WWLabRat

Iggy, don't you get it? The point is moot. Neither of the two have physical, verifiable evidence to be able to compare the two. As such, it can't be approached in a scientific way. If however you have physical (ie observable, measurable, and repeatable) evidence of god or corndog-defecating, syrup-urinating dragons, please provide us with such evidence. I'm hungry and could go for corndogs. And it's not the dragons, leprechauns, or even a flying spaghetti monster claims that would make atheists look bad. It's the fact that despite your beliefs, you aren't willing to view things from another point. You are dead set in your ways. According to the religion forum rules: Stop trying to victimize yourself. It's the idea being attacked, not you. Don't assume that those that are expressing their opinions here are iNow's "cheerleading squad". Just because someone's views are in line with someone else's doesn't mean they are supporting that person, merely their idea. So once again, can we please keep this discussion on topic and not turn it into a back and forth pissing contest, ffs?

Off and on, I've wasted years on it. I hadn't seen it in about 3 years, then just last week I found it again and have been trying to remember each of the steps.

Back to the topic at hand... Since you haven't provided a suitable, or otherwise, definition of god/deity, I'm taking the liberty of quoting from another thread, pinned at the top of the Religion sub-forum: This seems to be the common definition used by scientists who are also of a religious persuasion. So for the purpose of moving this discussion along, we should use this when referring to god/God/deity.

Debating 101: Comment on the topic, not the person. To do otherwise shows an ignorance of the topic.

Who said I'm an atheist? I may have given a very brief description about my spirituality, but I never said whether I was theistic or atheist. And he was trying to say that because it can't be proven you can't show a difference between the two. He can't prove a difference between them because their existence can't be proven. Anything that is unable to be observed, measured, and repeated falls outside the purview of science. At the core, both arguments are in agreement with each other. So there's no reason for the argument so why continue it?

Read, carefully, what he had written. It's there plain as day that he was saying that there's no difference between them as far as potential existence.

The difference though is that my daily survival doesn't depend on such base instincts in the same way as they would have eons ago. I don't have to constantly be on alert for large predators, war with a neighboring village, or anything else. Only thing I have to watch out for is the person texting and driving while on my daily commute to work each day. Following these base instincts likely (speculating here) was a "second nature" type thing. Their reaction time to hazardous stimuli could have been faster than ours due to more regular use of their adrenals.

Um, no... You were asked to define. He was simply asking in what ways would the belief in an all powerful entity be any different than the belief that there are/were dragons who would defecate quantities of a battered and dipped hotdog on a stick. The only equivalence between this dragon and a deity is they are both equally unable to be proven to exist by scientific means. Or rather unable to be proven with our current scientific processes and muddled definition of "god". This is why we need a clear cut definition. If one says that god is everywhere at once and is unable to be seen, one could easily construe that god is one of many things including (but not limited to) microscopic organisms, air, viruses, any subatomic particle, or radiation. If one says that god created everything, one could just as easily assume that god is matter. So please, define "god" for all of us so that we know what your standing is and from there form our arguments for or against.

I was wondering what caused Cherry Coke to have that slight aftertaste... It's good to finally know. Thanks Moontanman for the insight. Iggy, if you're going to approach this in any bit of a scientific manner (as is the custom on a science forum, regardless of thread), then it is needed for there to be an adequate definition of the idea/object/etc under scrutiny. Without everyone knowing exactly what it is that's being discussed, nothing can be expected except confusion. More so, simply saying "no" when requested to define such a thing just makes it difficult for both sides of an argument to be able to see/understand the opposition. So please, define it so that this discussion can move forward.

Unfortunately YouTube is blocked, so at the moment I'm unable to watch either video. However, I have read extensively over the years on this phenomenon and I have to agree with iNow. It would seem that this happens when your brain mistakes new data coming in as being retrieved from memory. Unfortunately, it's difficult to test this, since it appears to happen mostly at random, unexpected, times. And in regards to the "I knew it!" moments, if you know a person and know how they generally will react to various things, it's easier to have those moments, so it's a false positive. In response to OP's experiment, that I know of, the brain only tries to "predict" the future during times of high stress (ie. being attacked, moments of high adrenaline, sports, etc) to allow the mind to take in as many details as possible to make subconscious calculations to figure out the best possible reaction. Deja vu could, possibly, just be an extension of this. When going to a new place the brain is trying to know everything there is to know to aid survival. Being that I was in the military, this is something that I actively trained my mind to do and I find myself doing when going over to a person's house for the first time. Granted my doing it has always been to find every possible entrance/ext and if it's a shady place to begin with, what can be used as weaponry if needed. I know I seem paranoid by saying that, but that's the way I was trained.

Yes. You should try it out.

You are being told to keep it to yourself due to a lack of factual evidence being brought forth on this subject. You had to have known that on a science forum, there's going to be a majority who are skeptics, especially anything religious in nature. So I implore you, as I did in my initial response to your post, to please provide evidence. An opinion doesn't count as evidence. A solitary book doesn't count either. Neither do individual statements, "just think about it"-s, or relating it to a religious book. There was language long before the Hebrew people, this is evidenced clearly by the numerous types of writing (cuneiform, Phoenician alphabet, and Egyptian Hieroglyphs) that were already being used before a bearded man in the sky set a shrubbery on fire and scratched on a couple stone tablets. How does frequency control all things? I'd really like to know. Even more so, how does language control the weather or health? If this is true, why hasn't any nation taken control of such abilities (no, this isn't a plea to conspiracy theorists). If a language is all powerful and able to control everything and is there for the benefit of "all living things and the planet itself", why would it be causing these same living things to go stir crazy? Seems to me this is a direct conflict with your previous paragraph. Again, citing the bible, regardless of version (numerous as they are), is not sufficient evidence. EDIT: Double clicked post

Even if it was considered a planet, seven years ago it was reclassified as a dwarf planet. I was at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas in the middle of Basic when this was in the news.A bit off topic, that was only one of many odd bits of news from back then (another being the death of Steve Irwin).

Me or the Egyptians?

I'm far from being an expert on the subject, but don't the theories behind physics, general and special relativity, and QM allow for a flow of time to be forward or backward without any distinction between the two except for entropy going from a high state to low? Why would one have to "observe" physics from a different point? The laws of physics apply everywhere, it's only when you get into relativity and approximation to large/dense mass that who's viewing matters. Right? The common problem that comes up with time travel theory is when moving to the past and the possibility of creating paradoxes as well as self fulfilling prophecies. Sorry Doctor Who fans, paradoxes are a bit more complicated than the newer series shows. Despite the paradoxes created, theories have arisen to sidestep these possibilities. There's the multiverse which would allow for any changes made to exist in a slightly alternate reality. There's the theory (don't know the name) about something happening to prevent the paradox from being created. Example of that would be if you went back to kill your grandfather, before your father was conceived, someone would kill you first. And finally every action you take in the past was how things happened originally and you can't change anything.

It's a reasonable enough suspicion... I mean animals were used for various things all through both world wars and then some... Still funny though.

Pluto is also not a planet... Regardless of that, are you able to show how it's off from where it "should" be? And if so, how far off it really is? Is it possible that it's just from your vantage point?

Honestly, this sounds more like an advertisement than anything. I do have a few questions/favors to ask of you... -We have a title for the book, but no author... Who wrote this "powerful" book? Surely they would want to be given credit for their research. -What type of conference was it that you were attending when you discovered this book that causes such drastic paradigm shifts? -How exactly does the shape of letters, regardless of origin, control all things? Last I checked there aren't any Hebrew letters that are in the shape of a spiral, such as is the shape of our own galaxy... -What evidence is there that would make a forum full of scientists (who rely on physical, repeatable evidence) to take this as anything other than religious propaganda? -Last question: You are aware that you posted this on a science forum, right? As such, the favor I ask of you, again, is to please provide evidence to back up your OP.

After a cursory glance on here, I don't see any threads about this. Has anyone heard of Weff Riddles? It's basically a series of riddles (not entirely sure you could call them that), where you type the correct answer in the section of the url between ".com" and ".html". If you get the answer right, you move on to the next level. If it's wrong, then you are shown a page giving a suggestion as to a way to correct your answer. In the spirit that the creator is trying to keep with the original riddle, please don't post any spoilers in this thread. I'm just trying to introduce people to it. Mods, if someone does post a spoiler/answer, please remove/sensor it...

His dead father had a weapon present? How would that matter? I agree though, that's a pretty stupid thing to do. Although with how some people can be, he probably could have insulted his friend's thoughts on politics and have had the same result... Just saying...

In order for there to be a hole in the middle of the universe, there would have to be a center. Unfortunately, we still don't know exactly what "shape" the universe is. However, in order for something to have a shape, and therefore a center, it would have to have an edge, which it doesn't, according to our current understanding of physics.

A better, less often used, analogy would be that of a loaf of bread being baked in an oven. Think about it as though you had raisins spread across throughout the inside and outside of the loaf. As that loaf is baking, it's going to rise and spread out at a constant rate. As it does this, the raisins will all start to spread out from each other at a constant rate, with none of the raisins getting closer. With them spreading out, no matter where you are viewing from, all of them would appear to be expanding from each other at an equal rate.

...In my defense, you never said of what the picture was to be... If you're going to ask for a picture, it'd be helpful to know what you need to see.

Not sure I get why you would need a picture... Try learning other things then. Maybe, and I don't mean this as an insult, although it may come out that way, but maybe you don't have the comprehension needed for a complete understanding of electricity. Electricity is a lot more intricate than just plugging something into the wall and it turns on. As with most things in science, there's a lot of math involved. You have to be able to calculate resistance, ohms, know and understand the difference between AC and DC, understand the flow of electrons through a metal, know why you can run electricity through metals but have difficulty when trying to do the same through nonmetals, etc. Again, try auditing a class at your local college. Or, if you have the time to be able to do that, apply for college and use grants to be able to pay for it so that you can take the time you're putting towards an audit and apply that time to a degree.

So, would that be possible?