Alan McDougall

I really don't know in which category to post this, so i just ended up doing so here.

I just though about the fact that people think that everything exist of something, mainly something smaller.

Like an atom consists of protons, electrons and neutrons. What if at some point energy took form into something which from there fuses into bigger things ending up as stuff known to us like electrons et cetera.

I just think that since, as far as the Energy-Law is concerned, energy can not be produced nor lost,but instead just changes form, couldn't it take the form of matter. For example energy can be in form of electrical energy.

The thought of things just being made of smaller and smaller things, to me, sounds illogical, or at least not the only option, at some point. Somehow i can't clear my head at the moment so this is all I could think of right now. Sorry for the rather dry explanation of my thoughts. I actually thought of more but I just can't turn that into words.

Thanks for reading this.

 

Physics allows for mass to be converted to energy such as the case of our sun nuclear fusion and the reverse energy to mass as it happened in the Big Bang senario.

http://www.space.com/25078-universe-inflation-gravitational-waves-discovery.html?cmpid=556786

 

Astronomers have found the first direct evidence of cosmic inflation, the theorized dramatic expansion of the universe that put the "bang" in the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago, new research suggests.

If it holds up, the landmark discovery — which also confirms the existence of hypothesized ripples in space-time known as gravitational waves — would give researchers a much better understanding of the Big Bang and its immediate aftermath.

Prokaryotes were the only form of life on Earth for millions of years until more complicated eukaryotic cells came into being through the process of evolution

 

These one cellular organisms, were not simple, but more complex than anything we humans can create.

Man oh! Man what a fruitless debate, you will have to die before you know and live, or don't know the answer because you have ceased to exist!.

 

As for me the promise of eternal happy existence after death is much more pleasant, than trying to prove the non-existence of God.

 

Ceased to exist after death, no! no! no!

 

Live eternally, yes! yes! yes!

Site Peter not cite

If gravity is what happens when mass curves space and time, what would be the situation were a given mass remotely non-spherical - i.e. a perfectly flat bar or sheet, for example? Would there still be a localised curvature of space and time? If so, how does gravity's tidal pull fit into this arrangement?

 

It is really coincidental that you post this topic, when I was thinking on similar lines. My thoughts, were given a hypothetical almost planet sized mass 'Cube' how would gravity works on it and effect the entities that exist on its surface? Make this a thought experiment, and ignore the fact that a planet sized mass, would become a orb due to its huge mass.

The sun is always out. You're just not in the optimal solar area all the time. So really, it's your fault.

 

I hope you knew it was a little joke that originated from a story that Terry Pratchett wrote "Mort" who became an apprentice to the Grim Reaper namely "Death"

It is strange that the sun only comes out in the daytime, instead of the night, when it is really needed!

Scientifically is cold a reality? Cold after all is just the absence of heat, to a being on a planet with an average temperature of minus -200 degrees Celsius, it would be like a furnace to them at of minus -90 degrees Celsius, a temperature, at which we earthlings would quickly freeze to death, from lack of heat, not from cold to be accurate.

 

Could we then really prove the existence of cold?, (as long as there is vibration within an object it contains only heat?)

 

On the Celsius scale, absolute zero corresponds to a temperature of -273º Celsius.

Perhaps we should compare the words of these two religious founders.

 

The Beatitudes of Christ Jesus

 

Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to Him, ²and He began to teach them, saying:

³Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

⁴Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

⁵Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

⁶Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness,

for they will be filled.

⁷Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy.

⁸Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

⁹Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the sons of God.

¹⁰Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

¹¹Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. ¹²Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

"I will cast terror into the hearts of those who
disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads
and strike off every fingertip of them."
"Allah" (Qur'an 8:12)

"Fight everyone in the way of Allah and
kill those who disbelieve in Allah."
Muhammad (Ibn Ishaq 992)

"Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."
Jesus (Matthew 5:14)

http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Pages/Jesus-Muhammad.htm

 

Differences Between Muhammad and Jesus

Muhammad/Red Font.

Jesus/Blue font

Said Allah hates those who don't accept Islam.
(Qur'an 30:45, 3:32, 22:38)

Said God loves everyone.
(John 3:16)

"I have been commanded to fight
against people till they testify that there
is no god but Allah, and that Muhammad
is the messenger of Allah"
(Muslim 1:33)

"He who lives by the sword
will die by the sword."
(Matthew 26:52)

Stoned women for adultery.
(Muslim 4206)

"Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."
(John 8:7)

Permitted stealing from unbelievers.
(Bukhari 44:668, Ibn Ishaq 764)

"Thou shalt not steal."
(Matthew 19:18)

Permitted lying.
(Sahih Muslim 6303, Bukhari 49:857)

"Thou shalt not bear false witness."
(Matthew 19:18)

Owned and traded slaves.
(Sahih Muslim 3901)

Neither owned nor traded slaves.

Beheaded 800 Jewish men and boys.
(Sahih Muslim 4390)

Beheaded no one.

Murdered those who insulted him.
(Bukhari 56:369, 4:241)

Preached forgiveness.
(Matthew 18:21-22, 5:38)

"If then anyone transgresses
the prohibition against you,
Transgress ye likewise against him"
(Qur'an 2:194)

"If someone strikes you on the right
cheek, turn to him the other also."
(Matthew 5:39)

Jihad in the way of Allah elevates one's position in Paradise by a hundred fold.
(Muslim 4645)

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for
they will be called Sons of God"
(Matthew 5:9)

Married 13 wives and kept sex slaves.
(Bukhari 5:268, Qur'an 33:50)

Was celibate.

Slept with a 9-year-old child.
(Sahih Muslim 3309, Bukhari 58:236)

Did not have sex with children.

Ordered the murder of women.
(Ibn Ishaq 819, 995)

Never harmed a woman.

"O you who believe! Fight those of the
unbelievers who are near to you
and let them find in you hardness."
(Qur'an 9:123)

"Blessed are the meek, for
they shall inherit the earth."
(Matthew 5:5)

Ordered 65 military campaigns
and raids in his last 10 years.
(Ibn Ishaq )

Ordered no military campaigns, nor
offered any approval of war or violence.

Killed captives taken in battle.
(Ibn Ishaq 451)

Never took captives.
Never killed anyone.

Encouraged his men to rape enslaved women.
(Abu Dawood 2150, Qur'an 4:24)

Never encouraged rape.
Never enslaved women.

Demanded captured slaves and
a fifth of all other loot taken in war.
(Qur'an 8:41)

"The Son of Man came not
to be served, but to serve."
(Matthew 20:28)

Was never tortured, but tortured others.
(Muslim 4131, Ibn Ishaq 436, 595, 734, 764)

Suffered torture, but never tortured anyone.

"And fight them until there is no more persecution and religion is only for Allah"
(Qur'an 8:39)

"Love your enemies and pray
for those who persecute you"
(Matthew 5:44)

Blessed the brutal murder of a half-blind man
(al-Tabari 1440)

Healed a blind man
(Mark 8:28)

Ordered a slave to build the very pulpit
from which he preached Islam.
(Bukhari 47:743)

Washed his disciples feet.
(John 13:5)

What are the Greatest Commandments?
"Belief in Allah and Jihad in His cause"
(Muslim 1:149)

What are the Greatest Commandments?
"Love God and love thy neighbor as thyself."
(Matthew 22:34-40)

Demanded the protection of armed bodyguards, even in a house of worship
(Qur'an 4:102)

Chastised anyone attempting
to defend him with force.
(John 18:10-12)

Died fat and wealthy from what was
taken from others in war or
demanded from others in tribute.

Demanded nothing for himself.
Died without possessions.

Advocated crucifying others.
(Qur'an 5:33, Muslim 16:4131)

Was crucified himself.

According to his followers:
Had others give their lives for him.
(Sahih Muslim 4413)

According to his followers:
Gave his life for others.
(John 18:11 and elsewhere)

"Darwinism, and Christianity are mutually exclusive of each other"

The church doesn't think so.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_evolution

Or, from another denomination here

http://www.churchofengland.org/our-views/medical-ethics-health-social-care-policy/darwin/malcolmbrown.aspx

"Nothing in scientific method contradicts Christian teaching"

or even

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_views_on_evolution

 

And, if that's a significant part of the reason why you think Hitler was an atheist, you might want to think again.

 

 

Of course, Hitler is conveniently dead so nobody can ask what he actually believes.

All we can do is look at what he wrote.

And, since Hitler talks quite a lot about God in his writings, many people would come to the conclusion that he believed in Him.

 

But, in the same way that people can read that the Bible cites Christ as saying "For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled."

and believe that Christ meant

"The laws have changed"

 

those people might believe that Hitler wrote about God because he didn't think God existed.

 

Other opinions may vary.

Interestingly, all the so called evidence for Hitler's "atheism" doesn't actually include Hitler saying (or writing) that he doesn't believe in God.

The stuff that he did write indicates that he did believe (of course he may have lied when he wrote that - he's not known for his honesty. Perhaps he was quite indifferent to judaism, but needed a scapegoat for Germany's problems).

 

John if someone said to you that the sun rises in the east at dawn, you will come up with some inane suggestion that it does not! Yes Hitler is dead!!, but we only have to look further than the end of our noses to read the countless accurate historical documents, that detail his exact beliefs, his purposes and goal during his despotic life.

 

To suggest that Hitler might have been indifferent to Judaism, is to ignore the records of history, he hated the Jews and thought of them as subhuman entities on the level of apes, Go back and do a little research before making such a nonsensical remark!

 

Again read what I have been trying to tell you, Hitler sprouted god when it suited and furthered his depraved goals, but to attempt the utterly ridiculous, of suggesting this depraved monster was a Christian , is the height of ridiculous nonsense.

 

This thread is not the place, or thread to debate Christian theology, a religion which you apparently set yourself up as some sort of an authority of, because, you are all always sprouting the bible, from your seeming knowledge of scripture.

 

Again you cherrie pick a tiny segment of the Christian community who have attempted to embrace evolution into their dogma. On the other hand 99.99 of the Christian churches reject evolution as an evil unproved theory. Hitler used god for his own depraved purposes, I have an atheist brother and nearly all he talks about is god, if you mention god, it does not follow that you believe in him! Your logic is sadly lacking, if I said black is black you will come back and say no! sometimes black is white!

 

And why do you persist in posting all those irritating Wikipedia links some of which are not edited or verified as accurate, must I just swallow what is on that website as the gospel truth (for lack of a better phrase)

IIRC the evidence for life within the Isua sediments are weak or at least debated. To argue that life was at least around at that time point is a bit premature. Based on current knowledge putting life around 3.4-3.5 Gyrs is a more conservative bet. But as it has been remarked multiple times already, without knowledge of mechanisms or other details it is impossible to estimate whether 500, 700 mio or more would be considered a long or a short time frame.

 

Nevertheless that is a remarkably short period of time to form out of the primordial material and soup of the young hot earth

He certainly talked a lot about that God he didn't believe in.

 

Hitler was a self serving atheist that only referred to god or the gods when it served his evil aims.

 

Wikipedia

 

Adolf Hitler was raised by an anticlerical, sceptic father and a devout Catholic mother. Baptized and confirmed as a child in Austria, he ceased to participate in the sacraments after childhood. In adulthood, he became disdainful of Christianity, but in power was prepared to delay clashes with the churches out of political considerations. It is generally believed by historians that Hitler's long term aim was the eradication of Christianity in Germany.

 

Hitler's architect Albert Speer believed he had "no real attachment" to Catholicism, but wrote that he had not formally left the Church prior to his suicide. The biographer John Toland noted Hitler's anticlericalism, but considered that he was still in "good standing" with that Church in 1941, while historians Ian Kershaw, Joachim Fest and Alan Bullock agree that Hitler was anti-Christian - a view evidenced by sources such as the Goebbels Diaries, the memoirs of Speer, and the transcripts edited by Martin Bormann contained within Hitler's Table Talk.^[8] Goebbels wrote in 1941 that Hitler "hates Christianity, because it has crippled all that is noble in humanity."^[9]

 

Hitler repeatedly stated that Nazism was a secular ideology founded on science In his semi-autobiographical Mein Kampf, he makes religious allusions, but declares himself neutral in sectarian matters and supportive of the separation between church and state, while criticizing political Catholicism. He presented a nihilistic, Social Darwinist vision, in which the universe is ordered around principles of struggle between weak and strong, rather than on conventional Christian notions.

 

Darwinism, and Christianity are mutually exclusive of each other, if you believe the one you must reject the other, Hitler was a fervent believer in evolution and tried to use it to prove the so called master race of Germanic blond warriors (My Comments)

 

And how would you feel if a Muslim said the same thing about Osama Bin Laden?

 

Hitler was an atheist, he even wanted to replace the bible with the "His Testimony"

 

Bin Laden was most definitely a Muslim, he thought his goal in life was to spread the religion of Islam and even have it dominate the world, the comparison you use is ridiculous! Hitler goal was most definitely not to spread Christianity, it was for his Germanic pure race of blond warriors, to conquer the earth and rule it for a thousand years. Both were intelligent despots I agree!

It took something like a billion years for the first cells to appear after the formation of the planet. Perhaps we have a different definition of the word 'short?'

 

I don't think you are right, life appeared before a billion years after the earth formed.

 

http://garvandwane.com/evolution/when.html

 

When Did Life First Appear on Earth?

 

The earliest evidence for life found so far is in a 3.8 billion-year-old rock, the Isua sediments, found in western Greenland. The evidence for life in these rocks does not come from fossilized remains, but from a peculiar chemical signature of living organisms. These rocks were deposited on the surface of an oceanic crust on what was thought to be a deep ocean. So the Isua sediments are actually an ancient sea-floor.

 

So it appears life was underway at least within 700 million years of the formation of the Earth (4.5 billions years ago). To-date these are actually the oldest sedimentary rocks yet discovered and the most ancient surface rocks on the planet. Maybe life had an even earlier foothold on the planet but the traces have long since been wiped out.

 

I find myself wanting to point out how ridiculous this statement really is, but I know you arrived at this conclusion emotionally, and ridicule will only make you believe it more. I really wish you'd reached this stance intellectually, since there is at least then a possibility of appealing to your rational side.

 

* sigh *

 

 

It was a joke! By the way Hitler could not at any stretch of credulity be called a Christan, although he might have used that religion to further his own depraved goals by pretending to be.

Hi,

 

There is now serious speculation that in the next 50 to 100 years, technology would have advanced to the level that space elevators could be constructed, by use of an earth to space tether of maybe very advanced nano ropes that are up to a 1000 times stronger than steel.

 

This idea used to be ridiculed by most of the science community in the past as simply an impossible dream, but now many of them are rethinking the issue,that in the future there would be a serious possibility of developing the advanced technology, to achieve, what was previously believed as laughable science fiction.

If you ask a radical Muslim if his religion of Islam is a religion of peace, he will say of course it is, and if you disagree with his reply he will kill you!

This might be rather a simple response, and please forgive me for doing so. In my eyes, whatever the odds, it only had to happen once.

 

Yes when you restrict live coming into existence just on planet earth, but what about the boundless universe, and how did live bridge the gap between lifeless material, into living breathing entities that now exist, epically in the short time it did, after the formation of our planet?

Like most people in the science community I have a vague understanding of String Theory, but maybe the link below might prove of interest to some members.

 

http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/research/gr/public/qg_ss.html

 

Extra dimensions...

One of the most remarkable predictions of String Theory is that space-time has ten dimensions! At first sight, this may be seen as a reason to dismiss the theory altogether, as we obviously have only three dimensions of space and one of time. However, if we assume that six of these dimensions are curled up very tightly, then we may never be aware of their existence. Furthermore, having these so-called compact dimensions is very beneficial if String Theory is to describe a Theory of Everything. The idea is that degrees of freedom like the electric charge of an electron will then arise simply as motion in the extra compact directions! The principle that compact dimensions may lead to unifying theories is not new, but dates from the 1920's, since the theory of Kaluza and Klein. In a sense, String Theory is the ultimate Kaluza-Klein theory.

 

For simplicity, it is usually assumed that the extra dimensions are wrapped up on six circles. For realistic results they are treated as being wrapped up on mathematical elaborations known as Calabi-Yau Manifolds and Orbifolds.

M-theory

Apart from the fact that instead of one there are five different, healthy theories of strings (three superstrings and two heterotic strings) there was another difficulty in studying these theories: we did not have tools to explore the theory over all possible values of the parameters in the theory. Each theory was like a large planet of which we only knew a small island somewhere on the planet. But over the last four years, techniques were developed to explore the theories more thoroughly, in other words, to travel around the seas in each of those planets and find new islands. And only then it was realized that those five string theories are actually islands on the same planet, not different ones! Thus there is an underlying theory of which all string theories are only different aspects. This was called M-theory. The M might stand for Mother of all theories or Mystery, because the planet we call M-theory is still largely unexplored.

I try to be open minded and as accepting as the next person, but facts are facts. Everyone should be required to read the Torah, Bible, and Koran and say for themselves what they take away from the experience. The Koran is undeniably more aggressive. According to the Koran, during the end times God will leave the Earth only to the Muslims and will tell Muslims himself, "there is a Jew hiding behind this rock, or a Christian hiding behind this tree, which you need to kill." I don't see the same intolerance in other religions.

 

You make a valid point, Allah is a negative god, if you read the Koran, you will see over and over again "Allah does not love those who/ that? or "Allah hates those who/that? It is hard to find Allah expressing his love to anyone, in the Koran, and it is always conditional.

 

If we believe in the existence of a God or gods, then Allah is very different from the God of Jesus, who he called Father.

"Must I list for you all the unspeakable crimes against humanity"

No, just the ones that are not also undertaken by non-islamic groups.

 

"This does not need a long protracted dialogue by many people to come to the conclusion that "In this day and age" Islam is the source of suffering of millions of people, two examples, Syria and Iraq."

Indeed, but a slightly longer dialogue might find that the reason is not Islam per se, but the circumstances in which the people find themselves.

If, through no action on your own part, you find yourself part of a group that is persecuted by, for example, a superpower you might feel you have no sensible alternative to join a fight that you didn't pick.

 

"Suicide bombing just one example of what emanates from an Islamic culture."

Or, then again, not.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Austin_suicide_attack

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamikaze

 

"Must I list for you all the unspeakable crimes against humanity"

No, just the ones that are not also undertaken by non-islamic groups.

 

"This does not need a long protracted dialogue by many people to come to the conclusion that "In this day and age" Islam is the source of suffering of millions of people, two examples, Syria and Iraq."

Indeed, but a slightly longer dialogue might find that the reason is not Islam per se, but the circumstances in which the people find themselves.

If, through no action on your own part, you find yourself part of a group that is persecuted by, for example, a superpower you might feel you have no sensible alternative to join a fight that you didn't pick.

 

"Suicide bombing just one example of what emanates from an Islamic culture."

Or, then again, not.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Austin_suicide_attack

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamikaze

 

You "cherrie pick" one or two isolated examples of suicide bombing from sources other than Islam and ignore the countless Islam driven Muslims who in the present day are causing havoc all over the world (In the here and now).

 

We should look at what is happening, in the here and now, not ancient history of religious atrocities that have no bearing on the present state of world peace.

 

John you should separate and enclose the quotes of other from those of yours in your posts,, by making use of the quote fancily above, that you can find in the column just below "My Media" It can be confusing to those less used to an internet dialogue forum.

Are you ever going to answer the question I asked in post 3? What's the metric for deciding whether a religion is peaceful or not?

 

Must I list for you all the unspeakable crimes against humanity, what is on your TV screen and mine daily, This does not need a long protracted dialogue by many people to come to the conclusion that "In this day and age" Islam is the source of suffering of millions of people, two examples, Syria and Iraq. It is out there for all of us to observe as an objective a daily horror, we don't need to go into statical proof, it is happening daily before our very eyes and ears. Suicide bombing just one example of what emanates from an Islamic culture.

Is Islam a religion of peace absolutely not, the evidence of violence all over the globe in the present time is hard evidence to that fact!

Define local. Most people I've seen touch on this topic always brush it off with a tangent as shown below. Conveniently denying an aether when it goes against relativity, then mandating the existence of an aether when they need it to exist.

 

 

Exactly what I meant when I pointed out how unscientific relativity is. It becomes unfalsifiable when you see objects moving away from eachother at speeds greater than C, and we just turn around and say "it isn't really the objects moving that fast, but time and space expanding between those objects." Which inherently goes back to necessitating an aether... Even though SR is based upon the lack of evidence of such an aether.

 

So, assume these two objects are traveling away from eachother at a speed greater than C. These two objects emit light toward eachother... Alan, do you believe light from the two objects can reach the opposite objects?

 

What exactly is this strange thing you call an "Aether' this idea was proved false over a century ago, it smacks of a flat earth like belief to me!