A Tripolation

This thread moves faster than anything else I've seen posted in a while. No, you established that. I do not consider my reasoning to be broken, else I would no longer hold such beliefs. Erm, no. Many theists look to God to provide a mechanism for unanswerable questions. IE - Where did the energy from time epsilon of the big bang come from? Why is everything the way it is? Why do such inexplicable things occur? This is not on par with leprechauns and unicorns. The concepts are far more deep than your average ficticious animal. This "consistency" is not so consistent as you would claim. In every reaction and sequence, there are “onesies”, events that will never, ever happen again. Do we then say that those events never existed if we were not there to observe them? If we cannot infer them? If we cannot extrapolate them? What if they are essential to our understanding? What if we are missing some intrinsic puzzle piece, lost to us forever? It reminds me of the quote by Lawrence Krauss: Yes. We have such a great claim to absolute truth and knowledge, clearly. You've certainly implied it in this thread. Calling our cherished beliefs "childish" and mocking our thought process. Even if we are wrong...so what? Who gives a fuck? Why the need to eradicate religion? Am I hurting you in any way? Then to me, broken means being unable to accept that the universe isn't a result of mere happenstance. Ergo, you seem quite broken to me.

Sure. But calling believers "broken" is an incredible jump in logic, mate. Almost fallacious. An attempt at poisoning the well, maybe?

I understand what you're saying, but to those of us that do believe, there is enough evidence, logic, and reason. Simply because you find it lacking doesn't mean it's not enough. This is entirely subjective.

Exactly. Even from a Christian perspective, it is perplexing to imagine that our God would disapprove of the only pure and good human emotion.

The love that a man has for another man in a romantic context. It's two words. Not that hard.

I was amazed by the astronomical events that are so luminous they outshine entire galaxies--easily outshine them. When I first learned of quasars, I knew astrophysics was what I wanted to study. Also, I think it's pretty cool that all "heavy elements" were produced by the death of a star.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/arj/v3/n1/anisotropic-synchrony-convention

Sure, I agree with that there is a jump between Jesus existing and God existing. If by "cultural Christian" you mean "someone that believes Christ existed, was divine and perfect, and died on the cross to forgive you of your sin so that none shall truly perish", then yes. I am.

What do you mean?

Many of us do believe for a reason. Else we would not believe. Jesus almost certainly existed and preached compassion and love. Zeus was never observed or recorded. The Abrahamic religions tend to have more historicity than the others.

Copperhead: Our God is not scientific in the slightest. Stop acting like He is. Mooey: Amazing post, as usual. To iNow's OP: I do not think people who believe in god(s) are broken. I do not consider myself broken, nor do I consider anyone else I know that is religious to be broken. To say they are is an assertion not backed up by much of anything, though I am not certain if you were making that assertion. Moontanman: I know you do not seek to insult, but why must there be a reason for "belief?" Why can't it simply be? Why must we analyze it and extrapolate based on what we think believers must feel? I do not understand, my friend.

I see. I read through three pages of thread, but apparently I didn't read close enough. My apologies.

So how does this relate to religion?

Well-defined cause? For the big bang? Sorry, friend, but the term "cause" with respect to the Big Bang makes no sense at all. I'm sure you know this, so I'm curious as to why you bring it up. For me, injecting an "unknown" entity such as God solves a lot of problems. I admit it's not particularly compelling or convincing to people that are all logic and order, but it is my own sense of aesthetics that leads me to believe this. Eh?

Stop saying "before the universe." It's wrong if we accept our current models as fact. You haven't studied much higher-level math yet, have you? Not trying to be offensive, just trying to gauge your current level of interpretation.

...I...what?

...$1,700 is LOWER TO MID RANGE??????

Oh, my. I could buy a small country in South America for the price of those suits. They do look so very nice, though.

QFT. I'm tempted to make several accounts just so I can upvote this several times.

I can't quite remember what I read in my textbook, but I think it was to the effect that if light pulses were used to communicate Earth-to-ship (like one pulse a year), but many of the pulses would "disappear" to reflect your locality. And the Earth would age rapidly while you were in the gravitational field of the black hole. Time would appear to pass by normally for you.

I didn't even notice you being upgraded to Staff. Congrats, man. I always enjoy reading your posts.

Actually, this was my fault. I should have put a comma after "I suppose I am" because that was in reference to iNow saying that I would be insured if I was under the poverty level. The comma in that sentence makes all the readability difference in the world. My apologies. I've been uninsured all my life because my parents are uninsured because they are self employed small farmers. I was a tad too old to benefit from that KCHIP thing my younger siblings had. I've been to the dentist less than five times in my life and--aside from this new condition I have--the doctor less than ten. I was very fortunate that I've been healthy and had no terrible accidents. What would have happened then? I've made the decision to go to college for STEM so I could have a good job so I could change my life situation. But I still have no medical coverage. This system is flawed because of it. I could afford some small taxes now for a government system, and when I hopefully graduate and get a good job in my field, I can pay even more into the system. Also, the plan you linked to is atrociously limited. They don't even cover what I need. Tell me why it's ok to have public roads but not public healthcare. Because I really don't get it.

I'm not even sure what this sentence is supposed to mean. Ah, sweet. Find one that cheap for me that doesn't have a deductible of $5,000. Find one that I can actually use to go get this pancreatic ultrasound the doctors on campus told me I needed. You're defending a system that allows people like me (and many others that are far worse off) to go without medical care because we can't afford the exorbitant costs.

You're right. I was under the delusion that if we can build a massive transit system that encompasses the nation--paid for by public funds and used for the well-being of the public--that we could do the same for healthcare. I'm watching far too much MSNBC and not enough FOX.