[mikeh]

 Fluffy, on 2012-December-21, 08:46, said:

I also remember that I didn't like the idea of my chemical reactions being predictable, putting my brain configuration into a big enough computer and simulate my thinking or predict it made me feel pretty bad, don't remember exactly why, but something related to not being special at all. Being not much better than a rock afer all.

The history of the past 600 years or so, in Western civilization, has seen a number of paradigm shifts, the effect of which has been to puncture the arrogance of religious teachings about our place in the universe.

It can be said to have started with the realization that the earth was not the stationary centre of the universe, around which everything revolved.

Then we realized that the stars were actually suns, such that our solar system was only one of a very, very large number.

Then we realized that we were the products of an evolutionary process that has no apparent bias towards creating us, as us.

Then we realized that our galaxy was not the universe: that our galaxy, immense as it is, is in fact a modestly sized one in a universe containing an unimaginably large number of galaxies.

Now we have realized that even the galaxies that we can see represent only a fraction of what is 'out there', in terms of dark matter and more recently dark energy, neither of which we yet understand to any degree.

Darwin wrote, at the end of his seminal work, that there is a glory in this (his evolutionary theory)view of things, and I agree. I think that realizing that we are so utterly insignificant in terms of our physical size and life expectancy and and yet we can understand so much about the universe and, as a species, are favoured to learn so much more, is an incredible source of wonderment and joy.

Wishing it weren't so, which is what I think you have chosen to do, doesn't change the reality. My advice: embrace the reality. Revel in it. Love the beauty of a universe that has through the vagaries of chance caused you to exist for however long you may live.

Otherwise, you are like someone offered a chance to visit the space station, who takes his sony playstation with him and never looks out of the window to see the earth pass below or the stars wheel above. The video game may seem comforting or even engrossing, but you are wasting your time.

[Fluffy]

lol mike, you are giving advice to me trying to change my views? you are suposed to be the atheist remember? You even said I should embrace something... what does it make you think I haven't done so?

I have a theory about how amazing humans are, given that alien nations haven't reached Earth yet, it must mean one of 2 things: Either Humans are really really smart for a carbon life-being, so no other life form has been able to spread here yet despite survivng longer than us. Or the other reasonable option is that traveling through galiaxies is extremelly hard.

There are many films about aliens getting to earth, but I disagree with all of them, I think if that ever happend it would be like: I taught a human game called chess to my 5 year old kid, and a surprising human called kasparov was able to tie a game with him!

[billw55]

 mikeh, on 2012-December-21, 11:18, said:

Now we have realized that even the galaxies that we can see represent only a fraction of what is 'out there', in terms of dark matter and more recently dark energy, neither of which we yet understand to any degree.

I admit I am skeptical on this one. Physicists basically say, "we believe dark matter/energy exist because of this theoretical model we have. We can't see them or measure them or detect them directly, but we know they must be everywhere because otherwise our models don't work." To me it sounds a lot like ether, and even a little bit like faith

[mikeh]

 billw55, on 2012-December-21, 12:36, said:

I admit I am skeptical on this one. Physicists basically say, "we believe dark matter/energy exist because of this theoretical model we have. We can't see them or measure them or detect them directly, but we know they must be everywhere because otherwise our models don't work." To me it sounds a lot like ether, and even a little bit like faith

The 'model' didn't include dark matter or dark energy.

But then the observations....the real world information.....showed that the universe was behaving in a manner that couldn't be explained by the model.

The result was that some very intelligent, highly educated specialists struggled to adjust the model to account for reality.

Firstly, it became apparent that the universe acts as if it contains far more mass than can be accounted for by estimates of the amount of 'normal' matter based on the dimensions of the universe and the appearance of the galaxies. Since there appeared to be a LOT of 'stuff' that possesses mass but that isn't perceptible to our current detection technology, it was dubbed 'dark matter'.

Then observations of the rate at which the universe appears to be expanding were seen to be contrary to both (I think) the old model and the newly adjusted dark matter model. It appears that something is going on that is yet not understood. So a name was given to the probable reason for this observation: dark energy.

These terms, dark matter and dark energy, are names used to describe phenomena that are so new to us, and so beyond our current technological and theoretical understanding that they cannot yet be described or analyzed in the same way that we can discuss 'normal' matter, but that doesn't mean that they don't exist nor that we should either refuse to accept the evidence or refuse to try to understand them.

The identification of and the efforts to understand these issues reflect a triumph of the scientific method, in which all theories, including the former standard model, are subject to testing by empirical means.

If faith were involved, nobody would have made the observations. What would be the point? The former model would be 'revealed wisdom' and thereby 'true' and there would be neither need nor justification in trying to demonstrate the falsity of that which is to be believed without evidence.


Please note that this is based on a layperson's understanding and an astrophysicist might well see my descriptions as inadequate, rudimentary, or just plain wrong. But I have tried to understand the dumbed down versions of these sorts of things, which I find fascinating.

[mgoetze]

 Fluffy, on 2012-December-21, 12:10, said:

lol mike, you are giving advice to me trying to change my views? you are suposed to be the atheist remember?

Yeah you sure have your stereotypes straight as to who should be doing what.

[billw55]

 mikeh, on 2012-December-21, 13:16, said:

But I have tried to understand the dumbed down versions of these sorts of things, which I find fascinating.

Likewise.

 mikeh, on 2012-December-21, 13:16, said:

But then the observations....the real world information.....showed that the universe was behaving in a manner that couldn't be explained by the model.

The result was that some very intelligent, highly educated specialists struggled to adjust the model to account for reality.

.. and what they came up with is a model that invokes invisible, undetectable mass and energy.

Of course I can't say they are wrong, as I don't fully understand the issues and theories in detail. Maybe they are right, I would not be so surprised. I am only saying that this particular bit of science triggers my skeptic alarms more than most.

I do have some training in science and physics. I do not easily see how something can have mass but no temperature. If it has temperature it should emit photons that we can detect, but they aren't there. It cannot be that there are too few - the theory says there is a vast amount of this mass. Nor, I think, can it be that it is too cold - how could it be colder than the CMB, which we easily detect?

I guess it must be more complicated than I imagine.

[dwar0123]

 billw55, on 2012-December-21, 14:31, said:

.. and what they came up with is a model that invokes invisible, undetectable mass and energy.

I think most scientist would quibble with your claim that we can't detect dark matter. They have created 3 dimensional maps of the stuff. It doesn't emit photons, so we don't detect it directly, but that isn't the only way to detect something. You can detect someone hiding behind a couch by the shadow they cast, it may not be as good as seeing them directly, you may not be able to infer as much detail, but you are still detecting them.

The gravity of dark matter distorts the path that light travels from source to us, this distortion can be quite severe in some cases, allowing you to map out the gravitational density of the matter that lies between you and the source and as the intervening matter emits no photons of its own, they call it dark matter.

Same with dark energy, something is causing the expansion of the Universe to accelerate, we can see it accelerating over time, that is a form of detection.

[billw55]

 dwar0123, on 2012-December-21, 15:05, said:

I think most scientist would quibble with your claim that we can't detect dark matter. They have created 3 dimensional maps of the stuff. It doesn't emit photons, so we don't detect it directly, but that isn't the only way to detect something. You can detect someone hiding behind a couch by the shadow they cast, it may not be as good as seeing them directly, you may not be able to infer as much detail, but you are still detecting them.

The gravity of dark matter distorts the path that light travels from source to us, this distortion can be quite severe in some cases, allowing you to map out the gravitational density of the matter that lies between you and the source and as the intervening matter emits no photons of its own, they call it dark matter.

Same with dark energy, something is causing the expansion of the Universe to accelerate, we can see it accelerating over time, that is a form of detection.

Sure, we detect it indirectly. Perhaps scientists of the mid 1800s would say that they detected ether indirectly, by the "fact" that light waves propagate through it.

I guess what I am trying to say, is that I suspect there is something amiss with one of their underlying assumptions. What one or how, I don't know. I can't prove or justify it. I may be wrong. But if I had to make a bet, it would be that none of the explanations proposed to date for the observations, are correct. Rather, the correct explanation is something we don't know about at all yet. Maybe it is one of mikeh's gaps

[mikeh]

 billw55, on 2012-December-21, 15:43, said:

Rather, the correct explanation is something we don't know about at all yet. Maybe it is one of mikeh's gaps

I don't have any gaps! I'd have thought it to be clear: my understanding is all-encompassing

Happy holidays to all from an atheist who hopes for a good year for all posters and lurkers in 2013.

[hrothgar]

 billw55, on 2012-December-21, 12:36, said:

I admit I am skeptical on this one. Physicists basically say, "we believe dark matter/energy exist because of this theoretical model we have. We can't see them or measure them or detect them directly, but we know they must be everywhere because otherwise our models don't work." To me it sounds a lot like ether, and even a little bit like faith

Sounds like how Pluto was detected

[Fluffy]

 mgoetze, on 2012-December-21, 13:47, said:

Yeah you sure have your stereotypes straight as to who should be doing what.

I was trying to joke at the stereotypes, wasn't it clear?

[ggwhiz]

 mikeh, on 2012-December-21, 16:08, said:

from an atheist who hopes for a good year for all posters and lurkers in 2013.

I don't believe there are many atheists.

More to my taste is a supreme being like Q on Star Trek, with a sense of humour and fallible. However it all comes down to a sense of responsibility for your past actions (just in case?).

John Lennon said death was likely just like getting out of one car and into another so why did he and the rest of the unbelievers (like me) put so much stock in their past performance ethics wise?

[nige1]

 Cthulhu D, on 2012-December-18, 21:53, said:

It's just wrong though. On average, atheists are less likely to commit crimes though they are more likely to commit suicide. Fluffy's comments are just blinked bigotry. It's worth getting to the root cause here though - atheism or religion isn't what causes you to commit crimes, it's how well educated you are, which is mostly a function of how much money your parents earned. Better educated people are more likely to be atheists. Fluffy is just making ridiculous attacks that are completely unsubstantiated by any evidence. Rational and reasoned critiques based on evidence are not bigoted. Fluffy's statement was bigoted.

I agree that money and education tend to go together. IMO, the poor and poorly-educated have less to lose, so are more likely to do desperate silly things. e.g. an ignorant pauper is more likely to steal bread than a well-educated millionaire. Nevertheless, IMO, the less-educated tend to be more religious so, perhaps, more inhibited by religious taboos and remorse..
The well-educated go for more calculated, sophisticated and horrendous crimes. e.g. Warmongering leaders are usually well-educated. Similarly, accountants and bankers, whose greed caused the recent economic collapse, were mostly bright and well-educated. They understood the likely effect of what they did (the expected outcome just came sooner than they hoped). Statistically, they are responsible for global misery and countless avoidable deaths. Their education, materialism, and pragmatism helps them to rationalize their actions and few suffer obvious qualms. But they present a terrible moral example to the rest of us.
So Fluffy has a point. Happy Christmas

[blackshoe]

 hrothgar, on 2012-December-21, 17:15, said:

Sounds like how Pluto was detected

Pluto was detected because he started barking.

[Fluffy]

 Cthulhu D, on 2012-December-21, 21:38, said:

It's just wrong though. On average, atheists are less likely to commit crimes though they are more likely to commit suicide. Fluffy's comments are just blinked bigotry. It's worth getting to the root cause here though - atheism or religion isn't what causes you to commit crimes, it's how well educated you are, which is mostly a function of how much money your parents earned. Better educated people are more likely to be atheists. Fluffy is just making ridiculous attacks that are completely unsubstantiated by any evidence. Rational and reasoned critiques based on evidence are not bigoted. Fluffy's statement was bigoted.

Incredible that someone quotes my name 3 times and doesn't even slightly understand what I meant. I made one simple comment (about myself) and now to your eyes I am Devil who throws attacks (in plural??) on your 'comunity'.

I find it funny that a hord of infuriated atheists attack me for stating something that is missperceived by them as an attack against atheism. Again the stereotypes switched

But Cthulhu has a point decreasing religion is not responsible of the crimes, it is the decrease of religions that praises that killing people bring bad consecuences on the afterlife, wich are the majority as far as I know, but I see the nfuriated disagree with me here.


So sad I can't find anything funny to say about Chtulhu carrying a god's name as nickname

[awm]

Believing in an afterlife makes it easier to ignore the negative consequences of criminal acts in this life. While the possibility of punishment in an afterlife might act as a deterrant, it's easier to convince oneself that God will forgive the killing, or even that God really wants the killing done, than to convince oneself that the legal system will turn a blind eye.

In any case, the start of many crimes is finding a way to see people as 'other' and deciding that their pain or death is unimportant or a means to an end or whatever. This is generally easier in a fundamentally unknowable universe than one governed by science.

Religious people are more likely to do illogical things. Sometimes this leads to great acts of heroism or charity... But sometimes it leads to atrocity as well.

[Cyberyeti]

 Fluffy, on 2012-December-22, 01:10, said:

But Cthulhu has a point

Things (as a CoC player) you thought you'd never see on a bridge forum

[Fluffy]

 awm, on 2012-December-22, 02:26, said:

Religious people are more likely to do illogical things. Sometimes this leads to great acts of heroism or charity... But sometimes it leads to atrocity as well.

just note that Religion being illogical is part of your beliefs.

[blackshoe]

 Fluffy, on 2012-December-22, 01:10, said:

So sad I can't find anything funny to say about Chtulhu carrying a god's name as nickname

Maybe he's jealous because so few worship him these days. Or maybe he just needs to go back to sleep.

[kenberg]

Returning to the original topic,I see that Wayne LaPierre has put forth the NRA's solution.Put armed police in every school in the nation. I believe we all owe Mr LaPierre a vote of thanks. If anyone had any doubts that he is a moron leading an organization of idiots, this should clear up the matter.