know that M is dimensionless because M stays the same no matter what units you pick. You could measure length with a meter stick or a banana, and you could measure time in seconds or banana growing seasons. The number you get for M will be the same either way. The last thing... Imagine that for every distance you could run, I could only run half that distance. X is however far you move and Y is however far I move. X=2Y would always be true. X and Y have the same dimensionality (length) but you don't cancel them and say that the equation is dimensionless. That wouldn't make sense to cross the equals sign in that way. You would just say that both quantities have the same dimensionality. EDIT: Sorry to repeat you Klaynos. I was typing when you posted.

Mr. Rayon, since you got the list on a UCG link would you mind if I asked, are you a member? Curious, I looked up the book (It is, by the way, listed as fiction): Sex, Love, or Romance by 'Dr.' Ray E. Short I nearly busted my gut laughing so hard reading the whole of 'fact' one: Yep. "Where can we have sex?" ends relationships quick as being hit by a freight train. The footnote (endnote actually) for that fact is even funnier: And the book was published in 2004! "A research in marriage" from the year Wall Street crashed, and "emotional courtship trends ***as expressed with graphs***" from the year Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun ended their one day old marriage in a ditch covered in petrol. Just another statistic I'm afraid. It's hard to imagine parents used to brainwash their teenage daughters with books like this. I guess the internet happened. I'm tempted to buy it

I believe everyone is, to some extent, a hypocrite. Homosexuals deserve to be burned alive! Do you know what I mean? Men who do those things with other men, and even women who are unnatural with each other, they deserve to be set on fire! I am, of course, paraphrasing the New Testament to be sure we're talking about the same thing. Is this the reference material you're talking about and do you believe it? God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. -Paul's loving account of Sodom and Gomorrah; Rom. 1:26-27 I have read some trashy and immoral books in my time, but I don't think I'd be able to sleep at night if I had recommended the book I just quoted as a serious and honest guide to ones life. And imagine reading that book to an impressionable child. My God! I feel like washing my hands just having typed out the words. But, if I believed that my friends were going to hell wouldn't I be a hypocrite unless I did everything possible to get them to change who they are and avoid that fate? If you're a true believer in Christianity then 'live and let live' doesn't seem exactly non-hypocritical to me.

Velocity is much more complicated because velocity is reciprocal. Gravitational time dilation depends on gravitational potential which isn't reciprocal and therefore much more straightforward. It is ok to say "person A has more gravitational potential than person B" in an absolute sense. It then follows to say "person A's clock is faster than person B's clock". But, with velocity you can't really say "person A has more velocity than person B" because velocity is relative. Compared to A, B has velocity and compared to B, A has velocity. It's complicated and nasty but it really can't be avoided. The best you can say is "from A's perspective, B's clock runs slow (half as fast as A's clock)" and "from B's perspective, A's clock runs slow (half as fast as B's clock)". The concept of reciprocal time dilation is a major pitfall for a lot of people. It is impossible to make complete sense out of it without also knowing about length contraction and the relativity of simultaneity. I could recommend wikibooks -- special relativity but it's pretty heavy reading.

What is the question? Ignoring velocity (assuming everything is static) the relationship between observers is, [math]dt' = dt \left( 1= \frac{\Delta \phi}{c^2} \right)[/math] where [math]\Delta \phi[/math] is the change in gravitational potential between them. If the earth clock runs half as fast as deep space and the black hole clock runs half as fast as earth then the clock in deep space would run 4 times as fast as the black hole clock. (the inverse of .25 is 4)

Right. You've reached what I like to think of as the Bill Clinton critical mass. It's the "I didn't have sex with her, she had sex with me" moment -- the "depends on what is, is" moment -- when the absurdity can't support its own mass and implodes. You didn't say "a or b", you said not "a or b". It's predictable. Next you'll say "I didn't mean neither a nor b, so there's no point in refuting a without b". I sometimes wonder if you can see the collapse from your side of the horizon, but it's too late to know. You've become causally disconnected from the discussion and any relation we could have now would only draw me into the collapse. For that way lies folly. No, best to admit the truth, the uninteresting has become boring.

No amount of references or footnotes would prevent your dissembling problem. Post 510: If you had something interesting to say about mandatory firearm insurance I'd be happy to comment. I gave a link explaining that it wouldn't be a constitutional problem and I explained my reservations about the idea. Nothing else to chew on I'm afraid. My first adult contribution? My God, what an immature and childish point you must have made earlier: Just silly. Distinction without a difference. A license is granted as permission to do something or use something... <snip> A permit is another type of license which is granted by a government agency. Licenses and Permits They do seem serious about staying away from any licensing / registration particulars. After lifting the ban on handguns in DC they as much as told Heller that he could apply for a license now. He "could obtain a license, assuming he is not otherwise disqualified" and so long as the licensing wasn't "enforced in an arbitrary and capricious manner". They didn't have a problem with Heller's lawyer's take on that. Two years after DC vs. Heller opened the flood gates of cases, they said in McDonald v. Chicago (almost sounding annoyed): It may be Chicago's turn again because I heard they were insisting on a firearm safety or shooting class at a gun range before issuing a permit. Illinois' circuit court said it is unconstitutional, but I don't know the particulars of why. But, that will be landing on the Supreme's door if it hasn't already.

I think, to be fair, If McCarthy were the NY senator rather than Gillibrand, gun control would have a much better shot.

Yes. Very good. Scratch my line of thought. I was assuming the expanding gas was doing the pressure-volume work on the piston. I agree, if I understand your interpretation of the system right, Helium would have to be below about 200 K with initial standard pressure to cool, while the nitrogen and oxygen components of air would do so with initial STP. According to this link... for air... So, roughly 1/50th of the pressure amounts to a roughly 9 C drop in temp. That seems quite little. Were you hoping for more of a change?

I said license and insurance, You said both. First sentence of the post contains the phrase I quoted. You keep doing what the Romans called 'ignoratio elenchi'. You make clear again that you don't know licensing is mandatory in some states. You remind me of Wesley Snipes arguing that income tax is unconstitutional and therefore should not be tried. You want to see if they're likely to withstand constitutional challenge? Priceless. In New Jersey one must obtain a "Firearms Purchaser Identification Card" from your local police department before you can legally buy (or possess or transport) even a spring loaded BB gun, and the FID will cost you more than the BB gun. Here is Hawaii HRS 134-2, "No person shall acquire the ownership of a firearm, whether usable or unusable, serviceable or unserviceable, modern or antique, registered under prior law or by prior owner or unregistered, either by purchase, gift, inheritance, bequest, or in any other manner, whether procured in the state or imported by mail, until the person has first procured from the chief of police of the county of the persons place of business or... residence... a permit to acquire the ownership of a firearm as prescribed in this section."

Velocity is change in position. If something moves from zero, then one, two, and higher then the velocity is positive. If it moves the other way (3, 2, 1, then zero) the velocity is negative. Acceleration is change in velocity. If it gets faster or slower over time then there is acceleration. If velocity gets larger (or more positive) over time then acceleration is positive. If the velocity gets smaller, or more negative, over time then acceleration is negative. If it is speeding up then the acceleration vector is in the same direction as its motion. Slowing down means the acceleration is in the opposite direction. So you could imagine something moving very fast to the left (over time its position changes from larger to smaller), and it slows down over time. Velocity would be negative and acceleration positive. Negative acceleration just means that velocity is getting smaller over time. If something moves 4 meters to the left the first second then 2 meters in the second, and 1 in the third then it's acceleration was in the negative direction.