EEVblog #833 - Mailbag

[EEVblog]

Christmas Mailbag!
Warning:
Someone thinks atheist Dave won't get saved by Jesus, so tries to convert him to Christianity!



SPOILERS:
Tandy PC-6 Pocket Computer
Service Manual: http://www.pisi.com.pl/piotr433/manuals/pc6sm.pdf

Silego GreenPAK4 Mixed Signal Development Kit:
http://www.silego.com/buy/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=58&products_id=388

Isolated USB to RS422/RS485 converter board. The isoUSBRS422
http://www.alperyazar.com/projects/isousbrs422/v1/home
Vintage components
Airbag system car occupant sensor.
An audiophool valve Hi-Fi headphone amplifier

[pickle9000]

Awesome ending (last 10 minutesish), totally laughed my gut's out.

[Felicitus]

At 9:41, the device in the image shown is a Korg Electribe SX-1, which uses tubes for a richer sound. Tubes have a "warmer" distortion than regular distortion circuits when driven into saturation. This is no audiophoolery, but actually a widespread technique and well-documented. Beginners should read the Wikipedia article.

[Muttley Snickers]

Another great mailbag and a good variety of some very useful devices......

Wishing everybody all the best, we have had some good times this year......

I think I ate way too much......

[rrinker]

Never had the PC-8, but I did have a PC-4. The neatest thing I did with it was to make a launch controller for model rockets. The supplied launch controller used like 4x AA batteries and had like a 3 meter wire. We used to take turns launching, because it looked much cooler standing further back. Plus the AA batteries were good for maybe a half dozen launches. I had the PC-4 plus the cassette interface, which had a relay for controlling the tape motor. I took a large project box (all from Radio Shack, in those days) and put in two holders for D cell batteries, four in series and the the two groups in parallel, and added a hefty relay with a protection diode across the coil. Two safety switches, one shut off power to the rocket and the other cut off the tape control from the PC-4 to the relay. I wrote a simple countdown program so we could set up a rocket, start the program, and then both stand well off and watch the launch. Great fun. Probably my first 'use a computer to control something in the external world' project.
 My favorite was probably the miniature pen plotter they had for the PC-1. An actual 4 color pen plotter, not a thermal or impact dot matrix printer. Amazing miniaturization by Sharp.

[vk3yedotcom]

That valve was a 6J9.

Here's slightly longer teardown by a keen EEV viewer



"as the Aussie bloke says 'we're in like Flynn'!"

As if the heater glow wasn't enough, note the cringeworthy use of LEDs used to give artificial lighting.

I've had good results using 12 volts plate voltage even conventional valves like the 12AX7 but audio output is low and requires something like an LM386 to amplifier.

[Pentium100]

I really dislike the blue light on the tubes, unless it's the fluorescence on the glass, in which case I like it. The tube glows by itself, there is not need to stick a LED under it.

Also, there are some low voltage tubes, primarily made for car radios, I do not have any though. I do have some low power tubes intended to be used in battery powered radios (heater - 2V 60mA), though they need ~100V anode voltage. I may at some point do a portable headphone amp or something with them, once I have built all the "normal" amps that I need .

I hope Dave does some "Fundamentals" videos on tubes - his explanations are much easier to understand than the text books.

[Stonent]

I really dislike the blue light on the tubes, unless it's the fluorescence on the glass, in which case I like it. The tube glows by itself, there is not need to stick a LED under it.

Also, there are some low voltage tubes, primarily made for car radios, I do not have any though. I do have some low power tubes intended to be used in battery powered radios (heater - 2V 60mA), though they need ~100V anode voltage. I may at some point do a portable headphone amp or something with them, once I have built all the "normal" amps that I need .

I hope Dave does some "Fundamentals" videos on tubes - his explanations are much easier to understand than the text books.

Maybe it's using Cherenkov Radiation?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation

[coppice]

The car seat occupant sensors I've seen are simple switches connected to one of the seat springs. Those stprings stretch so much that very positive reliable switch operation is trivial to implement.

[Pentium100]

Maybe it's using Cherenkov Radiation?

Actually, some power tubes (for example 6AS7G or 6L6G) have a very faint blue glow. It is caused by some electrons missing the plate and striking the glass. There is also a blue glow on the inside of the plate, but it usually only visible when the cathode has not fully warmed up because the orange light from the hot cathode is much stronger than the blue glow.

[boffin]

From the 22nd second I knew this was going to be a good one.

Have a great festive season Dave.

[rollatorwieltje]

Those pseudo tube amplifiers always amuse me. So much trouble just to use a shitty generic valve, and then they use 2 jellybean opamps as output stage... Not to mention the hv switchmode psu close to the audio path.

Wonder if I could use this big boy for a headphone amplifier

[george graves]

I don't know jack about tubes.  Wouldn't mind a DJ rant/video about them.  The whole "Christianity" thing was cringe worthy.  Yikes.  Even as a Christian I was yelling at the screen "Please don't - please don't - it's Dave, he's just going to make fun of you - he lives for this kind of thing - it makes him happy inside!  You're making his day right now!"

[Salas]

I don't know jack about tubes.  Wouldn't mind a DJ rant/video about them.  The whole "Christianity" thing was cringe worthy.  Yikes.  Even as a Christian I was yelling at the screen "Please don't - please don't - it's Dave, he's just going to make fun of you - he lives for this kind of thing - it makes him happy inside!  You're making his day right now!"

Truth is the wandering ... the game of the world. Technique and reason are just newer myths to end previous myths, all are facets of the game. Players and the game making dents one to the other. Humanity is just the talking part of the cosmic game. Nothing is ever conclusive, the future is unwritten. Humans are not fundamentally reasonable beings as a living part of the cosmos for a... reason. The reason is that nothing will ever appear conclusively structured because it is what it is whenever it manifests randomly. So lets not sweat it, when reason makes some people cruel or myth makes some other people cruel its just what they should not be following. Play fair and enjoy. Games are for fun. Merry Christmas to all.

[HKJ]

The flashlight is not gold, but copper and the sealed bag is to keep the copper pristine until you get it. The two leds is probably because they sell two versions of it one cool white, the other warm white.

[c4757p]

Truth is the wandering ... the game of the world. Technique and reason are just newer myths to end previous myths, all are facets of the game. Players and the game making dents one to the other. Humanity is just the talking part of the cosmic game. Nothing is ever conclusive, the future is unwritten. Humans are not fundamentally reasonable beings as a living part of the cosmos for a... reason. The reason is that nothing will ever appear conclusively structured because it is what it is whenever it manifests randomly.

<img src="wat.jpg"/>

[janoc]

Dave, the card reader is not a SIM card reader but most likely an authentication device. You stick your debit/credit card in it and then the bank's internet banking uses it for challenge/response authentication of login or any other transactions you do. Or even for cryptographic signing. These are quite common with EU banks.

[vlad777]

Dave, I invite you to believe that tubes are cool. Even though these days they are mostly connected to audiophools.
I would like to see a video ,like fundamentals friday, where you explain a little bit of theory of operation and build and
probe simple circuit with a tube.  So I don't have to do it, because I am under impression that you need various and high
voltages for valve circuits , which means buying or winding a transformer.
So simplest explanatory circuit ,with a tube ,connected together and probed would be nice and useful to watch.

[tchicago]

Hey, Dave, Merry Christmas!

I'm an atheist too, and I do enjoy Christmas. It is a colorful and happy time of the year, so I take best from it. And I do hate those atheist activists who go around and file lawsuites against the stores and malls that put out the Christmas decorations or say "Merry Christmas".
Besides Christmas I also enjoy many other elaborate fiction stories. Star Wars, especially when the new episode comes out, and I celebrate that too.
Same about James Bond. I also like Battlestar Galactica, Futurama and American Horror Story. I'm not a big fan of Star Trek, but the recent remakes are pretty enjoyable. I totally don't understand Lord of Rings. But I'm definitely not going to go out and make fun of Star Treck or LotR fans, as they take it rather seriously.

There are many fictions stories around, and I like many of them and I also like the certain aspects of some of the rest. But it does not much make sense to take to much fuss about those stories I don't like.

Christmas = lots of lights, LEDs, DC-DCs, PWM, sequencing, fun!

[Pentium100]

So I don't have to do it, because I am under impression that you need various and high
voltages for valve circuits , which means buying or winding a transformer.

Most of the time you need a low voltage (usually 6.3V) high current power supply for the heaters (can be AC or DC) and a high voltage (200-400V usually) low current supply for the plates (DC only). If getting a proper 220V/220V or similar transformer is difficult you can always connect two similar transformers back to back (say, 220V -> 12V -> 220V) to get the plate supply. Some tubes are designed for higher voltages and low currents, some are made for lower voltages and higher currents. For example, an ECC88 can be used quite well at 60V or so.

[vk3yedotcom]

So I don't have to do it, because I am under impression that you need various and high
voltages for valve circuits , which means buying or winding a transformer.

Not always.

6.3 volts is easy to generate from a 12 volt DC supply and an LM317 regulator or similar.   Or you could use a valve like a 12AX7 with the two filaments in series (use the right connections otherwise you will blow it!) or 2 x 6.3 volt valves in series so no regulator is needed. Excessive voltage reduces lifespan so aim for as close to 6.3 or 12.6v as possible.  Maybe two series dropping diodes if your power source is 13.8v DC? 

As for HT you could just use the same 12v DC (in some cases), several 9 volt batteries (3 will give 27v) or experiment with DC-DC converters.  The current required for experiments will be just a few mA.

[Artlav]

Merry Incoming, everyone.

Oddly enough, it took me until a few months ago to realize Christmas was actually a religious holiday in the western world.
Here we celebrate New Year, and it looks exactly like Christmas with a different colour scheme.
But below the superficial it's two completely different holidays - New Year is secular and don't have a trace of religion in it other than the calendar itself.
So, it's literally merry for everyone, with no fear of offense.

P.S. Nope, these tubes aren't genuine Russian ones. Not even close.

[tszaboo]

Dave, I wish you Happy Holidays. I'll tell you the truth. I'm an atheist, just like you.
But, every now and then, I'm being asked about my religion, I prepare to the worst. People don't ask questions about that, unless they are from far away, cultural difference, they are just curious. I'm talking about the other question.
Saying, that you don't believe is the bad answer. Saying, that you know, there isn't one deity is a wrong answer. Because then there is a bullseye on you, you are a free target, someone who can be converted. Conversation goes badly, because they believe, and you need to give facts, and proove stuff.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot
So every time that question is asked, I answer:
Yes, I believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
No burden of proof, no trying to convert. You get to make fool of them, using their own rules.

[Brumby]

If nobody has put their hand up for the headphone amp, I will.

[Muttley Snickers]

If nobody has put their hand up for the headphone amp, I will.

A trap for all players, the conditions stipulated first comment (Youtube) not first post (Forum), I fell for it as well and got beaten by an hour.

[Brumby]

I wasn't sure - so I posted on both.  Facebook first, then here.

My interest is educational:  A valve circuit that performs a useful function.  It's small, easily handled, easily stored and simple enough to fiddle with.

[gadget73]

Maybe it's using Cherenkov Radiation?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation

I've been told it isn't, but having experienced both tube florescence and Cherenkov radiation personally, I can tell you its awful similar looking.   I have a number of tube amps, and some of them do have the blue glow if they run at high enough voltages.  I also work at a place that sterilizes things using a large amount of gamma radiation.  To "turn off" the system, the isotope is dropped into a pool of water, where it produces quite a strong Cherenkov glow. I'm in there at least once a month doing maintenance, sitting above that pool.  Its a pretty blue glow, but I'm glad its 20 odd feet down.



 For what it's worth, I've never been able to pick up any radiation from a vacuum tube on my Geiger counter.  Mine will pick up beta radiation too, if any was to be had. 

[Pentium100]

I've been told it isn't, but having experienced both tube florescence and Cherenkov radiation personally, I can tell you its awful similar looking.   I have a number of tube amps, and some of them do have the blue glow if they run at high enough voltages.

I do not think that the electrons in a vacuum tube have enough energy to produce x-rays. Tubes running at 10kV or higher voltages do produce x-rays, but not the regular tubes that run at 100-1000V.

So, it's probably just fluorescence of the glass and metal, I wonder how it would look like (that is, what the pattern would look like) if the inside of a tube glass was coated with phosphor.

[EEVblog]

Maybe it's using Cherenkov Radiation?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation

That reminds, I have footage from the Australian Synchrotron form a few years back I haven't edited yet!

[EEVblog]

Dave, I invite you to believe that tubes are cool. Even though these days they are mostly connected to audiophools.
I would like to see a video ,like fundamentals friday, where you explain a little bit of theory of operation and build and
probe simple circuit with a tube. 

Perhaps.
I'd have to brush upon that one though, because I have never built nor worked on valve gear before.
I think I had Doug Ford explaining a valve mic amp front end in one of his videos?

[gadget73]

I've been told it isn't, but having experienced both tube florescence and Cherenkov radiation personally, I can tell you its awful similar looking.   I have a number of tube amps, and some of them do have the blue glow if they run at high enough voltages.

I do not think that the electrons in a vacuum tube have enough energy to produce x-rays. Tubes running at 10kV or higher voltages do produce x-rays, but not the regular tubes that run at 100-1000V.

So, it's probably just fluorescence of the glass and metal, I wonder how it would look like (that is, what the pattern would look like) if the inside of a tube glass was coated with phosphor.

Some of the high voltage rectifiers used on TV sets did kick out some X-ray, but those were usually 20kv or more.  I've seen some that had built-in lead shields on them.   I believe you are quite correct about lower voltage tubes though.  I've actually checked with my geiger counter but it has never read anything.   I suspect the coloration is more of a coincidence, not actually Cherenkov.  Both do look quite cool though.

[bktemp]

Some of the high voltage rectifiers used on TV sets did kick out some X-ray, but those were usually 20kv or more.  I've seen some that had built-in lead shields on them.   I believe you are quite correct about lower voltage tubes though.  I've actually checked with my geiger counter but it has never read anything.   I suspect the coloration is more of a coincidence, not actually Cherenkov.  Both do look quite cool though.

Many large colour tvs used a shunt regulator triode for stabilising the high voltage: When the screen displayed a less bright image, the regulator tube consumed the current to keep the voltage stable. Because it was connected to the full 20-30kV, it produced x-rays. The datasheets have x-ray warnings in them. In Europe PD500 and PD510 were the most common shunt regulator tubes. The PD510 was an improved version with better internal x-ray shielding. The Russian GP5 is still available today.
X-rays are beeing produced above a couple of kV, but the glass shields them until you go over 15kV.

I'd have to brush upon that one though, because I have never built nor worked on valve gear before.
I think I had Doug Ford explaining a valve mic amp front end in one of his videos?

Tubes are very similiar to jfets.
Even if most low voltage and low power tubes are obsolete, they are great for understanding the operation principle, because you can see all their elements even without disassembling it. So it is much easier to go from the theory with the electrons beeing controlled by the electrical to field to the practical demonstration on the actual device. Using a transistor you have to believe it works the way somebody tells you, because everything is too small to see and it is hidden inside an opaque case.

Most tubes do not need several 100V to operate. Some of them even work at 12V. The available current will be quite low and may be too low to do something usefull, but it should be enough for demonstrating the operating principle. Most tubes rated for higher currents (that means several 10mA for most tubes used in consumer products) will work better at low voltages than low current signal tubes, except for tubes specially designed for low voltage, low power battery powered products.

[SeanB]

CRT TV sets used a leaded glass as a front panel, to absorb the Xray production. As well the side glass was leaded, with a graded glass series dropping the lead concentration, so the expansion of the glass was spread out, to a standard glass for the gun assembly, and then another graded series of glass to make the pin area with all those dumet seals. Thus no xray radiationfrom a CRT.

The fluorescence of the glass is direct, caused by UV radiation produced in the tube from contaminants and stray gas. I see it on metal halide lamps on start up, where the glass outer quartz glows blue for a few seconds until it is overwhelmed by the light output of the main emission. There it is very visible, as you have 100W of initial UV light being blocked by the glass.

[Zucca]

Man I hate to do this, but it seems also Louis is lined up with Dave



...and all of this on Xmas. I mean God become a baby, a man in order for us to see and understand better what does it means. Sadly those reactions are pushing me to write this up.

In my POV there is a beautiful and deep relationship between "fatih" and "reason".
I am an happy Roman Catholic and I love science.

A quick suggestion for everybody (atheist or not), please do deeper in what you think it is the "Truth". There is no better way to live this life. Just use your reason at 100% (for me it is equal to faith at 100%, maybe brain at 100%= Heart at 100%?). I hope for everybody that "God" or "Atheist" is a beautiful starting point not the "job done" one.

A quick suggestion for Christian people: if you can't provide a concrete reason don't shoot out there things like "you need to believe because you need to believe" or "We need to follow God and I all I can give you are smokey unclear reasons". Christ is a Men in flesh not a theory. Stay with your foot on the ground don't become like "Ned Flanders" in the Simpson. And also please stop to try to convert people, first live your faith and the conversion jazz will take care for itself without any extra effort. (To all who wrote those letters to Dave, I hope your intention was growing in your faith and not converting someone on youtube. Please don't take it personal it is just my point of view)

Finally there is (and will be) no objective proof or equation that tell God exists, like there is no objective evidence that girl is the wife (=will love you for the rest of your life) you are looking for. [BTW is a wife reasonable?] Just because love needs to be a free act, I mean between a "YES" or "NO" you say a free "YES" without any theory science bla bla... That's how love is and it is reasonable and so beautiful like this (thanks be to God).

Dave, if you can, please avoid to spoke about your atheist position putting a bad light of the other ones. That's why I give you a yellow card for using the word "Christmyth", but not worriers I already forgive you.

Merry Xams to you all!

PS: Sorry if I step over the line, I promise I will not do it again. Oh well, maybe on Xmas 2016  .

EDIT: Just found Dustin from SmarterEveryday who is thinking like me, that's cool!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvVigAr4hZc#t=7m14s

[Artlav]

For what it's worth, I've never been able to pick up any radiation from a vacuum tube on my Geiger counter.  Mine will pick up beta radiation too, if any was to be had.

Actually, the only radiation you can get from the valves is soft X-RAYs, which are mostly absorbed by the glass anyway.
For that, you need ones that run at high enough voltage.
Which is quite rare these days.
I talk about the effect here, including a video of the glow: http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2015/11/23/artisanal-hand-crafted-electrons

[all_repair]

Christmas always bring out religion discussion :-)

All the Darwinists need to look at religion from a functionality view than from their own Darwinism regilious view.  It is the best invention of mankind, when your muscle and neuron is near expiry, which would you choose - religion or Darwinism?
Not having a religion is no good for the society, and is very tough and very stressful for a lot of people that do not have the capacity to resolve the unknown, unequalness,  dissonance in life.  The biggest issue I think about religion, is a single-god religion.  It can be hj-jacked easily, and there is no way to stop the one upmanship in a single god religion.  And history has proven, the ultimate homage is the human sacrifice to prove your belief to the god.  And there is no other god to stop this madness.   The current human-bombing is an exact expression of the problem of a particular single-god religion.  From my Darwinist view, a multi-god construct is better than a no-god and a single-god construct.

[coppice]

Christmas always bring out religion discussion :-)

All the Darwinists need to look at religion from a functionality view than from their own Darwinism regilious view.  It is the best invention of mankind, when your muscle and neuron is near expiry, which would you choose - religion or Darwinism?
Not having a religion is no good for the society, and is very tough and very stressful for a lot of people that do not have the capacity to resolve the unknown, unequalness,  dissonance in life.  The biggest issue I think about religion, is a single-god religion.  It can be hj-jacked easily, and there is no way to stop the one upmanship in a single god religion.  And history has proven, the ultimate homage is the human sacrifice to prove your belief to the god.  And there is no other god to stop this madness.   The current human-bombing is an exact expression of the problem of a particular single-god religion.  From my Darwinist view, a multi-god construct is better than a no-god and a single-god construct.

Are you trying to say, in a long winded way, that you are pro-bullshit?

[TheUnnamedNewbie]

It is impossible to have a debate with a religious person. I mean this not in the "religious people are unreasonable and can thus not be reasoned with" way, but from the base idea of what a debate requires. To have a debate - a discussion where you use arguments to back your opinion/idea/... on a matter, you need to have something to build arguments atop of - a base (Kernel?) of axioms/statements which all parties involved agree upon as the "truth". It is here where the issue lies with debating about religion - as each religion (let us for the sake of simplicity add atheism to this list - I realize that it is not really a religion) has different "truth kernels". Some athiests might consider knowledge gained through the scientific method as basic truth, Christians might start from some part of the bible, I know people who believe in spiritual things that use the idea of everything is energy (and not in the sense of energy = work * time).... There is no point in arguing, because none of the parties will see the arguments of the others as valid since they don't accept the base truths these arguments are built upon as true.

Just a quick note: I don't want to go into the philosophy of knowing what is the most correct base truth or the argument that facts you get from the scientific method might be better/equal/worse than those from scriptures - Just want to point of the line of thought and why I no longer bother with religious debates)
I have often also thought about the fact that even though I live in a country where religion and politics are supposed to be separate, almost all of out public holidays are based of of christian festives/events, and I have been bothered by this face.

[Jacko]

The Cool Sound of Tubes:

http://spectrum.ieee.org/consumer-electronics/audiovideo/the-cool-sound-of-tubes

-Jacko

[all_repair]

Christmas always bring out religion discussion :-)

All the Darwinists need to look at religion from a functionality view than from their own Darwinism regilious view.  It is the best invention of mankind, when your muscle and neuron is near expiry, which would you choose - religion or Darwinism?
Not having a religion is no good for the society, and is very tough and very stressful for a lot of people that do not have the capacity to resolve the unknown, unequalness,  dissonance in life.  The biggest issue I think about religion, is a single-god religion.  It can be hj-jacked easily, and there is no way to stop the one upmanship in a single god religion.  And history has proven, the ultimate homage is the human sacrifice to prove your belief to the god.  And there is no other god to stop this madness.   The current human-bombing is an exact expression of the problem of a particular single-god religion.  From my Darwinist view, a multi-god construct is better than a no-god and a single-god construct.

Are you trying to say, in a long winded way, that you are pro-bullshit?

Pro or not pro is not the point.  From your reply, you are not much difference from people who you called bull-shit, maybe their BS is smaller than your BS.  Remove your own position  and look at them as competition of belief construct. 

[gadget73]

For what it's worth, I've never been able to pick up any radiation from a vacuum tube on my Geiger counter.  Mine will pick up beta radiation too, if any was to be had.

Actually, the only radiation you can get from the valves is soft X-RAYs, which are mostly absorbed by the glass anyway.
For that, you need ones that run at high enough voltage.
Which is quite rare these days.
I talk about the effect here, including a video of the glow: http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2015/11/23/artisanal-hand-crafted-electrons

quite so.  The hottest tubes I have in regular use see 660v on the plates.  I could poke around inside of my 1953 TV set and get some readings, but I don't really feel motivated.  HV on that I believe runs around 9kv.   

 I have part of the items needed to set up a gamma spectroscope, but I lack the detector and a pile of lead bricks to make a sample chamber.  One of those should pick up x-ray as well, but it would be a fair bit of time and money invested to make all that go for no good reason.  I'm just not interested enough in nuclear physics to justify the time, money, or bench space to such a thing. The electronics I got for free but I haven't quite  been able to bring myself to gut them for the boxes.

[Fungus]

At least measure the distortion (sorry, "warmth") on the headphone amp or something...

[daqq]

It is the best invention of mankind, when your muscle and neuron is near expiry, which would you choose - religion or Darwinism?

Depends on which religion:

- the ones where I get roasted eternally in Hell (or variation on that theme) for arbitrarily selected transgressions that I have committed - Darwinistic oblivion take me!
- the ones where I reincarnate without any knowledge of my prior self are as far as I'm concerned oblivion either way.

Basically, unless I get a religion that guarantees I get a nice, lovely, enjoyable eternity, I'd prefer oblivion, thank you very much.

I have part of the items needed to set up a gamma spectroscope, but I lack the detector and a pile of lead bricks to make a sample chamber.

The detector is the nastiest bit really - the simplest would be a photomultiplier and a scintillator. You do not need lead bricks nor any shielding if you just accept a worse SNR and/or do long measurements, then substract the background. You should be able to find PMTs and scintillators relatively cheaply on ebay - though they do suck in the lower energy part of the spectrum.

[alper.y]

Hi,

I am the sender of parcel from Turkey, isoUSBRS422 board. Thank you Dave, I am glad to see my package on Mailbag and very happy. I wrote a post about it on my blog. For anyone who interested in my project, I copied my comments directly here:


Dave is kind enough to allocate time for my package in this video, thank you Dave. He did also show all pictures from Turkey in addition to the board. I am really happy. I hope he didn't miss small Turkish tea and coffee packages in the parcel.

I would like to also say something about his comments. Here they are:

Dave @ 13:52 About my gender

Yes, I am a male.

Dave @ 14:00 About top 10 country

I wish, Turkey would be in top 10 list.

Dave @ 15:51 About photos

Nope, sorry, they are from the Internet.

Dave @ 16:00 About the Trojan Horse

AFAIK, this horse from the movie. Also, ancient Troy is in borders of Çanakkale today. Check: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy

Dave @ 16:00 About capital of Turkey

Sorry, Ankara is the capital city of Turkey.

Dave @ 16:50 About the bloody tripod

Damn damn!

Dave @ 17:15 - 18:26 About the isoUSBRS422 board

Here is the story: This is also my first "cheap PCB production in China" experience. I decided to use DirtyPCBs. The cheapest option is 5x5 cm protopack by 14$ and the next option is 25$ with the maximum limit 10x10 cm. If you design a 2x6 cm board for example, it costs 25$. So, I had to stay within 5x5 cm limit. This would be my first PCB from there and I didn't know quality of PCB, practical clearance limits etc. (Check: http://alperyazar.blogspot.com.tr/2015/05/en-close-look-at-dirty-boards.html ) I decided not to spend too much money for the first trial. I use RS-422 converters much more than RS-232 converters in my daily jobs so my primary goal was to fit an RS-422 converter. Yes, I agree that it would be nicer if it also had an RS-232 interface but I didn't want to squeeze components too much for the first trial.

I wanted to hide mess of all "fixed" components from user and put all of them at the bottom. "No user-serviceable part at the bottom!". Resistors at the top are for termination and user may want to change them. So they are at the top. However, components at the bottom may stay untouched. This is the reason why I went to effort for double-sided board. Also, it costs same as single-sided board. Actually, it is designed to stay on spacers. 4 spacers are inside the small pink one shown at 14:50. I think Dave would open it after shooting video, who knows, no problem at all.

I misremembered that Dave likes black PCBs. But he hates them especially the glossy ones. Also, I did promote color of the board in my letter. This is big fail for me, palm face. I wanted to try black colored solder mask option, no mat option at all.

Here are my additional notes:

One of my goals was to see the limits of DirtyPCBs. This is why I also included a tiny IC, SN74LVC2T45. The same circuit can be built using less number and easy to solder components. Similarly Turkey figure at the top is primarily here to see the resolution of silk screen layer. Turkey has wavy borders and it is suitable to test the fab house limits too.

Why is there a Turkish flag sticker at the top? Well, to see how it looks like. Some years ago I saw an Arduino board with Italian flag sticker on it and I wanted to see the case for Turkish flag. I also wanted to say that there are many makers in Turkey too.

Why did I send to EEVblog? Well, just for fun. I have been watching EEVblog for a long time and I always appreciated makers who sent their open source designs to Mailbag videos. I wanted to send one too. isoUSBRS422 isn't a commercial product then I don't need any commercial. As I said, just for fun. It is a good memory for me, thanks EEVblog.

[Stonent]

Man I hate to do this, but it seems also Louis is lined up with Dave

...and all of this on Xmas. I mean God become a baby, a man in order for us to see and understand better what does it means. Sadly those reactions are pushing me to write this up.

In my POV there is a beautiful and deep relationship between "fatih" and "reason".
I am an happy Roman Catholic and I love science.

A quick suggestion for everybody (atheist or not), please do deeper in what you think it is the "Truth". There is no better way to live this life. Just use your reason at 100% (for me it is equal to faith at 100%, maybe brain at 100%= Heart at 100%?). I hope for everybody that "God" or "Atheist" is a beautiful starting point not the "job done" one.

A quick suggestion for Christian people: if you can't provide a concrete reason don't shoot out there things like "you need to believe because you need to believe" or "We need to follow God and I all I can give you are smokey unclear reasons". Christ is a Men in flesh not a theory. Stay with your foot on the ground don't become like "Ned Flanders" in the Simpson. And also please stop to try to convert people, first live your faith and the conversion jazz will take care for itself without any extra effort. (To all who wrote those letters to Dave, I hope your intention was growing in your faith and not converting someone on youtube. Please don't take it personal it is just my point of view)

Finally there is (and will be) no objective proof or equation that tell God exists, like there is no objective evidence that girl is the wife (=will love you for the rest of your life) you are looking for. [BTW is a wife reasonable?] Just because love needs to be a free act, I mean between a "YES" or "NO" you say a free "YES" without any theory science bla bla... That's how love is and it is reasonable and so beautiful like this (thanks be to God).

Dave, if you can, please avoid to spoke about your atheist position putting a bad light of the other ones. That's why I give you a yellow card for using the word "Christmyth", but not worriers I already forgive you.

Merry Xams to you all!

PS: Sorry if I step over the line, I promise I will not do it again. Oh well, maybe on Xmas 2016  .

EDIT: Just found Dustin from SmarterEveryday who is thinking like me, that's cool!

I've noticed over the years that atheists tend to like to say little things to get Christians worked up. They don't tend to bother with other religions though.  They like to focus on things like "Well Jesus couldn't have been born in December." or "The holiday called Christmas was based on a pagan holiday that they stole." 

I just want to say "Yeah, and what's your point? Nobody's making that argument."

Yet somehow, I see those same people buying their kids presents on Christmas. I don't see any of them telling their boss that they want to work the last week of December when everyone else is off.

There's sort of a progression from agnostic to atheist. Agnostics tend to be reasonable people and respectful of others beliefs, but a lot of times atheists just come off as jerks.

I have my own reasons for not being an atheist. I've had some life experiences that are good enough evidence for me. And the fact that none of that would ever convince an atheist doesn't bother me.

[zapta]

I'm an atheist too, and I do enjoy Christmas. It is a colorful and happy time of the year, so I take best from it. And I do hate those atheist activists who go around and file lawsuites against the stores and malls that put out the Christmas decorations or say "Merry Christmas".

They typically file it against government entities, separation of church and state and such. Not the way you describe it.

I love Christmas, wouldn't mind having it a few times a year.  Atheism is lousy with holidays.

[c4757p]

Is there any religious person who can make an argument in his favor, that doesn't sound like one of "it's true because I know it and there's nothing you can say to convince me otherwise" and "you're being a bully so shut up"?

I'm not saying god isn't real. I've just never heard an argument for him that wasn't puerile.

[_Andrew_]

For anyone interested in vacuum tubes here is an old 1943 Westinghouse film on the vacuum tubes
https://youtu.be/tBFNbHZDJpc

Also Ron Soyland's videos on the construction of vacuum tubes are worth a visit https://youtu.be/IUPizgcWimw

[c4757p]

The fluorescence of the glass is direct, caused by UV radiation produced in the tube from contaminants and stray gas. I see it on metal halide lamps on start up, where the glass outer quartz glows blue for a few seconds until it is overwhelmed by the light output of the main emission. There it is very visible, as you have 100W of initial UV light being blocked by the glass.

Interesting - in retrospect I should have thought of this effect, but here I was completely stumped as to what caused it.

[Stonent]

The fluorescence of the glass is direct, caused by UV radiation produced in the tube from contaminants and stray gas. I see it on metal halide lamps on start up, where the glass outer quartz glows blue for a few seconds until it is overwhelmed by the light output of the main emission. There it is very visible, as you have 100W of initial UV light being blocked by the glass.

Interesting - in retrospect I should have thought of this effect, but here I was completely stumped as to what caused it.

Most fluorescent lamps are by nature UV producing.  The white coating on the inside absorbs the UV and emits white light.  That's why commercial UV sanitizing lights don't have that coating.

[gadget73]

I have part of the items needed to set up a gamma spectroscope, but I lack the detector and a pile of lead bricks to make a sample chamber.

The detector is the nastiest bit really - the simplest would be a photomultiplier and a scintillator. You do not need lead bricks nor any shielding if you just accept a worse SNR and/or do long measurements, then substract the background. You should be able to find PMTs and scintillators relatively cheaply on ebay - though they do suck in the lower energy part of the spectrum.

yeah, this set of gear would want a scintillator/PM setup.  I can lay my hands on one, except that this set of electronics seems to need a scintillator with a separate HV input and signal output.  I haven't researched it enough to determine if I can simply "tee" them together at the detector and have it work.  If it would, there is a sodium iodide scintillation detector on an old rate meter that we used to use at work before changing it to a different system.    There is also a long disused gamma scaler sitting around that uses some odd looking detector.  I'm not actually sure what that detector is, but its possible that its precisely the thing I need.  The scaler is something of a manual spectroscope, you can adjust the HV and monitor for peaks in response to assemble a manual plot.   The lead bricks I can also obtain off the warehouse racks of various junk at work, but its largely a space issue.  I just don't want to devote all that space.  The final bit would be to see if the electronics I have can actually interface with a more modern computer.  They're probably better than 15 years old now.   This largely sums up to more effort and time than I want to devote to something that isn't of much interest to me. 

[gadget73]

I've noticed over the years that atheists tend to like to say little things to get Christians worked up. They don't tend to bother with other religions though.  They like to focus on things like "Well Jesus couldn't have been born in December." or "The holiday called Christmas was based on a pagan holiday that they stole." 

I just want to say "Yeah, and what's your point? Nobody's making that argument."

Yet somehow, I see those same people buying their kids presents on Christmas. I don't see any of them telling their boss that they want to work the last week of December when everyone else is off.

There's sort of a progression from agnostic to atheist. Agnostics tend to be reasonable people and respectful of others beliefs, but a lot of times atheists just come off as jerks.

I have my own reasons for not being an atheist. I've had some life experiences that are good enough evidence for me. And the fact that none of that would ever convince an atheist doesn't bother me.

Its probably a case of what you know.  In the West, generally the most prominent religion we are exposed to are various forms of Christianity, so atheists in those parts of the world know what is "low hanging fruit" with that religion.   

The thing with the Christmas holidays, particularly in the West, is that they are largely secular in nature now.  What does buying presents, eating a meal with family, or putting up a tree have to do with any religious text?  Many of the traditional elements of what we consider to be integral to a Christmas celebration are re-appropriated from various other cultures and religions to the point where its extremely easy to have a Christmas without Christ.  I've been doing it for years.  There is a tree in the living room, I had dinner with my family, and there was some gift exchange but we never went to church or said any prayers.  I suspect I'm not the only one who does this.  I love Christmas,  people are generally in a good mood, there are lights, there is food, and as a fat guy I love the fact that people make cookies. 


As for people being jerks, well, yeah.  That can happen, and its a bit unfortunate.  I understand it at some level, but at the same time I think there are better ways to communicate with people than being a snarky prick.  Sometimes it is a bit necessary to not be overly polite in order to be heard, but at the same time its not any of our business what people wish to believe.  The only time we have any cause to complain is when those beliefs affect us.  If I had kids, I'd be awful upset if they were being taught scripture in school for example.  I suspect most Christians would have the same objection if their children were being taught some other scripture.

Anyway, Merry Christmas and other winter holidays to you

[SeanB]

Here there are a lot of other religious holidays, and as I work with people who are a variety of different religions, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Shembe, Tamil and others, there can be quite a few assorted religious holidays over the year. Generally they all are happy to take the official mandated holidays along with the religion specific ones as well.

[Fungus]

I've noticed over the years that atheists tend to like to say little things to get Christians worked up. They don't tend to bother with other religions though.  They like to focus on things like "Well Jesus couldn't have been born in December." or "The holiday called Christmas was based on a pagan holiday that they stole." 

I just want to say "Yeah, and what's your point? Nobody's making that argument."

Yet somehow, I see those same people buying their kids presents on Christmas. I don't see any of them telling their boss that they want to work the last week of December when everyone else is off.

There's sort of a progression from agnostic to atheist. Agnostics tend to be reasonable people and respectful of others beliefs, but a lot of times atheists just come off as jerks.

I have my own reasons for not being an atheist. I've had some life experiences that are good enough evidence for me. And the fact that none of that would ever convince an atheist doesn't bother me.

I've noticed over the years that Christians have a really distorted view of what "atheists" are, and what "atheists" say.

(...also a really distorted view of what constitutes an argument)

[geareddev]

For anyone interested in vacuum tubes here is an old 1943 Westinghouse film on the vacuum tubes

Also Ron Soyland's videos on the construction of vacuum tubes are worth a visit

Thank you for these videos.  My vague understanding of how these worked has been upgraded.

[vlad777]

Although purpose of this is questionable , I enjoyed watching this video:

[zapta]

Is there any religious person who can make an argument in his favor, that doesn't sound like one of "it's true because I know it and there's nothing you can say to convince me otherwise"

It's called axiom, the basis for any logic system.

[TomS_]

These are quite common with EU banks.

Yes, quite. I have 3 of the bastards. 

Right pain if you have to make banking transactions while on the move and have to then carry them around.

Luckily two of them are from related banks, so I tend to be able to get away with carrying only one of them for my primary bank account. Gets me out of most trouble.

[jipihorn]

About that 6J9 tube, it not the US RCA version which is a triple triode but the russian version of the E180F/6688, the 6J9P (6?9?) with the russian letters replaced by the western equivalent. This is a pentode with noval socket.


I say this because of the tweet of Dave about this (and I don't have any twitter account).

J.

[ivaylo]

Is there any religious person who can make an argument in his favor, that doesn't sound like one of "it's true because I know it and there's nothing you can say to convince me otherwise"

It's called axiom, the basis for any logic system.

Like "Allahu Akbar"?

[zapta]

Is there any religious person who can make an argument in his favor, that doesn't sound like one of "it's true because I know it and there's nothing you can say to convince me otherwise"

It's called axiom, the basis for any logic system.

Like "Allahu Akbar"?

That's a deduction. Different axioms -> different deductions. 

Objectivity speaking, my axioms are the truly correct ones.

[c4757p]

Is there any religious person who can make an argument in his favor, that doesn't sound like one of "it's true because I know it and there's nothing you can say to convince me otherwise"

It's called axiom, the basis for any logic system.

"God exists" is one of the axioms of your logic system? Please.

I think from now on, every time I want to prove something is correct, I'm just going to declare it an axiom. Should save me quite a bit of trouble.

[zapta]

"God exists" is one of the axioms of your logic system? Please.

My logic system?  You are making things up now.

I think from now on, every time I want to prove something is correct, I'm just going to declare it an axiom. Should save me quite a bit of trouble.

Yep, this is how logic systems work, axioms + deduction rules. You will have better success with axioms that cannot be tested experimentally such as 'a supreme being exists' or 'we live in the matrix'  or 'time moves backward and we have the knowledge of the future'.

[EEVblog]

Is there any religious person who can make an argument in his favor, that doesn't sound like one of "it's true because I know it and there's nothing you can say to convince me otherwise" and "you're being a bully so shut up"?

Nope.
Not even one of the best apologists William Lane Craig vs Sam Harris in a lengthy prepared debate. It was just all waffle.
Nor could Ken Ham could do it against Bill Nye in another lengthy prepared debate. He had to admit nothing would change his mind.
And I've watched countless others where not a single even remotely convincing argument can be made. Which isn't surprising because it's called "faith" for a reason, there is zero evidence. If there was evidence then you wouldn't need faith, it would be demonstrably true, or at least plausible.

[EEVblog]

I've noticed over the years that Christians have a really distorted view of what "atheists" are, and what "atheists" say.

It's really bad in the US, polls show that atheists are one of the most hated "groups".
That's why almost no member of congress or anyone running for any government office in the US would dare admit they hold atheistic or even agnostic views. They just lie and say they believe in god.

[zapta]

And I've watched countless others where not a single even remotely convincing argument can be made.

Your arguments don't work on them and vice versa, it's symmetric. Live your life the way you want and let others live theirs. That's the best we can do. Being cocky about you viewpoint is bad, regardless on what side you are.

[c4757p]

Why? What's wrong with expressing your views and opinions and thoughts on the world? You might not change the mind of the person you're arguing with, but both of you might raise interesting points for other people to consider.

[zapta]

Why? What's wrong with expressing your views and opinions and thoughts on the world? You might not change the mind of the person you're arguing with, but both of you might raise interesting points for other people to consider.

Those views are often expressed with arrogance and morale superiority, and this applies for both sides. "I know better how you should view the world and live your life"

(I used to be a cocky atheist but now only an atheist)

[ErikTheNorwegian]

Is there any religious person who can make an argument in his favor, that doesn't sound like one of "it's true because I know it and there's nothing you can say to convince me otherwise" and "you're being a bully so shut up"?

Nope.
Not even one of the best apologists William Lane Craig vs Sam Harris in a lengthy prepared debate. It was just all waffle.
Nor could Ken Ham could do it against Bill Nye in another lengthy prepared debate. He had to admit nothing would change his mind.
And I've watched countless others where not a single even remotely convincing argument can be made. Which isn't surprising because it's called "faith" for a reason, there is zero evidence. If there was evidence then you wouldn't need faith, it would be demonstrably true, or at least plausible.

https://youtu.be/vj0NL2r6cnU

[EEVblog]

Why? What's wrong with expressing your views and opinions and thoughts on the world? You might not change the mind of the person you're arguing with, but both of you might raise interesting points for other people to consider.

Those views are often expressed with arrogance and morale superiority, and this applies for both sides. "I know better how you should view the world and live your life"

In terms of "arrogance" and "moral superiority", the religious claim they about atheists, but in reality it's the religious that take the cake by orders of magnitude.
They are the ones that claim that the creator of the universe is a personal god that cares for them, listens the their prayers, will invite them into heaven, will let them live for eternity in heaven, will forgive their sins, and even talk to them etc. It's all about them. If there is a more arrogant viewpoint in life, then I'm yet to hear it.
Atheists on the other hand think (usually) there is no evidence for any of it, that we are only accountable to ourselves and our society, and that we are just star dust, insignificant in the grand universe who are incredibly lucky to even be here, and that we will eventually die.

[free_electron]

Convert to Christianity. Who's says it's not Judaisim or Islam? It is, after all, the SAME god ... (islam recognises Jesus as a prophet...)


makes it all the more stupid that these religious factions can't stand each other...

[zapta]

In terms of "arrogance" and "moral superiority", the religious claim they about atheists, but in reality it's the religious that take the cake by orders of magnitude.
They are the ones that claim that the creator of the universe is a personal god that cares for them, listens the their prayers, will invite them into heaven, will let them live for eternity in heaven, will forgive their sins, and even talk to them etc. It's all about them. If there is a more arrogant viewpoint in life, then I'm yet to hear it.
Atheists on the other hand think (usually) there is no evidence for any of it, that we are only accountable to ourselves and our society, and that we are just star dust, insignificant in the grand universe who are incredibly lucky to even be here, and that we will eventually die.

Well, this can also be spun in the other direction. Atheists are arrogant because they don't submit themselves to the supreme being that created them and the entire universe.

Actually I was referring to arrogance toward people with opposing points of view which you can often observe in same-thinking groups. "We are much better/just/correct/enlighten/moral/objective/scientific than those ignorant/idiots/gullible/heretic  christians/atheists/audiophiles/liberals/vegans/geeks/...". It's a self assurance echo chamber.

The dynamic in two opposing ideologic bubbles is often very symmetrical. I would prefer to see fellow atheists taking the high road, recognizing that others prefer a different model to conduct their lives.

[Fungus]

The dynamic in two opposing ideologic bubbles is often very symmetrical. I would prefer to see fellow atheists taking the high road, recognizing that others prefer a different model to conduct their lives.

Sure: So long as the religious will keep their superstitions out of government policy and don't require an official state superstition that the people in power have to pretend to adhere to.

Trouble is: They don't. They'll fight tooth and nail to keep it in there. I expect to see a gay president of the USA long before I see an openly Atheist one.

As long as they're fighting to keep it in there it's up to the Atheists to fight to get rid of it. Yes, there may be some hurt feelings along the way (but they won't be the Atheists, weirdly enough...it's hard to feel bad when you have evidence instead of just being wrong)

PS: Have you read this: http://www.conservapedia.com/Main_Page

[Groucho2005]

I don't like to be called an atheist. It puts a label on something that does not require one. I'm simply not a member of any cult or religious group and don't base my life on bad evidence. There are 6 billion people who are not members of the Hillside Golf Club but nobody would refer to them as "non-members of the Hillside Golf Club".

By the way, here's a clip that shows the beauty of sience:

[Fungus]

There are 6 billion people who are not members of the Hillside Golf Club but nobody would refer to them as "non-members of the Hillside Golf Club".

Well obviously, because "non-member of the Hillside Golf Club" doesn't give you any information about the person. They might not play golf or they might be a member of the Lakeside Golf Club. You don't know. 

OTOH "member of the Hillside Golf Club" does give you some information about a person.

The label "Atheist" is similar, it gives you one very concrete piece of information about a person. That makes it a useful.

Maybe you personally don't see it as useful but that doesn't mean it isn't. I have no real use for a steam shovel but that doesn't make them useless.

[Groucho2005]

The label "Atheist" is similar, it gives you one very concrete piece of information about a person. That makes it a useful.

It's still a label that should not be necessary. It only exists because most of the world's population suffers from a delusion and it is therefore considered "normal" to be a member of some form of religious group or belief system.

[miguelvp]

meh, religion has more to do with human interaction than divinity.

Fear of an all mighty God might not be necessary, but it does makes a difference.

Cue in the medieval times. But even then the Church was responsible for the education of the People.

Yeah, great atrocities were made in the name of God, but the same is true on the lack of  one.

I'm not religious, as in I don't go to church or follow the establishment, but I do follow the path of Jesus with his unconformity towards the establishment, to me he was just a man that had so much influence that he is still of consequence.

I will probably get flak for saying this, but to me John Lennon was pretty similar to Jesus Christ. Both of them, just men, but Jesus will keep being of consequence while John wont.

So why would we need a Santa that kids fear to be naughty or nice? Well, it works.

What I find funny is that Muslims, Jews and Christians have been battling over centuries when they are all part of the same God and doctrine.

I guess the Catholics are finally acknowledging  that Judaism is ok (heck Jesus was one), what will it take until they get a consensus that Muslims are on the same ball park.

So this is a point of view of someone that was raised Catholic, but even if it didn't catch-on on me I do tend to keep the value of "do to your neighbor as yourself"

The thing is, that it's never been about religion but economics, so at the end good myths become a problem because of the  social-economic-political agendas.

myself, being raised Catholic but not a follower of the Church (or the political branch of Catholicism) I do believe on a planetary consciousness, just as our own consciousness come from smaller parts.

I mean, does good and evil differ from the religious point of view? did the churches on the planet endorsed food diets for the good of their congregations?

I think I drank too much of Christ's blood, but at the end of the day all of my generation was raised religiously and the new generation less so.

Who cares about science in this aspect, and what does that brings us? Maybe for the best, maybe not, no matter what we will keep on going while we can.

I guess my point is, do you still think if you have been naughty or nice?

[Pentium100]

Well obviously, because "non-member of the Hillside Golf Club" doesn't give you any information about the person. They might not play golf or they might be a member of the Lakeside Golf Club. You don't know. 

Wouldn't "atheist" be more like "does not play golf" (this would probably be more accurate) or "is not a member of any golf club" instead of not being a member of a particular golf club?

[Fungus]

The label "Atheist" is similar, it gives you one very concrete piece of information about a person. That makes it useful.

It's still a label that should not be necessary.

No disagreement there.

(it will be abolished after we win...)

[Fungus]

I guess my point is, do you still think if you have been naughty or nice?

A much more important point is: Is religion harmless?

[miguelvp]

I guess my point is, do you still think if you have been naughty or nice?

A much more important point is: Is religion harmless?

Of course not.

Its wine harmless?

hey, we all take it as it comes and deal with it.

[EEVblog]

The dynamic in two opposing ideologic bubbles is often very symmetrical. I would prefer to see fellow atheists taking the high road, recognizing that others prefer a different model to conduct their lives.

Sure: So long as the religious will keep their superstitions out of government policy and don't require an official state superstition that the people in power have to pretend to adhere to.
Trouble is: They don't. They'll fight tooth and nail to keep it in there. I expect to see a gay president of the USA long before I see an openly Atheist one.
As long as they're fighting to keep it in there it's up to the Atheists to fight to get rid of it.

Yup, that's the way I see it.
I don't want to have to call myself an atheist, but I feel I must, because religion still intrudes upon my everyday life and impacts society in major ways.
If they paid their taxes, if they stayed out of and didn't influence politics or other socials issues (that can and should be be evidence & reason based), and if they stayed out of schools and did not indoctrinate children, then no one would bother to call themselves atheists any more and hold them to account. There would be no need to.

[miguelvp]

Don't hate the player, hate the game, comes to mind.

You, me, whoever, can't change things after millennia. Actually the game is not half bad if people didn't cheat

[EEVblog]

Well, this can also be spun in the other direction. Atheists are arrogant because they don't submit themselves to the supreme being that created them and the entire universe.

It's easy to confuse arrogance with simply having reasoned based arguments and facts and asserting them.

[zapta]

The label "Atheist" is similar, it gives you one very concrete piece of information about a person. That makes it useful.

It's still a label that should not be necessary.

No disagreement there.

(it will be abolished after we win...)

This's true for any point of view. If everybody is X than we don't need the label X.  Yet another symmetry.

It's interesting to see how everyone thinks that his personal point of view is so special and different from all the others, 'the real truth'.

[zapta]

Yup, that's the way I see it.
I don't want to have to call myself an atheist, but I feel I must, because religion still intrudes upon my everyday life and impacts society in major ways.
If they paid their taxes, if they stayed out of and didn't influence politics or other socials issues (that can and should be be evidence & reason based), and if they stayed out of schools and did not indoctrinate children, then no one would bother to call themselves atheists any more and hold them to account. There would be no need to.

That's a different topic of using the power of the government to force one's agenda on others. This is done by virtually any group. It bothers you went it goes against you agenda and doesn't even it's the same (I observed it in other threads).

One good solution is a restricted  government that puts high value on personal liberty.

[george graves]

It's easy to confuse arrogance with simply having reasoned based arguments and facts and asserting them.

We get it Dave. Move on. For the love of "God" - what ever that may be. 99% of us could care less what you think of religion, child rearing, marriage, taxes and 1000 other topics. (beside your sack hangers)  We're good with thinking for ourselves.  That's what's makes us "us". 

[EEVblog]

We get it Dave. Move on. For the love of "God" - what ever that may be. 99% of us could care less what you think of religion

It seems you are the 1%, otherwise you would have just ignored my comments.

[EEVblog]

That's a different topic of using the power of the government to force one's agenda on others. This is done by virtually any group. It bothers you went it goes against you agenda and doesn't even it's the same (I observed it in other threads).

Nope, nothing to do with my "agenda".
No other lobby group gets to open the senate parliament every day with their propaganda:
http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Senate/Powers_practice_n_procedures/aso/so050
I have no problem with religious groups petitioning parliament etc in the same way that any other group has the right to, it's in fact their right, and I'll fight for that right.
But when they get special treatment like that, special "respect", and the ability to reinforce their doctrine at every parliament session, that crap has to stop.

[Groucho2005]

We get it Dave. Move on. For the love of "God" - what ever that may be. 99% of us could care less what you think of religion, child rearing, marriage, taxes and 1000 other topics. (beside your sack hangers)  We're good with thinking for ourselves.  That's what's makes us "us".

Why do some people get so touchy when it comes to discussing religion? Isn't this a discussion board where people exchange opinions, etc.?

Also, "99% of us could care less what you think..." would mean that 99% do care.

[EEVblog]

Why do some people get so touchy when it comes to discussing religion?

Because most "believers" feel deep down that it's likely BS, but they don't want to go there because, well, insert any of a number of psychological reasons. So they don't like being reminded of it.
People inherently like the status quo, it's comfortable.

Isn't this a discussion board where people exchange opinions, etc.?

It is. Maybe George needs one of these new fangled "safe spaces"? I've heard they are popular in universities now 

[Radio Tech]

Those pseudo tube amplifiers always amuse me. So much trouble just to use a shitty generic valve, and then they use 2 jellybean opamps as output stage... Not to mention the hv switchmode psu close to the audio path.

Wonder if I could use this big boy for a headphone amplifier

That's not a headphone amplifier tube.

Now this is a headphone amplifier tube mate.

200cm tall 370 diameter

[EEVblog]

200cm tall 370 diameter

Quiz:
Which item will get you flagged at the airport check-in? The valve or the lighter?

[Fungus]

A much more important point is: Is religion harmless?

Of course not.

Its wine harmless?

If the government required the president+the senators+the mayors+the politicians to drank wine the whole time they were in session, if schoolteachers drank wine at school when they were taking care of my kids, I'd be against wine as well (and for the same reasons... it impairs judgement, it rots the brain, it impedes critical though)

Wine isn't enforced like that though, it's still a choice, it doesn't need any action taken against it.

[Radio Tech]

200cm tall 370 diameter

Quiz:
Which item will get you flagged at the airport check-in? The valve or the lighter?

Hmmm Good question Dave. I have never been through an airport check in but I would say the lighter since it has fuel involved. Just a guess. Although the tube could be broken and you could use the glass for a weapon.
We'll let others answer.

[Fungus]

Why do some people get so touchy when it comes to discussing religion?

Because most "believers" feel deep down that it's likely BS, but they don't want to go there because, well, insert any of a number of psychological reasons. So they don't like being reminded of it.
People inherently like the status quo, it's comfortable.

And THIS, ladies and gentlemen, is the reason why we need the label "Atheist", this is why atheists need to make plenty of noise - to let those people know they're not alone, that there are other people out there who think it's BS too.

[AF6LJ]

200cm tall 370 diameter

Quiz:
Which item will get you flagged at the airport check-in? The valve or the lighter?

Both here in the People's Republic of Kalifornia.

[EEVblog]

Hmmm Good question Dave. I have never been through an airport check in but I would say the lighter since it has fuel involved. Just a guess.

Bzzzzt.
https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ash/ash_programs/hazmat/passenger_info/media/airline_passengers_lighters_faq.pdf
Valve companies don't have powerful lobby groups 

[Radio Tech]

Bzzzzt.
https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ash/ash_programs/hazmat/passenger_info/media/airline_passengers_lighters_faq.pdf
Valve companies don't have powerful lobby groups 

HA! would of never thought,  But I saw no mention of butane power soldering irons on that page.....

[rollatorwieltje]

That's not a headphone amplifier tube.

Now this is a headphone amplifier tube mate.

200cm tall 370 diameter

Looks pretty much identical?

Mine came out of a 3kW broadcast radio transmitter, it had 2 of these things in parallel. Bit silly to use, just the filament alone takes 100W. On top of that the HV stuff was pretty lethal, 4kV at almost half an amp.

[Fungus]

Hmmm Good question Dave. I have never been through an airport check in but I would say the lighter since it has fuel involved. Just a guess.

Bzzzzt.

Does Dave have personal experience of trying to fly with a valve in his luggage...? 

[Radio Tech]

Not much difference in size at all.

I have 2 of the 5868 tubes. My plans are to build a HF amplifier with them.
I have the filament transformers. 10 volts at 9.9 amps each.
These two tubes were pulls from a commercial RF welder.

[zapta]

Nope, nothing to do with my "agenda".
No other lobby group gets to open the senate parliament every day with their propaganda:
http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Senate/Powers_practice_n_procedures/aso/so050
I have no problem with religious groups petitioning parliament etc in the same way that any other group has the right to, it's in fact their right, and I'll fight for that right.
But when they get special treatment like that, special "respect", and the ability to reinforce their doctrine at every parliament session, that crap has to stop.

He he, this is an inapproriate leftover that should go away, like ours in god we trust and senate prayer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_God_we_trust

Practically speaking, here in California, I feel way more intervention in my life from socialists, greens and alarmists than from religious people.  When it comes to religion people more or less mind their own business, except for two very polite and over optimistic jehovah witnesses that comes to check on us every few months.

[Pentium100]

Those big tubes could make a really powerful amplifier, provided that you made or found am output transformer that can take the HV. Running it at 25% rated plate dissipation could make it operate for a very long time, unless this is one of the tubes that needs to operate with the plate glowing red in order for the getter to work properly.

[miguelvp]

A much more important point is: Is religion harmless?

Of course not.

Its wine harmless?

If the government required the president+the senators+the mayors+the politicians to drank wine the whole time they were in session, if schoolteachers drank wine at school when they were taking care of my kids, I'd be against wine as well (and for the same reasons... it impairs judgement, it rots the brain, it impedes critical though)

Wine isn't enforced like that though, it's still a choice, it doesn't need any action taken against it.

I did say that religion is not harmless. Specially the churches and organizations that surround it.

As for wine, apparently I did follow it last night religiously.

In a way I do like that a church has enough influence to keep governments in check, on the other hand that can be dangerous as well.

Anyways, I do follow the man, not the churches that formed around him.

As for myths, I find some fascinating like the Basque ones:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basque_mythology

Religion does have its place filling voids, but yeah sometimes those beliefs get in the way of progress as history has shown.

I do not consider myself either atheist nor religious if that makes any sense, I was raised catholic and even if I don't practice I don't think that has harm me at all, the morals imparted are pretty sound overall.

[Fungus]

Anyways, I do follow the man, not the churches that formed around him.

Luckily for us you speak for every single Christian on the planet.

[miguelvp]

Anyways, I do follow the man, not the churches that formed around him.

Luckily for us you speak for every single Christian on the planet.

Not my intention at all. And I doubt that's the case. I oppose a lot of the views of the catholic church and other christian denominations because they are silly and antiquated.

[Halcyon]

Someone thinks atheist Dave won't get saved by Jesus, so tries to convert him to Christianity!

Reminds me of the song by Eurogliders... "Heaven, must be there... well, it's just got to be there". All the proof you need summed up in one sentence. ;-) Good song though.

[Fungus]

Anyways, I do follow the man, not the churches that formed around him.

Luckily for us you speak for every single Christian on the planet.

Not my intention at all. And I doubt that's the case. I oppose a lot of the views of the catholic church and other christian denominations because they are silly and antiquated.

Aaaand ... we're right back down the big snake to where we started.

You've rejected Ra, Zeus, Odin, Budda, 3000-odd other ancient gods, Wakantanka, Allah, The Catholic God and some other unnamed Christian gods.

You have no problem rationalizing those rejections in your head. It's obvious to you why they're mistaken.

We've done exactly the same as you, but ... we just went one god further.

[Brumby]

Practically speaking, here in California, I feel way more intervention in my life from socialists, greens and alarmists than from religious people.  When it comes to religion people more or less mind their own business, except for two very polite and over optimistic jehovah witnesses that comes to check on us every few months.

I'm in Sydney - and I could say exactly the same thing.

[miguelvp]

Anyways, I do follow the man, not the churches that formed around him.

Luckily for us you speak for every single Christian on the planet.

Not my intention at all. And I doubt that's the case. I oppose a lot of the views of the catholic church and other christian denominations because they are silly and antiquated.

Aaaand ... we're right back down the big snake to where we started.

You've rejected Ra, Zeus, Odin, Budda, 3000-odd other ancient gods, Wakantanka, Allah, The Catholic God and some other unnamed Christian gods.

You have no problem rationalizing those rejections in your head. It's obvious to you why they're mistaken.

We've done exactly the same as you, but ... we just went one god further.

I do follow the man, not the religion behind him. I'm the furthest you can be about creationism or all the associated myths.
I don't think he had any superpowers either, maybe some magic tricks or who knows, but I do agree with his general way of living.

[zapta]

I don't think he had any superpowers either, maybe some magic tricks or who knows, but I do agree with his general way of living.

Miracles are awesome, can make your day.

[Fungus]

I do follow the man, not the religion behind him. I'm the furthest you can be about creationism or all the associated myths.
I don't think he had any superpowers either, maybe some magic tricks or who knows, but I do agree with his general way of living.

Jesus of Nazareth is a fictional character, he's the Harry Potter of his day. There's not one shred of evidence to suggest he was a real person, and plenty of evidence to suggest he wasn't. Read up on Bible History, see where it came from, who wrote it, why Jesus' childhood was edited out, why the gospel of Peter was omitted, etc., etc.

You think he was a special person, worthy of emulating? You really need to get out more.

[ivaylo]

Oddly enough, it took me until a few months ago to realize Christmas was actually a religious holiday in the western world.

Same here, I was 28 when I ralized people have sex to make kids, thought it was purely for fun activity... 

[miguelvp]

There's not one shred of evidence

You made a funny, and I like it 

You think he was a special person, worthy of emulating? You really need to get out more.

Not emulating, but follow and I do get out plenty

[george graves]

It is. Maybe George needs one of these new fangled "safe spaces"?

Ahahahha.  You're funny Dave. 

[Fungus]

There's not one shred of evidence

You made a funny, and I like it 

Yep, you're following the pattern perfectly... 

[miguelvp]

It's all good, I'm munching on TimTams from Australia by Adriano Zumbo, so nothing can phase me
Also I'll have an Aperol aperitif from Italy tomorrow with some Cava from Catalonia because I prefer it over Italian prosecco, eating Idiazabal cheese from the Basque country and all accessible in my backwards country.

It surely beats your popcorn, and that's not good for you btw.

[tszaboo]

Oddly enough, it took me until a few months ago to realize Christmas was actually a religious holiday in the western world.

Same here, I was 28 when I ralized people have sex to make kids, thought it was purely for fun activity... 

Seriously? The guy is from Russia. There Father Frost, not Cristian Coca Cola Santaclaus, but a fairy tale brings you present, on the 7th of January (or something like that).
And religions were discouraged on the government level. At least they were doing something right. So why do you mock someone coming from a different culture?


Seriously, I would make a law disallowing teaching anything religious below the age of 14 and joining any religion below the age of 18. Teaching children is pure manipulation, it takes an adult mind to decide whether to believe or not. It should be handled by similar laws than raping, since it has similar, long term mind and life changing effects.

[zapta]

I would make a law disallowing teaching anything religious below the age of 14 and joining any religion below the age of 18. Teaching children is pure manipulation, it takes an adult mind to decide whether to believe or not. It should be handled by similar laws than raping, since it has similar, long term mind and life changing effects.

This will bebe the atheist version of the Taliban. Yet another symmetry between believers and atheists, ideological evil can come from both sides.

[Fungus]

There's not one shred of evidence

You made a funny, and I like it 

Yep, you're following the pattern perfectly... 

ie. You still haven't figured out that you're the one with the burden of proof, not the Atheists.   

[Fungus]

I would make a law disallowing teaching anything religious below the age of 14 and joining any religion below the age of 18. Teaching children is pure manipulation, it takes an adult mind to decide whether to believe or not. It should be handled by similar laws than raping, since it has similar, long term mind and life changing effects.

Nope. Atheism needs to be taught in schools, alongside all of the major religions.

That way the fundies will see that atheists aren't what their church is saying, that the Qur'an is really the same book as the Bible, that their religion is just one more religion among many, etc.

Knowledge is the key, not repression.

[zapta]

ie. You still haven't figured out that you're the one with the burden of proof, not the Atheists.   

No burden of proof whatsoever. He can live his life the way he chooses and believe whatever he wants without a permission from anybody else. Feel free to do the same.

[tszaboo]

I would make a law disallowing teaching anything religious below the age of 14 and joining any religion below the age of 18. Teaching children is pure manipulation, it takes an adult mind to decide whether to believe or not. It should be handled by similar laws than raping, since it has similar, long term mind and life changing effects.

This will bebe the atheist version of the Taliban. Yet another symmetry between believers and atheists, ideological evil can come from both sides.

Bullshit. Teaching is telling people about facts, practices.
Scaring little kids with a half goat red person cooking them ad infinitum, unless you do as I say, is apparently the way to do it now. Or being born again as a cockroach. Or being banished by a deity. You get the idea, always bad things happen, unless...

Everyone is born atheist, everyone is born innocent. Children dont have the same defenses against manipulation as most adult, therefore they should be protected. They dont have the capabilities to differentiate between fairy tales and reality. They are free to choose whatever religion they want, when they are able to make educated decisions.
You wouldnt force children to choose a political party, they have to support for the rest of their life, would you?

Freedom of religion includes that you dont choose for others their religion. Even if they contain some of your DNA.

[ivaylo]

Oddly enough, it took me until a few months ago to realize Christmas was actually a religious holiday in the western world.

Same here, I was 28 when I ralized people have sex to make kids, thought it was purely for fun activity... 

Seriously? The guy is from Russia. There Father Frost, not Cristian Coca Cola Santaclaus, but a fairy tale brings you present, on the 7th of January (or something like that).
And religions were discouraged on the government level. At least they were doing something right. So why do you mock someone coming from a different culture?

Dude relax, it was a joke, I am from there too. Father Frost came for New Year's not Christmas (basically there was no Christmas). But when the old people celebrated it it was Jan 6th or 7th depending on the year. East Orthodox Church never accepted the Gregorian calendar. Now in some countries in Eastern Europe it did, in others it didn't, speaking of confusion... Now I won't explain to you how what I wrote is related.

[zapta]

Freedom of religion includes that you dont choose for others their religion. Even if they contain some of your DNA.

Well, so Dave should be imprisoned for teaching his son electronics because he is choosing a hobby/profession for him.

I hope that you are just trolling here.

I would prefer any day of the week a believer than mind his own business over an atheist with ideology like yours.

[Fungus]

ie. You still haven't figured out that you're the one with the burden of proof, not the Atheists.   

No burden of proof whatsoever. He can live his life the way he chooses and believe whatever he wants without a permission from anybody else. Feel free to do the same.

Repeat after me: "Religion isn't harmless".  It's not like collecting test gear or being gay or whatever.

2000-year old superstitions are not a basis for modern government: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2009/aug/10/religion-george-bush

[zapta]

Repeat after me: "Religion isn't harmless".  It's not like collecting test gear or being gay or whatever.

And so is atheism. The danger is the dogma and the urge of some people to enforce their view point on others. It's symmetric in this respect as well.

2000-year old superstitions are not a basis for modern government: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2009/aug/10/religion-george-bush

Good to know it's settled now that the war was not for oil. ;-)

Anyway, remember this rule:  good atheist >  atheist jerk.

[ivaylo]

Anyway, remember this rule:  good atheist >  atheist jerk.

Deep... Realized how much I need to learn. Still digesting the axioms vs deduction dichotomy (but I think I got all the symmetry stuff!) You think I can join your party or church or wherever they teach all this (of course it would be best if the government didn't know about it)?

[Fungus]

Repeat after me: "Religion isn't harmless".  It's not like collecting test gear or being gay or whatever.

And so is atheism. The danger is the dogma and the urge of some people to enforce their view point on others. It's symmetric in this respect as well.

What's "Atheist dogma"?    Evidence-based beliefs (aka "Atheism") ares the polar opposite of dogma.

Anyway, remember this rule:  good atheist >  atheist jerk.

Can we debate that after a US presidential candidate can be openly Atheist? 

PS: Remember this rule:  good person >  jerk.   No need to bring 'atheism' into it.

[miguelvp]

ie. You still haven't figured out that you're the one with the burden of proof, not the Atheists.   

No burden of proof whatsoever. He can live his life the way he chooses and believe whatever he wants without a permission from anybody else. Feel free to do the same.

Repeat after me: "Religion isn't harmless".  It's not like collecting test gear or being gay or whatever.

2000-year old superstitions are not a basis for modern government: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2009/aug/10/religion-george-bush

Already did, but I guess your English reading comprehension skills might not be great.

...

A much more important point is: Is religion harmless?

Of course not.
...

...
I did say that religion is not harmless. Specially the churches and organizations that surround it.
...

Also I did say that I don't follow the religion and I don't believe on the myths and miracles, as for Jesus being real, most scholars agree that he was a real person in history.

There are still a few that follow the "Christ myth theory" among those scholars, but there are not many on that camp. In general it's accepted that he was a man that actually existed. Of course that doesn't mean that all that is said about him is true, because historical texts have been modified and embellished by the Church. But the core of the texts is undisputed.

Satan, angels etc nope I don't believe they exist although they are interesting stories, they are mythical and needed back then to explain unexplained phenomena back in that time because man kind needs to fill in those holes and they were not equipped with the knowledge we now have. All of the cultures in history did this.

Myself I do like Hinduism and Buddhism better than Catholic believes. It's more in tune with physics.

I do find Mythology fascinating as in how human beings plugged those gaps trying to understand their environment. There is a lot of value on that, and makes up for pretty good story telling.

Anyways, if you want an openly Atheist to be elected, then vote for that person or run for office to change things.
If you can't because you are not a US citizen, then change things in your corner. I'm pretty sure Communist parties exist everywhere and they are probably openly Atheist and they do get elected (not much as socialists but they do have some representation in Europe). The other parties, I'm not sure that will fly, maybe the green party?

So run for office if you think you can do better and make a difference.

Edit: If you are not from the US we do have a saying that states:
"Clean up your own backyard before you go knocking on your neighbor's door"

[rrinker]

ie. You still haven't figured out that you're the one with the burden of proof, not the Atheists.   

No burden of proof whatsoever. He can live his life the way he chooses and believe whatever he wants without a permission from anybody else. Feel free to do the same.

Repeat after me: "Religion isn't harmless".  It's not like collecting test gear or being gay or whatever.

2000-year old superstitions are not a basis for modern government: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2009/aug/10/religion-george-bush

 Makes me need to put this here:

 Listen, strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.

[Fungus]

No burden of proof whatsoever. He can live his life the way he chooses and believe whatever he wants without a permission from anybody else. Feel free to do the same.

Repeat after me: "Religion isn't harmless".  It's not like collecting test gear or being gay or whatever.

Already did, but I guess your English reading comprehension skills might not be great.

Um, I was replying to a guy called "zapta" but I guess your reading comprehension skills might not be great.

as for Jesus being real, most scholars agree that he was a real person in history.

What "scholars" are those? Name one. What hard evidence do they base their belief on?

In general it's accepted that he was a man that actually existed.

No it isn't.

But the core of the texts is undisputed.

Like what? The Great Roman Census that forced Jesus and Mary to go to Bethlehem? A huge, military-enforced, empire-wide migration of people that went completely unnoticed by every writer other than the guy who wrote the Bible? Uhuh.

Herod's killing of every male child under the age of two? We know a lot about Herod, his public works, buildings he commissioned, etc. because the Romans had regular reports about him sent back to Rome (from multiple writers) and we still have those documents. The Romans rulers would have taken great interest in a genocide.

And so on...

If your only "evidence" is a work of fiction then I've got some Harry Potter books you might find fascinating.

Edit: If you are not from the US we do have a saying that states:
"Clean up your own backyard before you go knocking on your neighbor's door"

The US is the country who could make the biggest change to the world. Imagine if they'd spent the $15,000,000,000,000 they've spent in Iraq/Afghanistan on something like energy research or something like that...they'd have even more power over the middle east than they do now, the price of US manufacturing would have dropped to a point where they can compete with China on price (cheap electricity makes all sorts of new manufacturing methods possible); The entire world would be a more hopeful place.

But noooo...Bush couldn't see that. He only say Gog and Magog at work over there and had to defend his Christian nation from the demons. At any price.

[zapta]

PS: Remember this rule:  good person >  jerk.   No need to bring 'atheism' into it.

Perfect!  You are now ready to receive the second rule:

good_believer > atheist_jerk

[tszaboo]

Freedom of religion includes that you dont choose for others their religion. Even if they contain some of your DNA.

Well, so Dave should be imprisoned for teaching his son electronics because he is choosing a hobby/profession for him.

I hope that you are just trolling here.

I would prefer any day of the week a believer than mind his own business over an atheist with ideology like yours.

Well, that got personal 
IDK really what is your problem. How many times did I say: They are free to choose whatever they want!
What, do you fear, that if the decision is made a few years later, than they would decide something else?
BTW, I believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, but do you see me sending the pirates to the schools to doctrinate the children to be a good Pastafarian? Did you decide over the internet, that I'm an atheist, just because I want children to have real freedom of choice (and pull a straw man)?
I didn't questioned your belief system, I didn't questioned intelligent design, I didn't said anyone should stop believing. You call me a jerk.
mod: and compare me with terrorists.

[Fungus]

PS: Remember this rule:  good person >  jerk.   No need to bring 'atheism' into it.

Perfect!  You are now ready to receive the second rule:

good_believer > atheist_jerk

Sure, the problem is the bad believers. There sure are lot of those.

Seriously: How can people be so bad at believing? How can so many people base their lives on beliefs that don't stand up to minimal analysis.

[zapta]

... You call me a jerk.

No, I didn't.

mod: and compare me with terrorists.

I compared your proposal to imprison parents that teach religion to the intolerance of the Taliban. It's pretty much symmetric.

[Fungus]

... You call me a jerk.

No, I didn't.

He wasn't very clear. I'm not 100% sure but I think it was me he was calling the jerk.

Lesson 3: If you're going to call somebody a jerk, don't mess around or play word games. Point a finger and say it.

[Circlotron]

Nope, nothing to do with my "agenda".
No other lobby group gets to open the senate parliament every day with their propaganda:
http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Senate/Powers_practice_n_procedures/aso/so050
I have no problem with religious groups petitioning parliament etc in the same way that any other group has the right to, it's in fact their right, and I'll fight for that right.
But when they get special treatment like that, special "respect", and the ability to reinforce their doctrine at every parliament session, that crap has to stop.

That linked reference where it quotes the so-called Lords Prayer "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in Heaven." I find it incredibly amusing and ironic that these pompous clergymen are so unbelievably ignorant of the texts that they claim to be the guardians of that they they fail to realise in another reference to "God's Kingdom" specifically Daniel 2:44 that this Kingdom is said to be going to erase and replace every form of human government now existing, including the very parliament that they are swanning in front of, gushing over it's virtues. Whether you believe that or not is immaterial; just that the pretence and ignorance of these men is amazing.

[Circlotron]

There are still a few that follow the "Christ myth theory" among those scholars, but there are not many on that camp. In general it's accepted that he was a man that actually existed. Of course that doesn't mean that all that is said about him is true, because historical texts have been modified and embellished by the Church. But the core of the texts is undisputed.

Many people make claim that the church has altered the Bible, but if that were so you would think they would have changed it to say what they wanted it to say. The fact is, the church has a long history of persecuting and killing people that wanted to look into the Bible, which would seem to indicate that there are (unchanged) things in it that they very much didn't want people to see. If you made an effort to help ordinary people see these things it was pretty much a death sentence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Tyndale 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wycliffe

[SeanB]

Not that it was translated, but that the translation was full, which allowed people to see any dogma that was there from tradition, but which was not really supported by the actual scriptures. It does not go down well with those in power if the power base is eroded from the spreading of knowledge. Ignorant sheep are preferred as they are easier to shear than goats.

[ErikTheNorwegian]

Many say that  the islam is a violent religion.. But christianity and the bibel is full of commandmens to stone and kill people for varius resons. The selectively they read and live after this crayz book is stagering... Beates every comon sense. Ex.The bibel advise  brutal killings  as a comon thing in the bibel.  "Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto the gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die."



http://biblehub.net/search.php?q=Stone+to+death

[zapta]

http://www.opencircuits.com/Main_Page free as in beer

I didn't see much stoning recently in the name of Christianity. That's what counts for me.

[Fungus]

http://www.opencircuits.com/Main_Page free as in beer

I didn't see much stoning recently in the name of Christianity.

Thus proving that basic morality doesn't come from religion.

[Circlotron]

Many say that  the islam is a violent religion.. But christianity and the bibel is full of commandmens to stone and kill people for varius resons.

Christianity is not; Judaism is. That's the same people that won't ride on an elevator with regenerative braking on a Saturday because they consider that is doing work.

[zapta]

Many say that  the islam is a violent religion.. But christianity and the bibel is full of commandmens to stone and kill people for varius resons.

Christianity is not; Judaism is. That's the same people that won't ride on an elevator with regenerative braking on a Saturday because they consider that is doing work.

Didn't see recently many stoning  in the name of Judaism either.

[miguelvp]

Many say that  the islam is a violent religion.. But christianity and the bibel is full of commandmens to stone and kill people for varius resons.

Christianity is not; Judaism is. That's the same people that won't ride on an elevator with regenerative braking on a Saturday because they consider that is doing work.

All three of them come from the same roots.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quran#Relationship_with_other_literature

But Christians never supported stoning. Jesus opposed the stoning practices of the times and they actually tried to trick him into deciding the stoning of a woman, but he knew the law very well. 1st they didn't bring the man as required, 2nd Rome removed the authority from Israel to use capital punishment, 3rd he didn't fall for the trap.

It's very unclear to me that even Moses who apparently wrote the law and that being a Jewish law, by the way, would actually determined it carried out by lapidation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoning

Yes, the laws back then and even currently carried out but abolished are barbaric.

But I can't see any account that Christians actually did that.

[zapta]

Many say that  the islam is a violent religion.. But christianity and the bibel is full of commandmens to stone and kill people for varius resons.

Christianity is not; Judaism is. That's the same people that won't ride on an elevator with regenerative braking on a Saturday because they consider that is doing work.

Didn't see recently many stoning  in the name of Judaism either.

Ehh no.. today they use american made machinegus and helicopters, thanksetc... plus killing children...

Well, we can look at what side targets non combatants but this doesn't belong here. Also, those orthodox Jews you was referring to don't serve in the military.

Equating all religious communities to dilute the atrocities of one you want to defend is dishonest.

[EEVblog]

Anyways, I do follow the man, not the churches that formed around him.

How can you "follow the man" when the only information about "the man" was written at least several generations after his death?
Not a single word from the holy book came from him.
Sorry, as much as you might like to think you are, you aren't following "the man" but the words of people several generations after him that didn't even know him.

[miguelvp]

Anyways, I do follow the man, not the churches that formed around him.

How can you "follow the man" when the only information about "the man" was written at least several generations after his death?
Not a single word from the holy book came from him.
Sorry, as much as you might like to think you are, you aren't following "the man" but the words of people several generations after him that didn't even know him.

Because that is what I choose to do as a free man. Do I really care if it's all real or not? nope, but it's a good model for me.

As for the historicity, I know wikipedia is not the ultimate source but they do have a ton of information regarding the subject:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Jesus#Evidence_of_Jesus

But regardless, I do follow my interpretation of the man as I follow a recipe of a cookbook, not to the letter. On top of that I do shape my overall behavior based on other religions too, I'm a firm believer of Karma for example.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karma

Anyways, I don't care what others do, I'm just stating what works for me, but we are all different and unique, so to each their own.

[mtdoc]

http://dudeism.com/

Ya man. Excellent. The dude abides.

[rrinker]

 Beer and sandals - is that the Dude, or Dave? 

[mtdoc]

Beer and sandals - is that the Dude, or Dave? 

No beer for Dave and no white Russians either. But other than that i think Dave would make an excellent Dudeist convert.

[Circlotron]

Sorry, as much as you might like to think you are, you aren't following "the man" but the words of people several generations after him that didn't even know him.

James and Jude who wrote the the Bible books named after them were both fleshly brothers of Jesus, so they certainly would have known him. That Jesus had fleshly brothers and sisters, Mary's other offspring, is stated plainly in Matthew 13:55, flatly contradicting mainstream church teaching. Saying that out loud could haven gotten one executed in times past.

[Brumby]

 


100K - maybe 2KW 20KW?  (just rechecked the scale from the steps)

[coppice]

James and Jude who wrote the the Bible books named after them were both fleshly brothers of Jesus, so they certainly would have known him.

Interesting hypothesis. Can you find a reputable historian who agrees with that?

[Fungus]

That Jesus had fleshly brothers and sisters, Mary's other offspring, is stated plainly in Matthew 13:55, flatly contradicting mainstream church teaching.

Harry Potter state plainly that there's a place called Hogwarts where specially chosen children go to learn to fly. That doesn't prove it exists.

But yeah...  I love it when The Bible openly contradicts church practices/doctrine. No wonder the church was against having it translated into English.

[Fungus]

100K - maybe 2KW 20KW?  (just rechecked the scale from the steps)

True believers worship the tolerance and temperature coefficient, not the wattage.

(The true values of those are revealed only to the chosen few...I can't post them here, obviously)

[tszaboo]

Many say that  the islam is a violent religion.. But christianity and the bibel is full of commandmens to stone and kill people for varius resons. The selectively they read and live after this crayz book is stagering... Beates every comon sense. Ex.The bibel advise  brutal killings  as a comon thing in the bibel.  "Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto the gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die."
http://biblehub.net/search.php?q=Stone+to+death

Christianity had several revolution along the way. The Pope and several bishops gathered together and made changes "to decide an issue of doctrine, administration or application". Islam by definition cannot be changed, and no attempt was made. That what scares me the most, people saying that that they follow islam, they either do it to the last word of a CENSORED. There is no halfway following it. And then it is OK to kill me and my Family because we dont follow it (and to do many barbaric acts). It is a true Catch-22.
Dont compare these two religions based on the Bible. It only means that you have no understanding of Christianity.
Yes, and I'm writing this even though I'm not part of any of those religion groups. The FSM approves this message.

[Fungus]

Anyways, I do follow the man, not the churches that formed around him.

How can you "follow the man" when the only information about "the man" was written at least several generations after his death?
Not a single word from the holy book came from him.
Sorry, as much as you might like to think you are, you aren't following "the man" but the words of people several generations after him that didn't even know him.

Even then you're reading an edited/distorted version of the story, with all the inconvenient parts removed* and things like the resurrection added**.

* Inconvenient parts like the Gospel of Thomas where young Jesus goes around killing other children with his magic powers.

** The resurrection isn't in the earliest copies of the gospels, it was added much later to give a neater ending to the story after the followup book failed to appear. We don't know the details, all we know is that Part I of the novel had a cliffhanger ending ("empty cave, women running away screaming!") and Part II never appeared.

[f4eru]

Dave : "Yes, it's the end of 2015, and we've supposedly got Hoverboards, and flying delorians, hmmm"

You should have added "we've supposedly got Batterizers"

)

[EEVblog]

Dave : "Yes, it's the end of 2015, and we've supposedly got Hoverboards, and flying delorians, hmmm"
You should have added "we've supposedly got Batterizers"

We've got a Batteriser lawsuit! Although that might spoil our fun actually getting hands on Batterisers this year.

[@rt]

The thingyougot was shit, but isn’t representative of a valve amp.
Just a clapped together crap to make certain valve types work with low voltage,
and then they can call it a valve preamp.

Dave, I invite you to believe that tubes are cool. Even though these days they are mostly connected to audiophools.
I would like to see a video ,like fundamentals friday, where you explain a little bit of theory of operation and build and
probe simple circuit with a tube. 

Perhaps.
I'd have to brush upon that one though, because I have never built nor worked on valve gear before.
I think I had Doug Ford explaining a valve mic amp front end in one of his videos?

Also... Jeebuz jibba jabba biggity boo.

[Fungus]

Dave, I invite you to believe that tubes are cool.

Even atheists can believe that valves are cool (I certainly believe it!)

[c4757p]

Valves can be cool, but they generally do not work while cool. Fine for display though.

[boffin]

Dave : "Yes, it's the end of 2015, and we've supposedly got Hoverboards, and flying delorians, hmmm"

I would have preferred the car the Delorean was modeled after, the Mercedes C111
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercedes-Benz_C111

[tszaboo]

Dave : "Yes, it's the end of 2015, and we've supposedly got Hoverboards, and flying delorians, hmmm"

I would have preferred the car the Delorean was modeled after, the Mercedes C111
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercedes-Benz_C111

Wow.

fiberglass body shell and with a mid-mounted three-rotor direct fuel injected Wankel engine

C111 eventually reached 200 mph

That is something you dont see every day.

[AlxDroidDev]

Am I too late for the religion-bashing party?

[Richard Crowley]

Am I too late for the religion-bashing party?

Yes, you are too late.
I will NEVER believe that "tubes are cool".  I still have a scar on my hand from burning myself on one.

[AlxDroidDev]

Am I too late for the religion-bashing party?

Yes, you are too late.

That's too bad. I have good story of when I made a christian question her own beliefs.

[SeanB]

Am I too late for the religion-bashing party?

Yes, you are too late.

That's too bad. I have good story of when I made a christian question her own beliefs.

Spill those beans!!!!

[Fungus]

Am I too late for the religion-bashing party?

Yes, you are too late.

That's too bad. I have good story of when I made a christian question her own beliefs.

You sat down to read The Bible together?

[jonw0224]

To reply or not to reply?  I've not posted here often, but this topic got my attention, albeit a little late.  After reading 12 pages of mixed opinions, I guess I'll throw mine in.

I'm a Christian.  I don't like labels either.  "Atheist" is a range of beliefs that have a belief in no God in common.  For example, Sam Harris believes in an absolute morality (i.e. killing a baby is wrong no matter what society says) while Dawkins believes it is more of a social construct.  Christianity is also a range of beliefs that has Jesus as the son of God in common.  We disagree on some other things, for example, William Lane Craig, believes in the big bang and the generally accepted 13 billion year timeline, while Ken Ham believes in a literal 6 day creation some 6,000 years ago.

I'm also an electrical engineer.  So I don't like the suggestions that I don't have a reasonable arguments for believing in Jesus and God.  I've been a fan of Dave since I stumbled across his first videos when he was still making them in his garage.  But this forum isn't really a comfortable place to discuss religion, mostly due to his comments and the other comments of others "bashing" religion generally and often Christianity in particular.

Some people have asked for reasonable arguments, and we could go on and on most likely.  But I'll try to be brief here.

First, the claim is made that in an age of science and reason, belief in God should be recognized as baloney.  I don't buy that.  Based on my knowledge of science, the universe had a beginning.  If it had a beginning, there was some cause to the beginning.  I just don't buy that some quantum fluctuation in a multiverse resulted in a singularity that expanded into everything we see.  That is an explanation, but the scientific proof of that theory is just as speculative as a creation of the universe by God.  I don't buy that it's a simpler explanation either.  Further, am I to believe that atoms ordered themselves into the first cell?  How did that happen?  I think our most complex engineering feats fall below the complexity of a single cell.  I have to admit I don't know much about biology.  I chose to be an engineer because I could understand it.  Biology was too complex for me to understand.  Am I to believe that the first cell just appeared?  Am I to believe that evolution shaped the course of biological history?  That by the power of natural selection (i.e. death) the complexity of life was advanced far beyond the complexity of a single cell?  On what basis?  Science has so far fallen short of an adequate explanation for me on these questions.  I don't think it'll ever fully answer them.  I think the fact that the universe is here and that we're here to see it is nothing short of miraculous and if it's short of that I'd say it's so highly improbable that I'd exist to be typing this and that you'd exist to be reading it that we should celebrate the fact that it is happening at all!!!

I'd think that engineers could recognize that highly improbable things do happen.  But they usually happen on purpose.  It is improbable that the computer I'm typing on would appear.  So the best explanation is that someone designed and built the thing.  And as we all should know and appreciate, that's a hard thing.  We're all much more complex than a computer, so did we just appear, or did someone design and build us.  This could go on and on, and I suppose you could ask, if God designed everything, then who designed God as Dawkins has.  But the Christian God has always been.  And therefore, the question is meaningless.  But if you ask the same question of the universe, since it had a beginning, the question is valid.  Something or someone caused the universe, and science only gives speculative explanations to counter a God explanation.

The other particular question is, "why Jesus?"  To this I'd say the major influence on me was reading the new testament.  Yes, our earliest fragments of the new testament are dated some 30 years after Jesus died.  And the majority of the new testament wasn't written by people who knew Jesus, but by people who knew people who knew Jesus.  But the claims written down are incredible.  The resurrection of Jesus is frankly an outlandish claim.  But I started to believe in large part due to the influence from other people's lives around me.  Not people who were merely religious, but people who genuinely care about other and try to live out the morality that is recorded in the new testament taught by Jesus.  Many of my other experiences with prayer and encounters with God I can relate.  However, to many they will be relegated to some psychological trick, explained away by people who like me took a single semester in psychology. 

But, I am an incredible skeptic, so at some point I checked out some of the surrounding historians, like Josephus, that are referenced by Christian scholars.  Josephus refers to Jesus as dying and says a group he called Christians continued to follow in his teaching and even claimed he was still alive.  That coupled with the thought that many of the founding Christians died rather than denounce the resurrection of Jesus.  It seemed to me the most plausible explanation for the initial spread of Christianity was that these people really believed and were willing to die for their beliefs.  I suppose they could have been deceived, but if so, it was quite a feat of the founders.  After all, all the Jews or Romans had to do was to produce Jesus' body and the whole thing would have been settled.

Finally, the fact that there are other educated people I've met who believe as I do, at least indicates that there is some validity to it.  I have to admit, many of the ideas in this post are not mine, but taken from other people I've talked to or read.  I humbly ask you to read the new testament if you have never done so.  I don't accept the claim that it is just like the Quran.  I've read some of it also, and it's a different book about a different set of beliefs.  It's naive to lump all religious beliefs in one pot.  I'm specifically appealing to belief in Christianity.  Anyway, there's a lot of information and misinformation out on the internet if you want to research on your own.  I've done about as well as I can addressing some of the comments for one forum post.  Thanks to anyone who read this lengthy post.

[Groucho2005]

Am I too late for the religion-bashing party?

Yes, you are too late.

That's too bad. I have good story of when I made a christian question her own beliefs.

You sat down to read The Bible together?

Or possibly made her watch Cosmos with Neil Tyson.

[Richard Crowley]

To reply or not to reply?  I've not posted here often, but this topic got my attention, albeit a little late.  After reading 12 pages of mixed opinions, I guess I'll throw mine in.

While I agree almost completely with @jonw0224, i have never entered into any (public) discussions of religion in this forum.  It is quite obviously owned, operated, and populated with a majority of athiests/agnostics (or whatever label you prefer).  And IME, they have all made up their minds and are impervious to any discussion that doesn't agree with their beliefs. So be it.  The Aths/Ags love Religion Bashing as an online sport. I just find it boring and off-topic.   

[Fungus]

I just don't buy that some quantum fluctuation in a multiverse resulted in a singularity that expanded into everything we see.  That is an explanation, but the scientific proof of that theory is just as speculative as a creation of the universe by God.

Maybe so. Maybe the whole universe visible universe is just a simulation in a computer, like the movie "Matrix".

If you tell the the universe was created by A God, I can't disprove it, and neither can anybody else.

(Proving negatives is impossible, that's why the burden of proof is on the people making the claim, not on the people who don't believe in that claim).

The part I have a problem with is that it was created by the god described in the Christian Bible.

Basing your life on The Bible makes absolutely no sense to me. Basing your life on Harry Potter seems sensible by comparison.

Further, am I to believe that atoms ordered themselves into the first cell?

Not in a single giant step, no.

Am I to believe that the first cell just appeared?

See above.

Am I to believe that evolution shaped the course of biological history?  That by the power of natural selection (i.e. death) the complexity of life was advanced far beyond the complexity of a single cell?  On what basis?

The theory of evolution is beautifully elegant and easy to understand. That's what makes it so compelling.

The fossil record exists - we can see parts of evolution happening.

We know about DNA, we can see mutations and adaptations happening. The genome project has pretty much confirmed evolution as fact now.

(Remember: Darwin formed the theory long before we knew about DNA. He had no idea how it happened. Then, bang! DNA was discovered and we had the mechanism. It matched the theory perfectly. That's science in action...)

Science has so far fallen short of an adequate explanation for me on these questions.

 

I'd think that engineers could recognize that highly improbable things do happen.  But they usually happen on purpose.

Nope. Hardly anything in science happens on purpose. It's just vast numbers of atoms hitting each other randomly.

Things happening on purpose is engineering, not science.

The other particular question is, "why Jesus?"  To this I'd say the major influence on me was reading the new testament.  Yes, our earliest fragments of the new testament are dated some 30 years after Jesus died.  And the majority of the new testament wasn't written by people who knew Jesus, but by people who knew people who knew Jesus.  But the claims written down are incredible.  The resurrection of Jesus is frankly an outlandish claim.

The resurrection wasn't in those first fragments. It was added much later and not included in the "official" Bible until the fifth century.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Mark#The_ending_of_the_gospel_of_Mark

Also very interesting is what the Quran has to say about the crucifixion. The Quran says the whole thing was faked:

(Surah 4)

157. That they said (in boast), "We killed Christ Jesus the son of Mary, the Messenger of Allah.;- but they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them, and those who differ therein are full of doubts, with no (certain) knowledge, but only conjecture to follow, for of a surety they killed him not:-

158. Nay, Allah raised him up unto Himself; and Allah is Exalted in Power, Wise;-

http://www.wright-house.com/religions/islam/Quran/4-women.php#155

After all, all the Jews or Romans had to do was to produce Jesus' body and the whole thing would have been settled.

Either that, or ... the entire thing is a work of fiction. It didn't happen. There's not a single piece of solid evidence that it isn't a subversive 1st century novel that people chose to believe as real events.

Remember: There was no TV or Internet back than. Any minstrel could walk into any tavern and sing a song about a man named Jesus.

Do it enough times and that person takes life, eg.: King Arthur, Robin Hood, etc.

I humbly ask you to read the new testament if you have never done so.

I've read it.

The great Roman census? Never happened. Herod's killing of all the males under 2 years old? Never happened. Tell me: If all the actual verifiable claims in the New Testament turn out to be false, why would the non-verifiable claims be truth?

What about all the gospels that never made it into the final edit? There's a lot of them. What makes the other gospels any less valid than the four official ones?

Why did Peter's Gospel not make it in? Wasn't he the most important disciple?

What about the Gospel of Thomas where young Jesus uses his magic powers to kill other children, then when the parents come to Joseph's house to complain he turns them all blind (a variation of this story is also in the Quran so it has independent verification...)

I don't accept the claim that it is just like the Quran.  I've read some of it also, and it's a different book about a different set of beliefs.

Folk tales are like that. Look at how many different Christian religions there are. Imagine if the Catholics and Baptists both ignored their copies of The Bible and only passed it along by word of mouth for 200 years. After that time they both write a Bible. My Guess? You'd have two completely different books at the end of it, even though they were both based on the same original text.

nb. Yes, both of those books would be an example of evolution. selection works for ideas as well as biology, each person in the chain selects the interpretation of the story they like best and repeats that altered version to the next generation. Eventually the story is distorted.

(If you've never played [url-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_whispers]Chinese Whispers[/url], you should. You'll be shocked at how distorted a message can get with just a single phrase and four or five people passing it along).

[Fungus]

... a majority of athiests/agnostics (or whatever label you prefer).  And IME, they have all made up their minds and are impervious to any discussion that doesn't agree with their beliefs.

Absolute bollocks.

The ONE thing you can definitely say about somebody who labels themselves as "Atheist", the ONLY piece of information that label tells you about them, is that they are wide open to persuasion.

[AlxDroidDev]

Am I too late for the religion-bashing party?

Yes, you are too late.

That's too bad. I have good story of when I made a christian question her own beliefs.

You sat down to read The Bible together?

Or possibly made her watch Cosmos with Neil Tyson.

hahahaha! Not quite!

I asked her why there were so many versions of the bible. And she used exactly the word I was hoping she would: "interpretation". So I suggested that "God's word" isn't absolute, but dependent on a man's - the translator - interpretation of it, so that specific definition of god was the result of a single man's interpretation.

The I moved on to ask her why there were so many christian religions, again, using the same argument: any christian definition of god isn't absolute, but biased by the religion. Therefore there isn't god... there is only religion. I even mentioned Joseph Smith, and how he single handed founded a christian religion (mormonism) based on his own book, on his own interpretation of things.

When she said that the god is the same among all christian religions, I used a dirty trick: some Socrates syllogism.  They presume that all christian religions follow only one and the same god, but in each religion their god expect different things from them (like not ingesting caffeine, or that women cannot wear trousers [yes, this is a thing in some churches in Brazil], not drinking alcohol, and the most bizarre things). Therefore, it cannot be the same god in all these churches -> there are many gods or no god at all.

To knock her out, I went full logic on her: isn't god omnipresent, omnipowerful, benevolent, and all that shit? That, by definition, is completely incompatible with the world we have, where there are evil people, pain, suffering, famine, misery, war, and so on.

She tried to argue that not everyone has "accepted" Christ in their heart (I hate when they say this). To counteract that, I asked her if starving children in Somalia will have a chance to go to heaven, even if they've never been introduced to her christian god - therefore not accepct christ or anyone, and all they've known all their life is war, disease and misery. What kind of god would be so fucked up to allow a kid to starve just because some preacher hasn't been to their country?

I am quite sure she didn't sleep that night and might have missed a mass (or maybe 5). I thought of suggesting her to read some Kiekergaard, so she would have her faith restored, but I didn't bother. The world doesn't need anyone else thinking more about god than about man.

[retrolefty]

To reply or not to reply?  I've not posted here often, but this topic got my attention, albeit a little late.  After reading 12 pages of mixed opinions, I guess I'll throw mine in.

While I agree almost completely with @jonw0224, i have never entered into any (public) discussions of religion in this forum.  It is quite obviously owned, operated, and populated with a majority of athiests/agnostics (or whatever label you prefer).  And IME, they have all made up their minds and are impervious to any discussion that doesn't agree with their beliefs. So be it.  The Aths/Ags love Religion Bashing as an online sport. I just find it boring and off-topic.   

 That is really not saying much as the the same behavior can be seen by many here on many subject posts, technical or otherwise.

[Richard Crowley]

That is really not saying much as the the same behavior can be seen by many here on many subject posts, technical or otherwise.

No question.  But you don't see as much sport-bashing in other subjects (save, perhaps Politics).  Which is the reason for the long-time caution about discussion of politics and/or religion.

[miguelvp]

For being a self organized conglomerate or potential fields that interact at many field levels with random experimental changes that help us interact and manipulate with other conglomerates around us to our conglomerate advantage that are driven by a highly parallel state machines that also self organized we sure make a lot of noise about what is real and what is not.

At the quantum level there is no real matter, just potentials and interactions that resemble music more than any other metaphor that we can use.

Newton, Descartes and the whole mechanical movement could explain a lot, but life is more than that, we are not just mere machines but we are systems that form part of other systems. All interconnected at the quantum level with fields that have tendencies.

But it's hard to accept what reality is because our senses and perceptions experiences solids as solids and objects when it's really just fields that are just pure math with no reality outside our perception of what is around us.

There are probably a lot of other systems that we can't interact with, no more than being able to play with your own shadow.

Trying to figure out why a tree gives so much fruit when only a few if any will grow as a tree doesn't make sense at the machine level because it's a waste of energy, but it does make sense when you take the whole forest and animals that depend and collaborate on that system.
Edit: as the expression, can't see the forest for the trees

Newtonian thinking holds us at bay because it can explain a lot and very well, but it tramples our understanding of seeing past the machines we use as metaphors of our surroundings.

Life is not condensable and life does feel itself, as a human being at the end of the day, I do feel insulted by being reduced to a machine, a clock or a system, it's the same story just using different terms.

All of the above just a big paraphrasing of the movie mindwalk, which changed my life more than any other movie out there.

As for Religion is more than just Gods and stories passed verbally from generations and highly distorted and manipulated, it's a system and a set of neural net of teachings of what worked for some and didn't for others, but explained to the uneducated with embellishments and magic or whatever works for them.

Religions have more to do with the interactions than the actual dogma, but with our perception is hard to see how everything is connected.

I do find Hinduism fascinating even if I didn't study it fully. And the math behind music is so close to the quantum reality that is scary, I guess the self similarity of us being just waves and fields interacting in harmony like the chords of a note having a distinct feeling of the separate notes.

creation/destruction is the core of reality, but we do lack of good metaphors to explain how things really are because we are limited by our own confines and it doesn't help that we box things in units instead of looking at the whole because it's way beyond of what we are capable.
Edit: by creation and destruction I mean systems, not energy, just transformations that are perceived as creation and destruction.

Anyways atheist, believer whatever religion, we are all part of it all and the interactions are what makes life interesting.

Edit: BTW that movie MindWalk is boring but fascinating at the same time, no right answer at the end, just makes you think and see things in a different way. Its probably the only movie that I watched more than 10 times, the rest only once, but I get more and more out of this one. But I bet 99.9% of the population will fall asleep before 1/4th of the movie.

Edit2: and sorry for spoiling the movie, but it's been out for 25 years and I bet the book is better but I didn't read it (yet, I'm not into books past technical reference manuals although I did like to read H.P. Lovecraft a lot when I was younger but who has the time anymore?)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Turning_Point_(book)
BTW, the movie is based on the book, so probably totally different, but I do love the movie, didn't read the book.
Written by:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritjof_Capra
I probably should read all of his books.

Edit3: yup, not done yet, just wanted to say that to me what it counts at the end is all about connections, relationships and interactions, that holds true for believers and non-believers because it's what nature is all about. nature as in the metaphysical meaning that encompasses all of it, and you can't deny (well of course you can and I'm sure some will) that there is purpose behind it all.

[daqq]

...Based on my knowledge of science, the universe had a beginning.  If it had a beginning, there was some cause to the beginning....
Science has so far fallen short of an adequate explanation for me on these questions.

Well, using god(s) to explain beginnings is not an explanation - you are just outsourcing the question.

I as a human being have a limited scope of knowledge, limited powers over my immediate environment, limited scope of perception. I can construct devices to extend this, to a point. Even though I'm pretty complicated my powers are fairly limited, my life fairly finite, mortal, I can die tomorrow and the Universe won't notice. But based on your assessment I had to have been planned and created with an intent in mind.

Now, let's compare man with god(s) - an all powerful, immortal entity, all knowing, with a complexity FAR greater than that of a man, capable of creating a Universe at a whim. Yet somehow he doesn't have a problem with more humble beginnings - just existing, or just starting to exist from nothing or randomly. He could have been created by someone/something else, but, who created that fellow?

Using god as an explanation for complexity or origins of the Universe, life is not an answer - you are just outsourcing the issues to someone else.

[mikron]

Is there even a point in trying to have an intelligent discussion about irrational ideas such as gods and miracles?

[Fungus]

Is there even a point in trying to have an intelligent discussion about irrational ideas such as gods and miracles?

If you live in a country where the majority of people believe those irrational ideas, including their presidents and the people who set the policies, then I'd say yes. Keep the debate visible, no matter how silly it seems, no matter how much of a jerk it makes you look in public ("Why can't you respect the other guy's personal beliefs, dude?")

We wouldn't accept strong personal belief in astrology, Ouija boards or Poseidon in our political leaders and schoolteachers, why should we accept Christianity?

It's also possible to look things like The Bible, pick out the things that can be verified and check them out. That's a factual debate, nothing irrational there.

[AlxDroidDev]

If you live in a country where the majority of people believe those irrational ideas, including their presidents and the people who set the policies, then I'd say yes. Keep the debate visible, no matter how silly it seems, no matter how much of a jerk it makes you look in public ("Why can't you respect the other guy's personal beliefs, dude?")

^^^^ That!

[mikerj]

If you live in a country where the majority of people believe those irrational ideas, including their presidents and the people who set the policies, then I'd say yes. Keep the debate visible, no matter how silly it seems, no matter how much of a jerk it makes you look in public ("Why can't you respect the other guy's personal beliefs, dude?")

The thing about personal beliefs is that they should generally be kept personal.

As the joke goes: Religion is like a penis.  It's perfectly fine thing to have, but if you wave it in my face we have a problem.

[Fungus]

As the joke goes: Religion is like a penis.  It's perfectly fine thing to have, but if you wave it in my face we have a problem.

Christians would be the first people getting in people's faces if we tried to make Ouija boards part of the school curriculum.

[Brumby]

... and I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be alone.

[jonw0224]

Fungus,

Thanks for taking time to reply.  As this is off topic for an Electronics Forum, I won't go on and on, but I'll address some points you made.

"Not in a single giant step, no".  I suppose if I told you a purple African Elephant flew out of my rear end, you'd be more convinced if I followed that up with, "well, he didn't come out in one giant step".

I know well the difference in science and engineering.  Everything in a scientific experiment is on purpose.  The explanation of what happened has a purpose.  Why am I to conclude the results don't have some purpose, even if I don't know what that purpose is?

I'm going to attempt for my next project to just throw components together and hope something useful eventually comes out.  I don't know biology, but I do know math.  And it would take a tremendous amount of time for me to come up with anything useful that way.  You can claim evolution is verified by the discovery of DNA, but I'm not aware of any evolutionary theory that describe how DNA came together in the first place.  Much less the replicating mechanism, the protein construction, etc, etc.  Updated evolutionary theory merely explains how small changes in DNA can result in small changes in an organism.  The assumption is the changes add to make something entirely new (or result in death).  The theory does nothing to explain origins, because that would be chemicals coming together randomly until life happened.  It would be the same as if I threw components together randomly and hoped eventually I'd get something.  And the probability of that happening is just so near zero, it would take a universe of universes for us to expect a single simple cell to spontaneously happen just one time.  But you have to have a DNA replicating living cell before evolution can even enter the discussion.  Therefore, science is still short of an explanation of life.  I choose to believe an explanation based on a creator, because the world doesn't look random to me, it looks engineered.  (read Darwin's Doubt by Stephen Myers, or at least start with my obscure review of his book to see if you'd be interested http://jonw0224.weebly.com/blog/darwins-doubt)

Next, you became a Bible scholar.  I'm not a Bible scholar, but I can read the short ending of Mark (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark%2016:1-7), and the resurrection is in the short ending my friend.  On the events that "didn't happen" (e.g. Herod's killings and the census), am I to suppose that anything in history for which I can only find one source recording it's occurrence did not happen?  Anything written and not collaborated by other writings as untrue?  I think we've both been around the Internet long enough to know that the presence or absence of collaboration says little about the truthfulness of a statement, just that someone else out there agrees or not.  I think collaboration would make an argument for truth stronger, but the lack of collaboration does not make something false by default.

I could continue to address the gospel of Peter, Thomas, and the Quran, and what makes them suspect sources on a historical Jesus, but I've flown off topic enough here.  Maybe I should have ignored all of this and kept quiet, but I felt keeping quiet was more wrong than right.  I'm not expecting anyone to hail me as right or convert to Christianity due to reading a few posts on the Internet, but I felt I should speak up rather than watch the bashing silently.

-Jonathan

[mtdoc]

  I don't know biology, but I do know math.  And it would take a tremendous amount of time for me to come up with anything useful that way.  You can claim evolution is verified by the discovery of DNA, but I'm not aware of any evolutionary theory that describe how DNA came together in the first place.

You're right. You don't know biology!

BTW, Accepting the FACT of biological evolution does not rule out belief in a god/creator,etc - despite what the fundamentalist Christians (or overzealous athiests) would have you believe. 

Too many people spend way too much time trying to tell others what to believe and impose their belief system on others. The number of people killed, tortured and enslaved due to religious zealotry (Christian and Islamic in particular) just staggers the mind.

[Fungus]

I'm not aware of any evolutionary theory that describe how DNA came together in the first place.

OK, but the leap of logic from that statement to: "Therefore it must have been the god of the Christan Bible" is way bigger than any of the evolutionary steps you're complaining about.

I'm going to attempt for my next project to just throw components together and hope something useful eventually comes out.  I don't know biology, but I do know math.  And it would take a tremendous amount of time for me to come up with anything useful that way.

Sure, but it wouldn't take you very long at all if what you're doing is throwing sticky colored balls together trying to achieve a particular combination of colors and there are trillions and trillions and trillions of you doing it simultaneously.

(How many atoms are there in the universe?)

[Fungus]

Too many people spend way too much time trying to tell others what to believe and impose their belief system on others. The number of people killed, tortured and enslaved due to religious zealotry (Christian and Islamic in particular) just staggers the mind.

How many people are being made miserable right now by other people telling them they're shameful, deviant and that they can "pray away the gay" at special camps?

If they're really lucky they'll be shown pictures of naked men while receiving electroshocks as therapy. Not adults either, teenagers.

All in the name of The Bible.

(But hey, personal beliefs are harmless, right? People should be allowed to believe whatever they want and I'm the one being a jerk here...)

[jonw0224]

mtdoc,

I'm not saying I don't believe in evolutionary biology.  Just that in regards to origins, if doesn't matter, because evolution can't happen on living things when they don't yet exist.  Evolutionary biology answers the wrong question and that's my point.

fungus,

"(how many atoms are there in the universe?)."  If you read my book review, I spend most of my time trying to put a number on it.  Here's the link again: http://jonw0224.weebly.com/blog/darwins-doubt.  Take it for what it is, the musings of an amateur, but I think we're all there since this isn't a topic of our expertise.  And, I agree, it's a huge leap from believing in a creator and believing in the God of Christianity.  Also a huge leap towards denial of a creator.  But life is a series of steps isn't it?

-Jonathan

[miguelvp]

Too many people spend way too much time trying to tell others what to believe and impose their belief system on others. The number of people killed, tortured and enslaved due to religious zealotry (Christian and Islamic in particular) just staggers the mind.

Yup, non religious countries are way better at it.

As for people telling others what to believe or not to believe, the song Revolution by the Beatles comes to mind.

[Fungus]

I'm going to attempt for my next project to just throw components together and hope something useful eventually comes out.  I don't know biology, but I do know math.  And it would take a tremendous amount of time for me to come up with anything useful that way.

Sure, but it wouldn't take you very long at all if what you're doing is throwing sticky colored balls together trying to achieve a particular combination of colors and there are trillions and trillions and trillions of you doing it simultaneously.

And even if we do go with electronics components, I can imagine some useful circuit building blocks would appear if a few trillion of us sat down with components that had magnetic legs and threw them together randomly. RC filter? Easy. Constant current LED driver? Not difficult.

This op-amp (from an LM324) is a bit more complex but certainly plausible:



It's just math, and people tend to vastly underestimate the number of events going on all around us.

[Fungus]

I'm not saying I don't believe in evolutionary biology.  Just that in regards to origins, if doesn't matter, because evolution can't happen on living things when they don't yet exist.

Sure it can.

A certain group of atoms might be more stable than another group under large temperature fluctuations.

If we start with equal amounts of both then something happens to change the daily temperature variation in the environment then one group will be favored over the other.

But none of that matters. Even if we give you detailed diagrams of what went on you can still say "Yes, but god designed it that way", can't you?

And then we're back to the real problem with your belief, that it's unfalsifiable. If the only angle you ever look at your belief from is its unfalsifiability then you're doing it wrong.

ie. You'll get the wrong answers whenever you look at the history of The Bible, Evolution, or whatever. Every single thing can be explained by god (eg. God was guiding men when they chose the gospels or God was guideng them when they translated the books to English) but it's a non-answer. It answers nothing, it's an empty statement.

If God is the creator of everything then who created God? (obviously somebody really clever, right...?) "Turtles all the way down"

[Fungus]

...watch Cosmos with Neil Tyson.

I have to say I'm in two minds over that one.

I love the original but I'm not a fan of Tyson. Should I watch it or not?

[jonw0224]

Fungus,

My belief is totally falsifiable.  And bring me some evidence that falsifies it instead of making mere assertions and conjectures ("certain groups of atoms might be more stable?"), and I'll change my mind.  Thanks,

-Jonathan

[retrolefty]

Fungus,

My belief is totally falsifiable.  And bring me some evidence that falsifies it instead of making mere assertions and conjectures ("certain groups of atoms might be more stable?"), and I'll change my mind.  Thanks,

-Jonathan

 I don't think falsifiability means what you think it means, but maybe I'm wrong about that. Ones, with the belief in God, need to provide examples of what kind of evidence(s) would convince or prove to them that their God might not exist.

 How could one prove to you without you giving examples or other criteria of the proof you would require to drop your faith in God?  I might not believe in God simply because I've seen no evidence that proves to me the he/she exists, but I'm open to new evidence that I myself might come up with or that others bring up or share.

 As an engineering type, I believe in lots of things but can't say I have total faith in anything. I believe the sun will rise again tomorrow but not because of any kind of faith, rather just personal experience and learning some about gravity and orbital relationships between celestial objects has given me the evidence for my belief.

 

[Groucho2005]

...watch Cosmos with Neil Tyson.

I have to say I'm in two minds over that one.

I love the original but I'm not a fan of Tyson. Should I watch it or not?

Tyson's narration may not be to everyone's liking but I think he did a great job with this one. Have a look at the reviews on IMDB, they might help you make up your mind.

[jonw0224]

retrolefty,

I'll stand corrected.  I over reacted.  You are right in that it is impossible to prove there is no God.  It's like proving there is no bug in a software program.  At what point of use can you say, "there is no bug, because my program isn't crashing".  How can you know at the next point it can't crash?  So, I guess I used the word incorrectly.  However, you can say, "my program is running correctly".  And in that vain I would say, science in our current understanding falls very short of explaining origins of anything we study.  Anyone that claims that science can be used to explain away God or that science justifies a not believing in God, is just well, to use Dawkin's own words, "delusional".  And the sum of the evidence in my view demonstrates a designed world, not a chance happening because the chance of it happening is so remote.  I'd call it miraculous.  Someone else is free to look at the world around them and believe it's all just dumb luck.  So, I can agree that is a different thing from a proof of God's existence or non existence.  However, my belief in the Christian God is falsifiable, in that you can demonstrate the story line as untrue.  But I guess the problem with that is you've got to chip away the story piece by piece, until a stubborn fellow like me lets go.

Please understand, I'm not trying to justify religious belief, I'm just trying to combat the dogmatic view that religious people are the only ones holding onto a form of faith and by faith I mean believing in something without knowing for 100% sure and the bashing of another person's belief without any real justification.  The quicker we all come to the conclusion that we don't have all the answers, the better off we'll be because we'll try to find them.

-Jonathan

[Lightages]

Evolution is a fact, not speculation.

Life did not start from evolution. Evolution is the process that explains the diversity of life we have now.

Evolution does not describe, nor attempt to describe, how life started. That is another completely different field.  Nobody knows how life started, but the evidence points to random formations of molecules arriving at a form where self replication was probable.

The Universe started from a state of infinite density, not from a point. This state changed rapidly from expansion and caused the Universe that we see today. What happened before the big bang is beyond our current understanding at this point just as was how the diversity of life came about before Darwin made his observations.

We have discovered, using science, that we still need to learn more about our Universe and that we can directly observe only 5% of what exists. Other methods of observation from new technology might reveal what we have not seen yet, just as Galileo did with his new technology.

God(s) are only talked about, asserted, and believed in without any evidence such as has been used in the things mentioned above. No evidence, nothing, just believers and their books written by believers.

God(s), or more correctly the belief in them, are probably the result of evolution. If you didn't believe there was an agent making that crunching sound in the high grasses near you, you became the meal of a tiger. If you did believe there was an agent making that sound and acted to avoid the agent, you survived and so you would be able to have descendants. Better to believe in agency even if there isn't any so you would survive just in case there really was some.

Belief without evidence is irrational. People have a capability to compartmentalize beliefs if they seem to contradict reality. Maybe this is so that they can survive among the others who believe who might think that the lack of belief is dangerous to the group. "Hey, Joe didn't tell us about the tiger noise he thought he heard when there wasn't one. We all run at any noise or when we see someone else running. Joe didn't react and so maybe he is a threat to our society, kill him so he can't be a cause of a false sense of safety. "

If you can't show it, or evidence of it, it isn't real. Sure you can believe in it, but keep the belief to yourself and stop trying to make other believe in something you can demonstrate. Even better, stop killing people because they don't think women should live in bags, or that you should stone a man to death for gathering sticks on Sunday, or that people can't be good without believing that a God made a clone of himself, then killed it, and then made it come back to life and disappear. All this to save his beloved minions from the sin he created knowing they would be sinners and need to be saved from his perfect plan. Ooops plan didn't work, kill everyone except 8 people by drowning all of them, babies, tress, everything. Perfect plan didn't work again? OK, make all man speak different languages so they can't understand each other so they can't be closer to God? Oops, didn't work again... OK, wait till Jesus comes back in 20 years! Ooops, OK 1000 years! Ooops, hmmm, sorry, God is a little busy, he will get back to you soon........

[Fungus]

My belief is totally falsifiable.

No it isn't.

And bring me some evidence that falsifies it instead of making mere assertions and conjectures ("certain groups of atoms might be more stable?"), and I'll change my mind.  Thanks,

You can always say "God was guiding those atoms" and nobody will be able to prove otherwise. That's unfalsifiability.

In the unfalsifiable position the burden of proof is on you to prove that god did it, not the other way around. Until you grasp that concept there's no possible debate.

[Fungus]

Please understand, I'm not trying to justify religious belief, I'm just trying to combat the dogmatic view that religious people are the only ones holding onto a form of faith

There's no such thing as atheist dogma, there's no such thing as atheist faith.

Dogma and faith are things that can only come from unfalsifiable beliefs.

(OK, that's not quite true: I have faith in the scientific method)

[mtdoc]

Dogma and faith are things that can only come from unfalsifiable beliefs.

(OK, that's not quite true: I have faith in the scientific method)

Just as an FYI - with respect to dogma,  that is not strictly correct. 

While often used to describe religious (faith based) views,  in common usage it has also been used to describe any opinion or idea held to be a central, incontrovertible  "truth" even if that idea is based on scientific evidence.  And one can be dogmatic about their belief that there is no god (something which science has not proved or disproved).

For example The Central Dogma of Molecular Biology (though its use in this context has been controversial).

[miguelvp]

The Universe started from a state of infinite density, not from a point. This state changed rapidly from expansion and caused the Universe that we see today. What happened before the big bang is beyond our current understanding at this point just as was how the diversity of life came about before Darwin made his observations.

We have discovered, using science, that we still need to learn more about our Universe and that we can directly observe only 5% of what exists. Other methods of observation from new technology might reveal what we have not seen yet, just as Galileo did with his new technology.

The Big-Bang is a theory not a fact, it has been questioned and because of current research is almost refuted.
M-String, Multiverse, etc have yield no proof yet either, with bad results when testing the theories on the Large Hadron Collider.
New theories are being investigated including the new Rainbow Gravity, and another one called Scaled Symmetry.

All of them still theories.

Also the discovery of a big group of quasars contradicts the Big-Bang theory because things just don't add up.

It's pretty arrogant of us to think we can get there in the short term, it's a gradual process and we really can't prove a lot of it because of the 11 dimensions to which we only see a projection and can't interact with other realities.

Nature is not about to give us the keys just yet.

Edit: That said, nature is just there, it doesn't care about our quest because we are not equipped to interact with many of the dimensions that project into our reality and the math proves that it's imposible for us to even reach and observe the full theories because it's physically imposible, and whatever is playing that harp of vibrating our reality into essence is probably not even aware nor can interact with our reality nor observe it. We however can observe the consequences of that melody which we know as nature.

[coppice]

The Universe started from a state of infinite density, not from a point. This state changed rapidly from expansion and caused the Universe that we see today. What happened before the big bang is beyond our current understanding at this point just as was how the diversity of life came about before Darwin made his observations.

We have discovered, using science, that we still need to learn more about our Universe and that we can directly observe only 5% of what exists. Other methods of observation from new technology might reveal what we have not seen yet, just as Galileo did with his new technology.

The Big-Bang is a theory not a fact, it has been questioned and because of current research is almost refuted.
M-String, Multiverse, etc have yield no proof yet either, with bad results when testing the theories on the Large Hadron Collider.
New theories are being investigated including the new Rainbow Gravity, and another one called Scaled Symmetry.

All of them still theories.

Also the discovery of a big group of quasars contradicts the Big-Bang theory because things just don't add up.

It's pretty arrogant of us to think we can get there in the short term, it's a gradual process and we really can't prove a lot of it because of the 11 dimensions to which we only see a projection and can't interact with other realities.

Nature is not about to give us the keys just yet.

Edit: That said, nature is just there, it doesn't care about our quest because we are not equipped to interact with many of the dimensions that project into our reality and the math proves that it's imposible for us to even reach and observe the full theories because it's physically imposible.

I think you need to look up what the word theory means.

[Fungus]

The Big-Bang is a theory not a fact, it has been questioned and because of current research is almost refuted.

I'm not aware of any such research but if either the Big Bang or Evolution is refuted then it's a big win for science. It proves that science is working.

PS: Which of these problems downgrades the Big Bang theory to "almost refuted" status? I'd honestly like to know.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang#Problems_and_related_issues_in_physics

[miguelvp]

That movie I mentioned which is on YouTube ends with the poet reciting Enigmas by Pablo Neruda (Chilean Poet) which fits the full plot.

If you are going to watch it, don't read it. And if you read it and don't watch the movie, try to understand what it really means.

Movie (long and boring and very brainy in all aspects, social, economical, political, physics, quantum theory, and a poet's point of view:


Poem towards the end of the movie recited by the poet to summarize his view:
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/enigmas/

Enigmas - Poem by Pablo Neruda

You've asked me what the lobster is weaving there with his golden feet?
I reply, the ocean knows this.
You say, what is the ascidia waiting for in its transparent bell? What is it waiting for?
I tell you it is waiting for time, like you.
You ask me whom the Macrocystis alga hugs in its arms?
Study, study it, at a certain hour, in a certain sea I know.
You question me about the wicked tusk of the narwhal,
and I reply by describing how the sea unicorn with the harpoon in it dies.
You enquire about the kingfisher's feathers, which tremble in the pure springs of the southern tides?
Or you've found in the cards a new question touching on  the crystal architecture
of the sea anemone, and you'll deal that to me now?
You want to understand the electric nature of the ocean spines?
The armored stalactite that breaks as it walks?
The hook of the angler fish, the music stretched out
in the deep places like a thread in the water?

I want to tell you the ocean knows this, that life in its jewel boxes
is endless as the sand, impossible to count, pure,
and among the blood-colored grapes time has made the
petal hard and shiny, made the jellyfish full of light
and untied its knot, letting its musical threads fall
from a horn of plenty made of infinite mother-of-pearl.

I am nothing but the empty net which has gone on ahead
of human eyes, dead in those darknesses,
of fingers accustomed to the triangle, longitudes
on the timid globe of an orange.

I walked around as you do, investigating the endless star,
and in my net, during the night, I woke up naked,
the only thing caught, a fish trapped inside the wind.

Translated by Robert Bly

[miguelvp]

The Big-Bang is a theory not a fact, it has been questioned and because of current research is almost refuted.

I'm not aware of any such research but if either the Big Bang or Evolution is refuted then it's a big win for science. It proves that science is working.

PS: Which of these problems downgrades the Big Bang theory to "almost refuted" status? I'd honestly like to know.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang#Problems_and_related_issues_in_physics

Here are a few linking to the largest discovered structure in the universe:
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2013/11/the-largest-discovered-structure-in-the-universe-contradicts-big-bang-theory-cosmology-weekend-featu.html

https://www.icr.org/article/5350/

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/348/6236/779.abstract

Rainbow Gravity:
http://phys.org/news/2015-01-black-holes-space-theory.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/large-hadron-collider/11489442/Big-Bang-theory-could-be-debunked-by-Large-Hadron-Collider.html

The rest you can find yourself

Edit: Ok I'll give you one more:
http://www.wired.com/2014/08/multiverse/

Edit again: also read the next subject after the link you gave me:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang#Speculations

[miguelvp]

The Universe started from a state of infinite density, not from a point. This state changed rapidly from expansion and caused the Universe that we see today. What happened before the big bang is beyond our current understanding at this point just as was how the diversity of life came about before Darwin made his observations.

We have discovered, using science, that we still need to learn more about our Universe and that we can directly observe only 5% of what exists. Other methods of observation from new technology might reveal what we have not seen yet, just as Galileo did with his new technology.

The Big-Bang is a theory not a fact, it has been questioned and because of current research is almost refuted.
M-String, Multiverse, etc have yield no proof yet either, with bad results when testing the theories on the Large Hadron Collider.
New theories are being investigated including the new Rainbow Gravity, and another one called Scaled Symmetry.

All of them still theories.

Also the discovery of a big group of quasars contradicts the Big-Bang theory because things just don't add up.

It's pretty arrogant of us to think we can get there in the short term, it's a gradual process and we really can't prove a lot of it because of the 11 dimensions to which we only see a projection and can't interact with other realities.

Nature is not about to give us the keys just yet.

Edit: That said, nature is just there, it doesn't care about our quest because we are not equipped to interact with many of the dimensions that project into our reality and the math proves that it's imposible for us to even reach and observe the full theories because it's physically imposible.

I think you need to look up what the word theory means.

I think I know what a theory means, just a hypothesis. Meaning is a conjecture that is not proven but a way to try to explain why things work the way they do and to try to see via experimentation if it holds water.

[coppice]

The Universe started from a state of infinite density, not from a point. This state changed rapidly from expansion and caused the Universe that we see today. What happened before the big bang is beyond our current understanding at this point just as was how the diversity of life came about before Darwin made his observations.

We have discovered, using science, that we still need to learn more about our Universe and that we can directly observe only 5% of what exists. Other methods of observation from new technology might reveal what we have not seen yet, just as Galileo did with his new technology.

The Big-Bang is a theory not a fact, it has been questioned and because of current research is almost refuted.
M-String, Multiverse, etc have yield no proof yet either, with bad results when testing the theories on the Large Hadron Collider.
New theories are being investigated including the new Rainbow Gravity, and another one called Scaled Symmetry.

All of them still theories.

Also the discovery of a big group of quasars contradicts the Big-Bang theory because things just don't add up.

It's pretty arrogant of us to think we can get there in the short term, it's a gradual process and we really can't prove a lot of it because of the 11 dimensions to which we only see a projection and can't interact with other realities.

Nature is not about to give us the keys just yet.

Edit: That said, nature is just there, it doesn't care about our quest because we are not equipped to interact with many of the dimensions that project into our reality and the math proves that it's imposible for us to even reach and observe the full theories because it's physically imposible.

I think you need to look up what the word theory means.

I think I know what a theory means, just a hypothesis. Meaning is a conjecture that is not proven but a way to try to explain why things work the way they do and to try to see via experimentation if it holds water.

Maybe you should look up the term in a proper dictionary. A scientific theory is an explanation of observed facts. Therefore, sentances like "The Big-Bang is a theory not a fact" are meaningless. It might be that a theory in conflict with certain facts, which would cause it to be reviewed. Any fact which can be solidly confirmed, and which does not fit a theory, means that theory needs revision or replacement. Theories are the highest standard we have in science and engineering.

[miguelvp]

Maybe you should look up the term in a proper dictionary. A scientific theory is an explanation of observed facts. Therefore, sentances like "The Big-Bang is a theory not a fact" are meaningless. It might be that a theory in conflict with certain facts, which would cause it to be reviewed. Any fact which can be solidly confirmed, and which does not fit a theory, means that theory needs revision or replacement. Theories are the highest standard we have in science and engineering.

Nope, a theory is not law until proven, that' s why the term, you look it up.

The normal progress is that you hypothesize a theory, then by experimentation you confirm it and becomes a law which holds true for all events.

Until is not fully proven it stays at the theoretical level. as in assumption.

Edit: Law is the highest standard by the way. Although some Laws are constricted by parameters, like Newtons Laws or even Kirchhoff's Laws. They remain true, but within new found constrains.

[coppice]

Maybe you should look up the term in a proper dictionary. A scientific theory is an explanation of observed facts. Therefore, sentances like "The Big-Bang is a theory not a fact" are meaningless. It might be that a theory in conflict with certain facts, which would cause it to be reviewed. Any fact which can be solidly confirmed, and which does not fit a theory, means that theory needs revision or replacement. Theories are the highest standard we have in science and engineering.

Nope, a theory is not law until proven, that' s why the term, you look it up.

The normal progress is that you hypothesize a theory, then by experimentation you confirm it and becomes a law which holds true for all events.

Until is not fully proven it stays at the theoretical level. as in assumption.

You have this completely backwards. The law of gravity is simply an observation of the factual relationship between the distance between two bodies, their mass, and the attractive force between them. The theory of gravity sits above that, providing an explanation of just why that law works out the way it does.

[Lightages]

The Big-Bang is a theory not a fact, it has been questioned and because of current research is almost refuted.
M-String, Multiverse, etc have yield no proof yet either, with bad results when testing the theories on the Large Hadron Collider.
New theories are being investigated including the new Rainbow Gravity, and another one called Scaled Symmetry.

All of them still theories.

Also the discovery of a big group of quasars contradicts the Big-Bang theory because things just don't add up.

So we don't know everything and we have some problems with some things we see, therefore God? This God can do everything, except forgive us without any strings for the sins he imposed on us? The Big Bang, or more correctly the expansion of the Universe, is a logical conclusion that everything is moving away from everything else. When we get back to the very early Universe our knowledge fails us and we need to learn more, just like when we did when we found the reason for the difference in species, how stars work, and the Earth is not flat supported by four pillars and you could see the whole of the Earth from a tall tree.

A certain book, or books, compiled from many wrong stories made up by primitive people who didn't know the Earth went around the sun should not be our guide to reality nor the mind of a imaginary agent who causes everything.

[miguelvp]

Maybe you should look up the term in a proper dictionary. A scientific theory is an explanation of observed facts. Therefore, sentances like "The Big-Bang is a theory not a fact" are meaningless. It might be that a theory in conflict with certain facts, which would cause it to be reviewed. Any fact which can be solidly confirmed, and which does not fit a theory, means that theory needs revision or replacement. Theories are the highest standard we have in science and engineering.

Nope, a theory is not law until proven, that' s why the term, you look it up.

The normal progress is that you hypothesize a theory, then by experimentation you confirm it and becomes a law which holds true for all events.

Until is not fully proven it stays at the theoretical level. as in assumption.

You have this completely backwards. The law of gravity is simply an observation of the factual relationship between the distance between two bodies, their mass, and the attractive force between them. The theory of gravity sits above that, providing an explanation of just why that law works out the way it does.

Then I guess since both can change they are meaningless.

What is the term of something that is proven? and if such a term doesn't exist, then is anything proven?

[Lightages]

Then I guess since both can change they are meaningless.

What is the term of something that is proven? and if such a term doesn't exist, then is anything proven?

If you don't believe that things can be proven in a practical sense, why isn't it that rational people don't test the theory of gravity and jump out of a window 10 stories up?

If you don't believe that quantum mechanics are a good explanation for how electronics work, why are you here on an electronics forum that relies on it working?

Why did Jesus tell people to not wash their hands as there was no benefit? Do you not believe the proof that germ theory has benefits to health?

It has been proven that the Earth goes around the sun, in opposition to the word of God. It has been proven that you cannot see the whole of the Earth from a tall tree as has been asserted in a certain holy book which is said to be the perfect word of God. It has been proven that the Earth is more than 6000 years old, in opposition of that perfect word, again.

How many proofs need to be demonstrated as being against the beliefs of someone before they stop believing because they just need to believe? Obviously this is a pointless question because people believe and use faith as the justification and won't adjust according to evidence. This is good for the government, corporations, and churches.

[Lightages]

What does this all have to do with a tube headphone preamp that is all show and no go? It goes along with people who want to believe and are willing to spend money just to believe and feel like they "know" something others do not. To me the problem with people having their own beliefs is that they are not harmless. People make decisions based on their bias based on their beliefs.

If you believe that God will take care of you for whatever reason, then you are likely to make decisions not based on good evidence in other parts of your life. Climate change? Who cares, God told us it doesn't matter. My daughter needs a blood transfusion? My God said no, so we pray, and she dies for no reason. My God said to not worry for the future, so I have $200,000 in debt because I was told it didn't matter. I am the President of the USA, and the end times are coming and I believe that this is the best thing as this is what God says, lets nuke the Russians and get the end times started.

[coppice]

Then I guess since both can change they are meaningless.

What is the term of something that is proven? and if such a term doesn't exist, then is anything proven?

Nothing can be proven in absolute terms. The laws of gravity are a good example. Newton's laws seemed really solid for a long time, until we started to push into extreme conditions. What we learned there didn't invalidate the square law relationship used since Newton, but we now know its an approximation that breaks down under extreme conditions. We needed to know more to get a more complete picture. That's something that regularly happens in most areas of the investigation of nature.

[Lightages]

I know a few things without doubt. I am not the God of the bible. I am not omniscient. I know I exist. There are probably many more things, and some I can prove to others, but I am tired of this. I am out.

[coppice]

I know a few things without doubt. I am not the God of the bible. I am not omniscient. I know I exist. There are probably many more things, and some I can prove to others, but I am tired of this. I am out.

How do you know you are not a brain in a vat, that everything you perceive is not an illusion, and that the God of the Bible is not a creation of your own mind?

[Fungus]

Nope, a theory is not law until proven, that' s why the term, you look it up.

Nope, a theory can never be proved. It's part of the definition.

And laws don't start out as theories that are later upgraded to 'law' status. They're a completely different thing.

[miguelvp]

I do "believe" in quantum physics but that has no bearing with electronics, Electronics predate quantum theory by a lot.

To my belief it's all entangled in waves and particles. And Engineering is not theoretical, it's by definition the practical use of science within controlled constrains as in the lumped element model that makes things practical to our use.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumped_element_model

The question at hand I guess is:

Is there anything that is proven and what is the term for that, theory or law?

My understanding was that Law is greater than Theory. Gravity is a strange beast that remains theory because we still don't have a unified model, but Newton's gravity remains Law within constrains or practicality at the macro level, which the M-Theory was supposed to address but I guess that's not the case anymore, so just by Hawking declaring it as a fact (even if it's not his work)

So I guess we all base our views on beliefs.

I will repeat also that I'm not religious at all, but I do value the teachings of humanity on its many forms, not unlike an almanac.

Very distorted and open to interpretation since the stories are just a big telephone game at a grand scale and the intended audience was far more detached than our current audience (well, not really the case all the times because there are still both believers and non-believers that try to take things literally).

It's all more complicated than that. Our physical perception or blocks is totally outdated. Reality is beyond our human comprehension still to this date. The atom model that they show you in school is an aberration of reality.

It's all interconnected fields and waves, reality is just our perception of things. But I really don't have metaphors to explain what matter is because our sensors only see the projection of that reality. At the math level it's all just fields with no real substance with a lot of dimensions that we can't envision what it means. So we do our best to visualize them using what we can grasp.

[miguelvp]

Imagine for a second that you are just a shadow of 2 dimensions projected from a 3D world into a 3Dworld, you have no height at all so you can't see the 3 dimensional environment, and even if you are just in 2 dimensions and projected into a 3d environment you can only deal with your 2 dimensional perception.

You do see the effects of those 3d projections and you can interact with your 2D buddies, but you lack the dimension needed to go beyond that.

Or even the understanding, you can theorize the 3d world and how that behaves and how it affects your 2D world but you only can conceive the 2D and the 1D reality.

The math you come with will work because of your observations of your nature, but you can't never ever jump or probe that other dimension because it's beyond your reality.

[Brumby]

Here's a comment by American theoretical physicist, Michio Kaku on the 'Foundation' series written by Isaac Asimov...

http://dai.ly/x233jzu?start=2069    (already cued - just watch the next 45 seconds.)

Does this make any difference to the discussion here?

[Lightages]

I know a few things without doubt. I am not the God of the bible. I am not omniscient. I know I exist. There are probably many more things, and some I can prove to others, but I am tired of this. I am out.

How do you know you are not a brain in a vat, that everything you perceive is not an illusion, and that the God of the Bible is not a creation of your own mind?

I have to exist to think, brain in vat or not. How can I be the God of the bible when it/he/she is all powerful and all knowing, and not know it? 

[miguelvp]

Here's a comment by American theoretical physicist, Michio Kaku on the 'Foundation' series written by Isaac Asimov...

http://dai.ly/x233jzu?start=2069    (already cued - just watch the next 45 seconds.)

Does this make any difference to the discussion here?

You do know that Star Wars was intended to be a Soap Opera and admitted to be the case by Lucas right?

[Brumby]

Imagine for a second that you are just a shadow of 2 dimensions projected from a 3D world into a 3Dworld, you have no height at all so you can't see the 3 dimensional environment, and even if you are just in 2 dimensions and projected into a 3d environment you can only deal with your 2 dimensional perception.

You do see the effects of those 3d projections and you can interact with your 2D buddies, but you lack the dimension needed to go beyond that.

Or even the understanding, you can theorize the 3d world and how that behaves and how it affects your 2D world but you only can conceive the 2D and the 1D reality.

The math you come with will work because of your observations of your nature, but you can't never ever jump or probe that other dimension because it's beyond your reality.

That is exactly the concept that Michio Kaku reflected on while looking at fish (starting at 2:40) - but I found the whole clip interesting (just 5 minutes long)

http://bigthink.com/videos/the-flash-gordon-of-physics

[Brumby]

Here's a comment by American theoretical physicist, Michio Kaku on the 'Foundation' series written by Isaac Asimov...

http://dai.ly/x233jzu?start=2069    (already cued - just watch the next 45 seconds.)

Does this make any difference to the discussion here?

You do know that Star Wars was intended to be a Soap Opera and admitted to be the case by Lucas right?

Well that was 100% irrelevant to my question.

[miguelvp]

Here's a comment by American theoretical physicist, Michio Kaku on the 'Foundation' series written by Isaac Asimov...

http://dai.ly/x233jzu?start=2069    (already cued - just watch the next 45 seconds.)

Does this make any difference to the discussion here?

You do know that Star Wars was intended to be a Soap Opera and admitted to be the case by Lucas right?

Well that was 100% irrelevant to my question.

Well the link took me to a show about science fiction about starwars. So I guess something went wrong.

[Brumby]

It should have taken you to a point 34:26 into the video (or thereabouts).

[miguelvp]

Imagine for a second that you are just a shadow of 2 dimensions projected from a 3D world into a 3Dworld, you have no height at all so you can't see the 3 dimensional environment, and even if you are just in 2 dimensions and projected into a 3d environment you can only deal with your 2 dimensional perception.

You do see the effects of those 3d projections and you can interact with your 2D buddies, but you lack the dimension needed to go beyond that.

Or even the understanding, you can theorize the 3d world and how that behaves and how it affects your 2D world but you only can conceive the 2D and the 1D reality.

The math you come with will work because of your observations of your nature, but you can't never ever jump or probe that other dimension because it's beyond your reality.

That is exactly the concept that Michio Kaku reflected on while looking at fish (starting at 2:40) - but I found the whole clip interesting (just 5 minutes long)

http://bigthink.com/videos/the-flash-gordon-of-physics

Almost, but if the Carp was truly a 2 dimensional being, even if lifted he couldn't see the 3d world, but the problem is that Michio couldn't grab the carp because he can only interact with 3D objects, you just can't pick up a shadow for example it lacks the 3rd dimension needed for you to interact with it.

Two total different realities.

Edit: still is a pretty good story, as I kid I did kind of the same but mine was about actual projections with lack of a third dimension.
Edit again: my path chosen was computer graphics instead.

[Brumby]

You're being a bit harsh - he was just a kid at the time and obviously wasn't thinking of the practical impediments ... just the concepts.

[miguelvp]

You're being a bit harsh - he was just a kid at the time and obviously wasn't thinking of the practical impediments ... just the concepts.

Therefore my edit: but yeah I did the same and was fascinated by dimensions and projections, of course I had to model a hypercube to see a 4 dimensional object projected into the 2 dimensions of a computer screen and try to comprehend what I was looking at.

Edit: my thoughts at the time were: what if my consciousness was really in my shadow and I was not aware of my three dimensional form that projected my reality. Then I did extrapolate of my three dimensional reality controlling a fourth dimensional existence. I know a load of crap, but with a kids imagination that is what I was thinking then.

[Brumby]

Edit: my thoughts at the time were: what if my consciousness was really in my shadow and I was not aware of my three dimensional form that projected my reality.

That's a nice bit of thinking.

[miguelvp]

Edit: my thoughts at the time were: what if my consciousness was really in my shadow and I was not aware of my three dimensional form that projected my reality.

That's a nice bit of thinking.

Thanks but still bull crap  (on my part), because in my reality I do expect what I see, if you go beyond the 3D world and look at the projections then it doesn't make much sense. (Except light because it does behave).

But then again if those extra dimensions were hidden from your observation I guess it would make sense, otherwise you would see random effects.

The N-dimensional math for vectors and matrices is pretty much straight forward, the visualization part and making sense of what it means is what is hard and confusing.

M-Theory is a one dimensional string vibrated on 10 (maybe 11 now) extra dimensions and we only can perceive 4  or maybe 5 of those in our reality. How do you try to start to grasp what that means?

Yeah, you can do experiments and see if the results reflect your theory but you still can't be sure because there are so many extra dimensions that it has a lot of solutions giving you different answers or worse, giving you the same answers.

So, say Hinduism and their 34? (not sure) planes of existence (AKA dimensions) is right even if that is thousands of years old apart from current theories. We can only observe our 3 and time, what about the other 30? or 29 if gravity has its own dimension. No matter we can't grasp or visualize any of it, we just can hope that by observing our limited view we can get a good enough approximation and in reality that's all it matters.

I guess what I'm getting at is that the science is not done by any stretch of the imagination, of course, past our laws, based on constrains that affect our current perceptions and applications.

[Fungus]

Is there anything that is proven

Nope.

You might be only a brain floating in a jar.

( Can you falsify that claim? )

So I guess we all base our views on beliefs.

Not all beliefs are equally likely to be true. I but you have no problem rejecting the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy.

(I reject the Christian God with the same confidence and ease as most people reject those...)

I will repeat also that I'm not religious at all, but I do value the teachings of humanity on its many forms, not unlike an almanac.

Then you should recognize that The Bible is a terrible source for just about anything. All the science is wrong and the God it describes is cruel and vengeful.

(In fact one of the proposals made in the early years was to do away with the Old Testament altogether because the god it describes is such a horrible person, completely at odds with the Jesus stories which were being collected to fabricate the empire's new holy book).

Mortal man has done much better than The Bible over the last 2000 years, eg. Wikipedia, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

It's all interconnected fields and waves, reality is just our perception of things. But I really don't have metaphors to explain what matter is because our sensors only see the projection of that reality. At the math level it's all just fields with no real substance with a lot of dimensions that we can't envision what it means. So we do our best to visualize them using what we can grasp.

Sure, but the simplified models work perfectly for most jobs in daily life. Why use something much more complex when Newton's Laws will get you to the moon and back with only a few cm of error?

[coppice]

I will repeat also that I'm not religious at all, but I do value the teachings of humanity on its many forms, not unlike an almanac.

You used a URL from the Institute of Creation Research in support of your argument. Who does that if they are not a fundamentalist Christian?

[miguelvp]

I will repeat also that I'm not religious at all, but I do value the teachings of humanity on its many forms, not unlike an almanac.

You used a URL from the Institute of Creation Research in support of your argument. Who does that if they are not a fundamentalist Christian?

Maybe a random google search on keywords like "large quasar discovery contradicts big bang"

Just because I don't save all the links on things I read, and someone was asking for details and didn't bother to search themselves.

So out of seven sources you have to focus in that one, oh well.

[miguelvp]

Sure, but the simplified models work perfectly for most jobs in daily life. Why use something much more complex when Newton's Laws will get you to the moon and back with only a few cm of error?

Would it? or do you need relativistic equations to account for time dilation?

[coppice]

Sure, but the simplified models work perfectly for most jobs in daily life. Why use something much more complex when Newton's Laws will get you to the moon and back with only a few cm of error?

Would it? or do you need relativistic equations to account for time dilation?

Newton gets you to the moon OK. Apollo went there without applying relativistic corrections. Even when GPS went up, they provided for the relativistic corrections to be a selectable option, as they still needed convincing relativity was real. It turned out GPS worked great with the corrections enabled, but poorly with them disabled.

[coppice]

I will repeat also that I'm not religious at all, but I do value the teachings of humanity on its many forms, not unlike an almanac.

You used a URL from the Institute of Creation Research in support of your argument. Who does that if they are not a fundamentalist Christian?

Maybe a random google search on keywords like "large quasar discovery contradicts big bang"

Just because I don't save all the links on things I read, and someone was asking for details and didn't bother to search themselves.

So out of seven sources you have to focus in that one, oh well.

So, you use random links to support your arguments?

[boffin]

I though Oolon Coloophid had pretty much published the definitive set on this exists/doesn't exist stuff; with the babelfish being the clincher. Why are we still arguing it?

[miguelvp]

So, you use random links to support your arguments?

I guess it depends on how much effort I want to put into it. three links on that particular subject was in my mind enough to answer the question and let the questioner search the other theories at play.

[Fungus]

So, you use random links to support your arguments?

I guess it depends on how much effort I want to put into it. three links on that particular subject was in my mind enough to answer the question and let the questioner search the other theories at play.

I looked into it a bit. Nothing is proven yet, your claim of "close to refuted" is an exaggeration.

The fact the all matter in the universe is moving away from a single point is very strong evidence in favor of a Big Bang. It might be down to dark matter (which we know very little about) or it might need an adjustment of the assumptions made about the original matter that made up the universe. I don't think the general observation of an expanding universe is wrong though.

Figuring out what particles made up the early universe is the job of the LHC. Let's see what happens. 

[jonw0224]

I left for a while, but this thing just keeps going doesn't it?

I think when I left off, fungus had given me the burden of proof again.  And then he went on to claim faith in the scientific method.  And then he went on to say that theories are not proven and can never be proven, just supported or not supported by observations.

I guess what I've been saying the whole time is that my observations support a "theory" of God.  Is it possible to disprove that particular theory?  Well, you can disprove parts of it.  But as fungus says, I can just change my theory.  You know, I can think of other theories that are the same way.  Multiverse theory, evolutionary theory, origins theories.  In fact, until things just fly in the face of a popular theory, it has staying power.  Why was I taught Newton in an age of Einstein?  Well, because it's useful and it makes correct predictions about experiments and life.  Why do I hold to a "theory" of God?  Well, because in my life it's useful, and it makes correct predictions about moral judgments and relationships.

So, I guess if I were to give a proof, I've given about 4 at this point.  Here they are again:

1.) Given what we know about atoms and energy, the probability of life springing into being is near zero.  We are here.  Therefore something beyond atoms and energy made that happen.

2.) Living things appear to be designed.  Other things that appear to be designed were engineered by someone.  Someone engineered living things.

3.)  The universe obeys an ordered set of laws.  Without an overarching power to put order to these laws, I shouldn't expect an ordered universe.  There must be an overarching power.

4.)  There is a correct method to making relationships and moral judgments.  Without a creator of moral rule, anything goes.  There must be a creator.

I know for certain people here will disagree with these and any other proof I would offer.  However, to the degree that I know that gravitation exists because of the trajectories of things falling and the orbits of the planets (due to repeated observations), I also know that God exists because of the trajectories within the interaction of living beings that I've observed.  I know of no other explanation for my existence that has come out of scientific theory.  I know of no other explanation for the rapid spread of Christianity in the first century, the strong conviction of the first Christians, or the impact following God has had in my life or the life of many of my friends.  Maybe none of these are sufficient reason for you, but they sum up to a genuine belief on my part.  I could lose that belief and rely on scientific conjectures and "unprovable theories", but frankly, I just don't have that kind of faith, and I have no reason to do so.

I think with that, my opinion has been stated.  I'm still open to the opinion of others, in so much as we leave the bashing of others out of things.  If you'd like to talk further, feel free to message me.  Carry on and I wish you all a good rest of your day.

-Jonathan

[c4757p]

1.) Given what we know about atoms and energy, the probability of life springing into being is near zero.  We are here.  Therefore something beyond atoms and energy made that happen.

Near zero, but not zero. And that near-zero probability is effectively integrated over all of time. What's the integral from zero to infinity of "near zero"?

[jonw0224]

Infinite time or space isn't in the universe we observe.  I put a number on the probability and shared it earlier.  I'll link it again http://jonw0224.weebly.com/blog/darwins-doubt.  It's still pretty much zero.  Sorry!

[Pentium100]

I always liked the "theory" that this is all just a big reality show. People in the afterlife are rewarded based solely on how many people they murdered and how much they tortured their victims with two categories - ones who were in positions of power and ordered the murders and ones who actually did it (on orders or not). This is because killing brings the best ratings for this show. The show probably won an Emmy equivalent for each year of WW2.

I have as much evidence to support my claim as for any other religion, that is, zero. Why is my "theory" wrong?

[Fungus]

I guess what I've been saying the whole time is that my observations support a "theory" of God.

You know, I can think of other theories that are the same way  ...  evolutionary theory, origins theories.

Fail.

There's literally hundreds of millions of tons of evidence supporting the process of evolution. Go outside, pick up a rock, there it is.

We also figured out a mechanism (DNA).

We've observed evolution at work.

We invented gene sequencing. Guess what? The sequences matched the taxonomy of life that we'd spent hundreds of years creating.


Evidence for the god of the Bible? Nada. Zip. Zilch. Not one piece.

The only mention of Jesus is in a mish-mash of folk tales that can't even agree with each other. Not one mention in Roman documents, not one mention in any historical document of the time (and there are a lot of preserved documents from that time/place).

Use Occam's razor: If there was one single piece of good evidence for the Christian God it would be on display on the highest pedestal in Christendom, guaranteed. They've had 2000 years to find one, so where is it? 


Saying that Evolution and Christianity are equals in any debate is just ridiculous.

[mtdoc]

There is no definitive proof that god exists.
There is no definitive proof that god does not exist.

Centuries of theological and philosophical debate has proven this to be true.

Nothing said here is going to change that....

[Fungus]

2.) Living things appear to be designed. 

No they don't. 

What about the appendix? (obvious one)

What about the thousands of people choke to death every year because the "food" hole is the same as the "air" hole? (eg. My wife's father who died at Sunday dinner when she was 10...) Was that an intelligent design decision?

Who made disease? Who made viruses? Who made parasites? What for?

There's whole bunches of creatures that can only live on human hosts (eg. pubic lice). Were they designed by God in his own image? God has crabs...?

[Fungus]

There is no definitive proof that god exists.
There is no definitive proof that god does not exist.

Centuries of theological and philosophical debate has proven this to be true.

There can never be proof that god doesn't exist. It's an unfalsifiable claim.

There can be proof that god exists, Christians often claim that such proof does exist, but it never appears.

[Fungus]

Infinite time or space isn't in the universe we observe.  I put a number on the probability and shared it earlier.  I'll link it again http://jonw0224.weebly.com/blog/darwins-doubt.  It's still pretty much zero.  Sorry!

As a start, try to evaluere WHO you listen to..

Yep. That page makes the same head-pounding error     that most apologists do, ie. That life has to appear instantly, exactly as we know it, in one single step.

[jonw0224]

I already addressed that with the African elephant comment early on.  Saying it happened in steps explains nothing.  Because I could imagine atoms coming together in every increasing complexity in steps doesn't remove the improbability of it happening at all.

[Lightages]

1.) Given what we know about atoms and energy, the probability of life springing into being is near zero.  We are here.  Therefore something beyond atoms and energy made that happen.

No... given what we know, life is possible. We have proof. We are here. How probable is it? We don't know yet.

2.) Living things appear to be designed.  Other things that appear to be designed were engineered by someone.  Someone engineered living things.

Snowflakes appear to be designed. This immediately refutes your assertion. Appearance and reality have been proven to not always be the same too.

3.)  The universe obeys an ordered set of laws.  Without an overarching power to put order to these laws, I shouldn't expect an ordered universe.  There must be an overarching power.

How do you know the Universe obeys laws? We have theories that explain what we see, but not perfectly. The theories we have, or "laws", are descriptive and not prescriptive.

4.)  There is a correct method to making relationships and moral judgments.  Without a creator of moral rule, anything goes.  There must be a creator.

There is a correct method to help guide our morals according to the benefit of humanity to survive, just has been shown to exist in other animals. Anything doesn't go if the species is to survive. In the short term anything doesn't go neither if YOU want to survive. An imaginary creator is not needed to explain our behavior.

I know for certain people here will disagree with these and any other proof I would offer. However, to the degree that I know that gravitation exists because of the trajectories of things falling and the orbits of the planets (due to repeated observations), I also know that God exists because of the trajectories within the interaction of living beings that I've observed.  I know of no other explanation for my existence that has come out of scientific theory.  I know of no other explanation for the rapid spread of Christianity in the first century, the strong conviction of the first Christians, or the impact following God has had in my life or the life of many of my friends.  Maybe none of these are sufficient reason for you, but they sum up to a genuine belief on my part.  I could lose that belief and rely on scientific conjectures and "unprovable theories", but frankly, I just don't have that kind of faith, and I have no reason to do so.

This is known as "the god of the gaps" fallacy. Anything you don't know must be God. And each time we find an explanation for something you assert must be God, he gets smaller and smaller.

I think with that, my opinion has been stated.  I'm still open to the opinion of others, in so much as we leave the bashing of others out of things.  If you'd like to talk further, feel free to message me.  Carry on and I wish you all a good rest of your day.

I already said I was out, because I know you don't want to see evidence and it is pointless to continue to talk to people who ignore evidence and believe what they want. But here I am to try and help someone see the error of their thinking. Open discussion is better because all benefit. Closed discussion means someone is afraid to be in the open.

[jonw0224]

No... given what we know, life is possible. We have proof. We are here. How probable is it? We don't know yet.

We don't know.  I'm still open to estimate.  I guess you can estimate too.

Snowflakes appear to be designed. This immediately refutes your assertion. Appearance and reality have been proven to not always be the same too.

We're both about as complex as snow flakes, I suppose...

How do you know the Universe obeys laws? We have theories that explain what we see, but not perfectly. The theories we have, or "laws", are descriptive and not prescriptive.

You're playing word games here.  The equations describe the behavior, yes.  But the universe is behaving regularly as by a law.

There is a correct method to help guide our morals according to the benefit of humanity to survive, just has been shown to exist in other animals. Anything doesn't go if the species is to survive. In the short term anything doesn't go neither if YOU want to survive. An imaginary creator is not needed to explain our behavior.

The problem with this is it makes it okay for me to kill another person just because I see them as a threat.  What the Nazi's did?  Perfectly okay?  Survival of the fittest?  I'd say that's wrong in any moral setting.

This is known as "the god of the gaps" fallacy. Anything you don't know must be God. And each time we find an explanation for something you assert must be God, he gets smaller and smaller.

There is a difference in explaining a mechanism of something occuring (i.e. how) and a cause of something occuring (i.e. why).

I already said I was out, because I know you don't want to see evidence and it is pointless to continue to talk to people who ignore evidence and believe what they want. But here I am to try and help someone see the error of their thinking. Open discussion is better because all benefit. Closed discussion means someone is afraid to be in the open.

Maybe I'm ignoring evidence.  Maybe I'm just interpretting the evidence different from you.  But assuming I'm ignoring it because we disagree isn't correct.  And obviously, I'm not afraid to be in the open.  I'm also open to individual discussion.  That's all I'm saying.  Again, I wish you all the best.

[jonw0224]

Please, allow me to share this video from Francis Collins, the head of the human genome project.  He says it better than I have been able to convey.



It's quite long, but worth the watch.

[Fungus]

Maybe I'm ignoring evidence.  Maybe I'm just interpretting the evidence different from you.

It's the only explanation.

Evolution is very simple to see and understand. That's what makes it so compelling as a theory.

The fact that later discovery of DNA and genomes explains it perfectly makes it rock solid. This is as good as science gets.

How did the first amino acids appear? They're honestly not that complex (a dozen atoms):



If you can't imagine throwing trillions of trillions of trillions of sticky balls together to get one of those then you're not trying. I find it impossible to believe you wouldn't get one.

[Fungus]

Please, allow me to share this video from Francis Collins, the head of the human genome project.  He says it better than I have been able to convey.
It's quite long, but worth the watch.

I tried to watch it, I really did, but as soon as he stopped waffling and got down to the 'facts' it took literally a minute to for the whole thing to fall apart. I refer to his powerpoint starting at 20 minutes or so.

There is something instead of nothing (and no reason that should be!)

Science doesn't try to explain why, lack of intention isn't proof of god.

The unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics

Why should nature have laws? Anthropic Principle anybody? 

The Big Bang.

The universe had a beginning. Something came out of nothing and nature isn't supposed to allow that. If nature isn't able to create itself then how did the universe get here? The only plausible explanation is that there must be some supernatural force. That force would not need to be limited by space or even by time.

Why exactly isn't nature supposed to allow that? I dunno.

Even if we accept that 'argument' (which we don't) it would only show that A god created the universe. It doesn't have to be the Christian God of the Bible, it could equally be the Flying Spaghetti Monster. (If you only take one thing away from this debate, take that last sentence!)

Precise tuning of physical constants in the universe.

Anthropic Principle again.

Stephen Hawking's Brief History of Time covers this topic perfectly (much better than anybody posting in a forum can do).


And.... that was it. That was the entire science content. After that it went off into good vs. evil. In short: Not one proof of anything. The entire 'scientific' content was four bullet points in a powerpoint  that reduce to "If it seems amazing or if we can't explain it then it must have been the Christian God of The Bible".


PS: The thing about the train at 30 minutes? Laughably incorrect: Do you have any idea how much the "Subway Hero" is going to get laid after doing that? Evolution loves altruists who risk their lives.

[Kalvin]

The more we know the less there is room for god. That's one reason why the education is considered dangerous.

[mtdoc]

It doesn't have to be the Christian God of the Bible, it could equally be the Flying Spaghetti Monster. (If you only take one thing away from this debate, take that last sentence!)

Hey now, don't be messing with the Pastafarians:

"And yay, when upon the damn heathens come fiery meatballs and little bits of sausage, and His noodly appendages touch all, to embrace some and indeed, destroy all else. Thats when ill make your damn colored lights you ungrateful little boy!!!"
—Thomas Edison

You've been warned.

[miguelvp]

Should I throw some wood to the fire?
Well, maybe is more petrol than wood.

I know I was raised Catholic and I really don't follow it because I think unified churches are not good.
But then there is Copernicus, Mendel and Lemaitre. All of them clergymen from the Catholic church pioneering things like Astromony, Genetics and the Big Bang theory.

For what I gather, they have been big in Science

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_science

The problem is that other Christian beliefs are still stuck into the books, where for the Catholics it seems that at the end game, they are more than willing to accept that God was nature to begin with and Heaven and Hell are just your right of passage as in how you will be remembered.

Maybe they think that a society has purpose and or consciousness not un similar than an ant or bacteria colony with a common purpose, that's more organization than actually a conciseness. Does nature actually has purpose? That goes beyond the physical realm so I'm not to contradict it but I really don't think that our neural net perpetuates as part of a collective after we are gone.

It's maybe an interpretation of your legacy? well, maybe and they (the Catholic church) wont have a problem adapting to the new views because they never really had.

True, there were extremist and what have you back in the days. After all power corrupts and the churches are not immune from those human tendencies no more than political systems as we know it's also the case.

Myself, I don't know, I just take care of my family and do the best I can. Maybe based on creed or patriotism? well, they might influence my views and I do bet they do, but I'm OK with it.

I do wish that the rest did put away the book as the ultimate literary answer, there has been too much controversy over the eons about that. Also the branching off the other religions like Judaism and Islam based on the same scriptures and still to this day battling about it is just silly with a lot of carnage left in the trail and even to this day.

Gaza, the Inquisition etc is all economical and not religious at all. Isol or isis or whatever still the same thing, they want the ottoman empire back.

I do get it, the Phoenicians had it,  the Romans too, even the British, French, Spanish, Portuguese Danish and even the Netherlands had it.

It seems the Denaurios was replaced over hundreds of years with the Spanish doubloon and I bet there where many main currency changes in between but I'm too lazy to look it up, but now it's the US Dollar.

I know the  British Pound and the German Mark dictated things in the short term but does it really matter?

At the end of the day Me, You and Everyone. Just tries to get by and do the best they can for their families. Selfish? of course as selfish as any other biological conglomerate.

Do you think a bacteria colony tries to play fair? nah, it's nature and that is as savage as it gets, so it does match in a way religions.

It's all a metaphor, Hinduism, Greek Mythology (very similar than the Roman and Nordic ones) and history of seasons being deities and whatever is how humans copped about their reality.

Are we different? do we know enough that it's a done deal?

Some say yes, but in reality we know nothing. Or do you really think that in 50,000 years humans then won't see us as archaic as we see our civilization 50,000 years back? or even in 2,000 years compared to 2,000 years back?

I think we are more delusional overall regardless of creed or lack of it.

Anyways, we are not that close and Science (yeah I do put it in uppercase because it's after all a current belief), think about it, the Gods from the past let them navigate around the globe, it was their Science, it did make sense because they were trying to explain nature, maybe not as sophisticated as using Math and Calculus but it did work for them.

Is the answer on Gods? Nope. Is Science done, Nope, we are in my belief just infants in our new found knowledge and of course it doesn't matter anyway, I won't be here to find out what the ultimate answer is, and I do hope it's not 42.

Edit: it's just like people from all countries and even from this good U.S. of A blaming a president.
What do you all think a president can do?
It's not ultimate power, things are way more complex than our navies points of view.

Edit again: the term, everyone has an opinion as they have an a-hole comes to mind.
Live and let live, should be really that simple but it's not.

[Fungus]

But then there is Copernicus, Mendel and Lemaitre. All of them clergymen from the Catholic church pioneering things like Astromony, Genetics and the Big Bang theory.

For what I gather, they have been big in Science

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_science

Science even managed to happen in a world where everybody was forced to be Catholic? Yes.

for the Catholics it seems that at the end game, they are more than willing to accept that God was nature to begin with

They've fallen back to the safety of unfalsifiable claims, hoping that nobody will study basic logic.

Sure, the Christian God of The Bible might have been there guiding the Big Bang and Evolution. So might the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Both of those claims are equally probable. Surely you can see that. The only difference between them is that one has been institutionalized for 1500 years and one is very recent.

[Brumby]

The only difference between them is that one has been institutionalized for 1500 years and one is very recent.

Not really true.  Purpose is an example of a rather significant difference between the two, among other things.


If you are going to press an argument, making narrow statements and depicting them as comprehensive is a dishonest technique.  It also exposes you to the risk of being called out which not only damages your credibility, but also of those who hold the same views.

[Fungus]

If you are going to press an argument, making narrow statements and depicting them as comprehensive is a dishonest technique.  It also exposes you to the risk of being called out which not only damages your credibility, but also of those who hold the same views.

Just trying to focus the debate on that particular issue because I think it's the main stumbling block here.

The arguments being presented (eg. in the Francis Collins video) seem to be that science is so amazing that there must be a designer and guiding hand behind it.

It's an unfalsifiable claim, no argument possible, but let's not forget that the Christian God of the Bible isn't the only god that can fill those shoes.

[jonw0224]

Isn't the Anthropic Principle also unfalsifiable?

[miguelvp]

But then there is Copernicus, Mendel and Lemaitre. All of them clergymen from the Catholic church pioneering things like Astromony, Genetics and the Big Bang theory.

For what I gather, they have been big in Science

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_science

Science even managed to happen in a world where everybody was forced to be Catholic? Yes.

According to that link, it seems it was both religious and lay as well, I only put actual  non-secular scientists
Also they did coexisted with other religions, although political powers did take advantage of the situation many times.

I recall hearing about a Pope that even carried a sword (Luna I think) also no one was forced to be Catholic, at least not by the church, but surely some states took advantage of religion to obtain the goods from other religions like the Spanish Inquisition, that was more economical than anything else and used religion as a loophole to steal goods.

Power corrupts men, and clerics are just that, so it's normal that did happen as it can happen with any other form of government.

Edit: regarding the Luna Pope, I guess there were more than one at that time, because of power struggles which is really human nature:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antipope_Benedict_XIII

for the Catholics it seems that at the end game, they are more than willing to accept that God was nature to begin with

They've fallen back to the safety of unfalsifiable claims, hoping that nobody will study basic logic.

Sure, the Christian God of The Bible might have been there guiding the Big Bang and Evolution. So might the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Both of those claims are equally probable. Surely you can see that. The only difference between them is that one has been institutionalized for 1500 years and one is very recent.

But science and universities are a result of the Catholic church. In pursue of the ultimate truth. It's not a new thing.

What is a new thing is protestants that totally don't agree with the Vatican's point of view and went back to actually read the bible and hold it true.

If you look it up, Christians are not too happy with Catholic's take and went back to pre-christian beliefs. As in taking the Bible as something they can use directly. For example:

http://www.bible.ca/cath-bible-attitude-towards.htm

But that's a different debate all together.

So that is the truth? is religion actually the one that brought science to us or not?

[Kalvin]

Hey guys, let's focus on electronics here, please. There are other sites more suitable for spiritual and religion argument.

Electronics is just so cool because the Ohm's law, the Kirchhoff's laws and the Maxwell's equations are always the same no matter our religion, nationality, social status, age, gender, sexuality, or ethnic background.

[Circlotron]

But those other sites are often filled by nutcases. Not saying there aren't any here too, but electronics people are predominantly logical rational clear thinking people, at least the engineer type people amongst us anyway. Besides, it's good to take an interest outside your normal sphere, and even better to do that with like minded people. Go to another forum and it just hopeless.

[Fungus]

Hey guys, let's focus on electronics here, please. There are other sites more suitable for spiritual and religion argument.

It's one thread, spawned by a mailbag video that has a part devoted to religion. Nobody's forcing you to read it.

[Fungus]

If you look it up, Christians are not too happy with Catholic's take and went back to pre-christian beliefs.

The Catholic church is run as a business and always has been. They tell people whatever they need to hear before passing the collection plate.

So that is the truth? is religion actually the one that brought science to us or not?

Some percentage of people want truth. This means science will happen in any environment. If the the prevailing environment is religion then it could easily appear so, yes.

But you're avoiding the question: Why is the Flying Spaghetti Monster less likely to have guided the creation of the universe and evolution of man than the Christian God of the Bible?

[miguelvp]

To me it's all just an interpretation of Nature itself like all other religions.

The difference is that there is one truth not many, like the Roman Gods for example.

Haven't indulge in the pastafarian readings usually makes me hungry for some pasta.
So I don't know if it has connections with nature.

Also churches are of course businesses but more than that they are world wide political system. I do like that they have influence over governments, since the UN is pretty much hopeless so far.

Anyways, back to my project.

[Circlotron]

I do like that they have influence over governments,

Ah, yes. Revelation chapter 17, that famous prostitute riding on the back of the wild beast.

[Circlotron]

The Catholic church is run as a business and always has been.

In times gone past the Catholic Church was against charging interest on lending money then in 1929 Mussolini gave them a piece of land to call home and $500 million, an awful lot of money in those days. Then all of a sudden they changed their mind about charging interest on loans... Fancy that!

[Fungus]

The Catholic church is run as a business and always has been.

In times gone past the Catholic Church was against charging interest on lending money then in 1929 Mussolini gave them a piece of land to call home and $500 million, an awful lot of money in those days. Then all of a sudden they changed their mind about charging interest on loans... Fancy that!

Here in Spain 0.7% of all the tax collected by the government goes to The Catholic Church.

Or it did until quite recently. Now we have a check box to donate it to other charities if we can remember to check it.

There's also been a few petitions to add another check box to give the money to science but they've gone nowhere.

[jonw0224]

I'm going to bring my comments to an end here.  It's been a good discussion.  The truth is, at some point even the atheist has to make an unfalsifiable claim (like appealing to the Anthropic Principle) to support the unfalsifiable claim that there is no God.  You can have good reasons for believing in God or not believing in God.  Still, at some point we all leave our experimental data and testable scientific theories and delve into matters of philosophy or religion.  Even, if that philosophy is a commitment that all things are to be explained by natural means or if that philosophy is a commitment to a supernatural explanation, in my case the Christian God.

Therefore, I'd suggest to be careful when you criticize or dismiss another person's beliefs.  They either have sufficient reasons for believing what they believe or they have been too busy with other matters to be concerned and have simply taken what others have said as their own.  But rest assured, making fun of another person's beliefs or demeaning them is worst than saying something bad about their mother.  And in general, even if people don't agree on moral issues, most people hold that being a jerk is bad. 

I am one of around 6 billion people on this planet.  There is a good chance that I have done business or had a relationship either in my career or in my personal life with people who don't hold my beliefs.  In fact, I know I'm related to people that I love deeply who disagree with me on religious or philosophical topics.  We still have healthy relationships and my love for them trumps any difference of opinion.  So, I think a little humility and tolerance would serve us well.  A reasonable estimate of what we do know for certain and what we believe and for what reasons would serve us well also.

From a personal perspective, since I am a Christian, the idea that human morality is broken, that humanity has been responsible for evil upon one another, and the idea that God offered Jesus's death and resurrection as a bridge to restoration with God and with each other, is reasonable.  And to me and Pascal, consideration of that view is of primary importance and eternal significance for each of us.  Again, thank you for reading and for engaging in the discussion.

[Fungus]

I'm going to bring my comments to an end here.  It's been a good discussion.  The truth is, at some point even the atheist has to make an unfalsifiable claim (like appealing to the Anthropic Principle) to support the unfalsifiable claim that there is no God.

Nope. An Atheist is allowed to say "we don't know".

PS: The Anthropic Principle isn't an unfalsifiable claim. It's not actually a claim at all, more of an observation.

You can have good reasons for believing in God or not believing in God.

Some people desperately want to believe in a god, eg. the human genome guy in the video. These people are capable of twisting any data to support their claims.

eg. In the video he says the the two contradictory versions of creation in Genesis is actually a hint to really smart readers that Genesis isn't supposed to be read literally. Each individual verse is supposed to be interpreted by the reader as either literal or metaphor depending on context.

I'm guessing "context" is another way of saying "if it makes any sense". With logic like that you can literally use The Bible as proof of anything.

What I want to know is why Christians don't hold Atheists the the same loose standards? 

In this very thread I've been asked for exact proof of how life began on earth by the same people who think genome guy has a rock-solid argument.

Therefore, I'd suggest to be careful when you criticize or dismiss another person's beliefs. 

Sigh...   

If the politicians were openly using astrology, Ouija boards or calling on Poseidon in their political decisions I bet a lot of Christians would be quite vocal about that.

How many teenagers (and adults) are having their lives made miserable right now by bunches of Christians trying to "Pray Away The Gay". Where did the "tolerance" go?

etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc.

Religion is FAR from harmless.

[Lightages]

I'm going to bring my comments to an end here.  It's been a good discussion.  The truth is, at some point even the atheist has to make an unfalsifiable claim (like appealing to the Anthropic Principle) to support the unfalsifiable claim that there is no God.  You can have good reasons for believing in God or not believing in God.  Still, at some point we all leave our experimental data and testable scientific theories and delve into matters of philosophy or religion.  Even, if that philosophy is a commitment that all things are to be explained by natural means or if that philosophy is a commitment to a supernatural explanation, in my case the Christian God.

An atheist makes the basic claim that not enough evidence has been provided to believe in a god. That's it.What a person believes or does not believe beyond that is not a matter for atheism. I don't have to make any falsifiable claims as an atheist. I can say "I don't know". I can make the 100% falsifiable claim that the god of the bible does not exist. The bible contradicts itself on the nature of god and the universe many times. If it is the word of god as is claimed, then the bible is wrong or the god described is self contradictory and cannot exist. In writing what I have so far, I have made no falsifiable unfalsifiable claims, nor any contradictory statements.

Therefore, I'd suggest to be careful when you criticize or dismiss another person's beliefs.  They either have sufficient reasons for believing what they believe or they have been too busy with other matters to be concerned and have simply taken what others have said as their own.  But rest assured, making fun of another person's beliefs or demeaning them is worst than saying something bad about their mother.  And in general, even if people don't agree on moral issues, most people hold that being a jerk is bad.

Some people have reasons to believe what they believe, most don't. Criticizing the belief of something is different than criticizing the person. If beliefs cannot be criticized then a person shouldn't even try to express anything. Claims require proof to be believed. Anyone who takes offense to a challenge to what they believe as an offense is usually insecure with their beliefs.

I am one of around 6 billion people on this planet.  There is a good chance that I have done business or had a relationship either in my career or in my personal life with people who don't hold my beliefs.  In fact, I know I'm related to people that I love deeply who disagree with me on religious or philosophical topics.  We still have healthy relationships and my love for them trumps any difference of opinion.  So, I think a little humility and tolerance would serve us well.  A reasonable estimate of what we do know for certain and what we believe and for what reasons would serve us well also.

I am not accusing you of anything, but humility is exactly the opposite of what most theists demonstrate. They are right and cannot be wrong, despite evidence. This is the opposite of humility.

From a personal perspective, since I am a Christian, the idea that human morality is broken, that humanity has been responsible for evil upon one another, and the idea that God offered Jesus's death and resurrection as a bridge to restoration with God and with each other, is reasonable.  And to me and Pascal, consideration of that view is of primary importance and eternal significance for each of us.  Again, thank you for reading and for engaging in the discussion.

So supposedly, your god made the rules, made them so we would fail the rules by putting the source of failure within our reach, on purpose, and because he already knew the future, then decided to clone himself, send the clone to earth, torture and kill him in a blood sacrifice, just so that he could forgive us for breaking the rules that he made and forced us to break? You god is perfect but couldn't make it so we would not sin. Isn't he all powerful, all knowing, and all loving?  Yet he couldn't get a human that he made in his image to behave correctly from day one? Oh no, maybe I offended you by asking questions.

[Marco]

And in general, even if people don't agree on moral issues, most people hold that being a jerk is bad. 

The other two Abrahamic religions give plenty of scriptural leeway to be a jerk to non believers.

[EEVblog]

FYI, I followed this a long time ago and helped support the change, but it seems we (Australia) will finally have a Census question on religion that is less biased toward people picking the religion of their upbringing!
http://www.smh.com.au/national/is-australia-losing-its-religion-20150827-gj94ts.html

Watch the "official" number of "religious" people in Australia plummet after the next census this year! 

The change isn't perfect, as it seems they are not changing the wording of the question, just the order of the answers. The wording still "assumes" that the person has a religion", and puts that impression into their mind. Hence why many (majority?) have ticked the "religion of their upbringing", rather than if they actually believe in or care about it it any more.

It will now look like this:


It used to look like this:


But even with that horrible and non obvious bottom spot, 22% of the population still picked it.

[coppice]

FYI, I followed this a long time ago and helped support the change, but it seems we (Australia) will finally have a Census question on religion that is less biased toward people picking the religion of their upbringing!
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/no-religion-tops-census-choices/news-story/36c71be3be524e754f5a463af74d650e

It looks like that link requires a subscription.

Watch the "official" number of "religious" people in Australia plummet after the next census this year! 

The change isn't perfect, as I'm not sure they are changing the wording of the question, just the order of the answers.

In the UK the number of people ticking Christian on the census form has fallen, but still seems pretty high when you look at the behaviour of the population. When surveys have been tried among people who tick the Christian box, the answers show a rather different picture. Questions like "was there actually a historical Jesus?" gets quite a lot of yes or probably responses. Things like "was he born of a virgin?", "did he rise from the dead", and "was he divine" get a pretty weak response. It seems most of those who believe he existed just think of him as some dude from 2000 years ago who said a few good things.

[EEVblog]

FYI, I followed this a long time ago and helped support the change, but it seems we (Australia) will finally have a Census question on religion that is less biased toward people picking the religion of their upbringing!
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/no-religion-tops-census-choices/news-story/36c71be3be524e754f5a463af74d650e

It looks like that link requires a subscription.

New link added.

[Circlotron]

Sigh...   

If the politicians were openly using astrology, Ouija boards or calling on Poseidon in their political decisions I bet a lot of Christians would be quite vocal about that.

If???

http://www.amazon.com/What-Does-Joan-
Say-Astrologer/dp/1559720328

"Never in the history of the U.S. Presidency has an astrologer played such a significant role in a nation's affairs of State. Quigley wielded considerable influence in the creation of major U.S. policy, including the Bitburg crisis, the INF Treaty, and the President's historical shift from viewing Russia as the Evil Empire to accepting Gorbachev as a peace-seeking leader. 16 pages of photographs."

[EEVblog]

http://www.amazon.com/What-Does-Joan-
Say-Astrologer/dp/1559720328

OK, that's scary 

[miguelvp]

I thought it was common knowledge and the reason he posted that as a sarcastic remark.

[Circlotron]

Not sarcastic; incredulous.

[Fungus]

http://www.amazon.com/What-Does-Joan-
Say-Astrologer/dp/1559720328

OK, that's scary 

I thought it was common knowledge and the reason he posted that as a sarcastic remark.

Apparently not common enough.

(And this is why Atheists need to keep on being "jerks" in forums...)

Any Christians care to weigh in on the topic of Presidents with personal Astrologers?

[AlxDroidDev]

That Reagan thing is something I didn't know (and yes, that's scary), but I am not entirely surprised.

One of Brazil's president (Fernando Collor de Mello) followed an African religion called "candomblé", that has the same roots as another religion often shown in movies: santeria (practiced in the Caribbean). The problem is that candomblé, just like santeria, involves the sacrifices of animals. First hand accounts (like from his his ex-wife) dennounced that Collor often sacrificed animals and was involved in macabre rituals of black magic. I guess his rituals didn't work, since he was impeached just a couple years after being elected.

I guess it's time to pack my stuff and move to Australia! It might be a joy to live in a less religious country.

[Fungus]

That Reagan thing is something I didn't know (and yes, that's scary), but I am not entirely surprised.

And that's the point: In a modern society you should be surprised.

The whole "a mans beliefs are sacred, leave him alone" attitude covers things like this up, it allows them to happen.

[EEVblog]

I guess it's time to pack my stuff and move to Australia! It might be a joy to live in a less religious country.

Here, if you overtly show your faith, you get looked at kinda strange

[Fungus]

I guess it's time to pack my stuff and move to Australia! It might be a joy to live in a less religious country.

Here, if you overtly show your faith, you get looked at kinda strange

That's because not many religious people were shipped over there when it was founded. Mostly they were thieves and murderers. 

[AlxDroidDev]

I guess it's time to pack my stuff and move to Australia! It might be a joy to live in a less religious country.

Here, if you overtly show your faith, you get looked at kinda strange

That's my kinda place!

[Brumby]

I guess it's time to pack my stuff and move to Australia! It might be a joy to live in a less religious country.

Here, if you overtly show your faith, you get looked at kinda strange

That's because not many religious people were shipped over there when it was founded. Mostly they were thieves and murderers. 

You would be hard pressed to find anyone here who can claim that they are a descendant of that particular group of settlers.

[Fungus]

That's because not many religious people were shipped over there when it was founded. Mostly they were thieves and murderers.

You would be hard pressed to find anyone here who can claim that they are a descendant of that particular group of settlers.

Paperwork and knowing who your father was was probably low on the list of priorities for a while. 

[mtdoc]

I guess it's time to pack my stuff and move to Australia! It might be a joy to live in a less religious country.

Here, if you overtly show your faith, you get looked at kinda strange

Despite what many non-Americans may think (and what is often portrayed in the media), the same is also true in most social circles and large regions of this country.   Especially during election season - and now with the numerous Republican candidates all pandering to the politically active and vocal evangelical subculture - the media does make it seem that this country is full of religious zealots.   Thankfully that is not the truth on the ground in most places.

[EEVblog]

I'm going to bring my comments to an end here.  It's been a good discussion.  The truth is, at some point even the atheist has to make an unfalsifiable claim (like appealing to the Anthropic Principle) to support the unfalsifiable claim that there is no God.

Nope. An Atheist is allowed to say "we don't know".

+1
And that's the trick.
It's the atheist who holds the position that there almost certainly is no god because:
a) There is zero evidence for it
and actually reasonable grounds to suspect it's all bunk because:
b) There are countless religions with incompatible ideas (the "they can't all be right" bit)
c) The "holy books" are demonstrably flawed and obviously surely the work of iron age humans.

It's the religious people making what is at face value, absurd claims.
Religious belief and the atheistic position do not have the same chance of being true.

[EEVblog]

You would be hard pressed to find anyone here who can claim that they are a descendant of that particular group of settlers.

I am related to the first free settlers to come to Australia.

[AlxDroidDev]

Despite what many non-Americans may think (and what is often portrayed in the media), the same is also true in most social circles and large regions of this country.   Especially during election season - and now with the numerous Republican candidates all pandering to the politically active and vocal evangelical subculture - the media does make it seem that this country is full of religious zealots.   Thankfully that is not the truth on the ground in most places.

The US is perhaps the most portraied country in the world by the movies, thus it is to be expected that people have already formed some erroneous concepts about it.

In the early 90s I lived in the USA as an exchange student for 1 year. I lived in a rural area in upstate NY, and as far as I can remember, religion was a very important part of everybody's life. There were a multitude of faiths: mormons, catholics (minority), protestants, baptists, and so one, but it seemed like everyone had to adhere to one form or another of christianism. By the time I didn't declare myself as an atheist, but I didn't like going to church and I had my quarrels with "god": apparently there is no "Customer Service" in heaven for a poorly heard prayer!

I also spent some time in Arlington, VA, and I was literally just across the street from Washington, DC. The folks I lived there with were also religious, although not as much as people in NY state.

OTOH, I often travel to Florida, specially Miami, and I don't seem to notice religion as a huge part of their life. Actually, if it weren't for the hispanics living there, who are quite religious, I think Florida could easily pass as an atheist state. Giving it a second thought, if most Americans living in Miami were religious, the porn film industry wouldn't be so big!

[Circlotron]

b) There are countless religions with incompatible ideas (the "they can't all be right" bit)

If there was one that was right, what would you expect from it?

[EEVblog]

b) There are countless religions with incompatible ideas (the "they can't all be right" bit)

If there was one that was right, what would you expect from it?

Err, you know, evidence...
Like maybe a holy book that actually said something that was so far ahead of it's time that it could have no other source of that knowledge than some supreme being that gave it to them.
But no, all we get are books full of often contradictory stuff, some stuff that's plain wrong, and that was written with no more knowledge than what the people understood in the day.
To anyone who's not indoctrinated into the faith, the divine origin of holy books is laughable.

[miguelvp]

Things are not that simple really.

The Catholic church has always maintained that there is not a Holly Book to follow, it is in essence a way of life following the teachings of Jesus.

The Bible doesn't hold all the truths, is inaccurate, distorted, open to interpretation and not to be taken literally.

So pretty much a Son of God what they say we are is really a Son of Nature, but with one difference. Our nature is not that great, we have tribal tendencies and as history has proven often, we are pretty brutal in essence.

The so called Teachings are a way to play nice in unison with Nature itself and each other. Probably not as good as other religions but the fundamentals are really not that bad and they do tend to adapt with the times but sometimes with a lot of lag.

History has proven that dramatic changes are not really good for societies and that's why our US system works well because it doesn't allow drastic changes in policies both internal or external, of course it has advantages and disadvantages.

In any event, the Catholic church does teach evolution vs creationism even 40 years ago. Same thing with the fossil record since the strata theory actually was backed by them, they have no conflict with Science since after all they pretty much instituted it.

There are a lot of misconceptions and yet the traditional views oriented towards the uneducated still prevail because in reality there are a lot of uneducated masses out there. As what the sheep represents.

Catholicism is just a departure from Barbarism that is engrained in our nature (as far as the tribal aspect of it). Humans have very strong tendencies not to accept and fight other cultures or tribes. Egocentrism is more dangerous in their view so therefore this organization was formed because of one man (real or mythical)  decided that he wanted to change the world, and not many have succeeded at that task even if many tried.

So the allegories are still needed because it's easier for the lay people to understand, but its just another sociopolitical group pushing their view of how to live in peace because there are a ton of uninformed people that just want to pick a fight because of our brutal nature.

To me, I think such organizations are still needed and equate it to anarchy vs government. It's never been about "The God" or the lack of one, it's a way to balance in tune with what the other views are and not doing drastic changes that could bring more chaos.

Good and Evil is a reality or is it not?

What does the freedom of an omnipotent God mean for the unwashed masses?

Myself I don't think I need the dogma or being a practitioner of the actual religion, because I do treat others as I want to be treated, and that is the crux of that so called "Teachings"

I do believe in the right path, does that make me a God believer? Nope, I'm a believer of reaching the ultimate truth but still not abuse my position in life versus others because Karma or my upbringing and how I was shaped in my mind kind of prevents that.
Still my decision because I'm free of thought, I don't align well with others because it's impossible to have rational conversations but I see no conflict in my views.

As for Reagan and the occult, well, that was the fad back then, my mom was all into the Tarot cards, Astrology and reading the Iris of your eyes. But the Catholics doesn't believe in ghosts, but everyone was doing it back then.

What it's more scary to me is how close we have almost started a nuclear war in several incidents because of the notion of us vs them.

Yeah, there is a lot of that us vs them in the States as well, I despise the concept of  "if you are not with us you are against us" that is prevalent not just in the US, but England, Australia even, France, and a lot of other countries to mention.

Show weakness and you'll be taken over. Yup that is Nature at its best, so again, things are really not that simple.

Edit: So to clarify, do we dare go against Nature as in our Nature? I'll say yes because the alternative is really not a good one in my opinion.

Edit2: And don't worry, I won't be excommunicated for my views. And yes the Catholic church has done barbaric things in times when they struggled within powers at hand and the whole Galileo ordeal when it didn't make sense since Copernicus was given the go ahead and publish. Things get out of hand because after all we are Human and have tendencies to fly off the handle.

Power is a bad thing on any given person's hands. Some more than others, but I don't see general acceptance of all the groups in this planet to this day. All countries and organizations still have something crawling up their butts. So, we are not even close to be truly enlighten. So keep on casting those stones since it's what we are best at.

Edit3: Furthermore, about beliefs. We all have beliefs, do you belief that not killing other tribes that don't agree with you is a good thing or a bad thing? How do you prove that not being barbaric and following our natural tendencies is a bad thing? After all hate is within us at many levels and it's part of nature right?
When do you break off nature and try to bring beliefs that might not be in tune of nature itself? Leave it to our Governments? Yeah, that will work out very nicely

We will keep on taking each others rights because if I don't like your toys no one can play with them, that is human nature, so we all end up as drones with no rights and truly sheep at the end

[bills]

You know all you  Atheists are going to hell 

[bills]

You guys are as bad as the born agains

[Marco]

And yes the Catholic church has done barbaric things in times when they struggled within powers at hand and the whole Galileo ordeal when it didn't make sense since Copernicus was given the go ahead and publish. Things get out of hand because after all we are Human and have tendencies to fly off the handle.

Why the focus on Catholicism? It is not the be all and end all of all religions. There might be harmless religions, some might even argue beneficial, but that doesn't mean there aren't harmful religions. The other Abrahamic religions don't believe in treating others as they want themselves to be treated (or rather you should be aware of the quotation marks around others in their case).

[Brumby]

You would be hard pressed to find anyone here who can claim that they are a descendant of that particular group of settlers.

I am related to the first free settlers to come to Australia.

'Free' settlers were not the group being referred to.

[miguelvp]

There is no Hell, or haven't you heard?

The problem is that people have tendencies to take things too literally. I don't even think there is a Heaven either and that's just a concept of being in tune with Nature but not following our natural tendencies, as in looking into the future of your descendants and humanity in general.

I do find it fascinating that at least there is an organization out there that has more power than the UN (because that is just a joke since they really don't have enough determination and don't want to shake the ground too much or perhaps not enough strenght) trying to keep a balance on human affairs. Wrong? Right? it is what it is. It's just a set of systems influencing other systems and trying to keep things in balance.

[bills]

There is no Hell, or haven't you heard?

The problem is that people have tendencies to take things too literally. I don't even think there is a Heaven either and that's just a concept of being in tune with Nature but not following our natural tendencies, as in looking into the future of your descendants and humanity in general.

I do find it fascinating that at least there is an organization out there that has more power than the UN (because that is just a joke since they really don't have enough determination and don't want to shake the ground too much or perhaps not enough strenght) trying to keep a balance on human affairs. Wrong? Right? it is what it is. It's just a set of systems influencing other systems and trying to keep things in balance.

Wow I am glad to know that

[miguelvp]

And yes the Catholic church has done barbaric things in times when they struggled within powers at hand and the whole Galileo ordeal when it didn't make sense since Copernicus was given the go ahead and publish. Things get out of hand because after all we are Human and have tendencies to fly off the handle.

Why the focus on Catholicism? It is not the be all and end all of all religions. There might be harmless religions, some might even argue beneficial, but that doesn't mean there aren't harmful religions. The other Abrahamic religions don't believe in treating others as they want themselves to be treated (or rather you should be aware of the quotation marks around others in their case).

As far as I know the other Abrahamic religions don't tolerate the rest. That's why the focus on it. Catholics did depart that Abrahamic point of view since it's inception. It's more of a Humanist model and less of a religious one but played within those terms because people don't want or need drastic changes.

The point of view of love your neighbor extends beyond your neighborhood, that's not understood by other groups either religious or political.

It's all about what can we get and less of what are we taking from others. I think that 99% of us in this forum would care less about people that work hard and suffer as long as we are pampered and having a good life. And I DO include myself among those 99%. Because I also have my own struggles and needs and my family takes precedence to what I'm capable of doing.

Yeah we are all imperfect in many ways.

[coppice]

I'm going to bring my comments to an end here.  It's been a good discussion.  The truth is, at some point even the atheist has to make an unfalsifiable claim (like appealing to the Anthropic Principle) to support the unfalsifiable claim that there is no God.

Atheism == without theism. Claiming there is no god is not an atheist claim. Claiming we currently have no evidence for any kind of god is an atheist claim. Things like the god of the bible are clearly human constructs, but is there some kind of super being out there? Are we just a simulation running in some giant celestial data centre, and god is a programmer? We will probably never know, one way or the other. We certainly don't know at this time.

[miguelvp]

Allegory time:

How many hate pewdiepie for making so much money, or a CEO, or the President of the United States for making a mere $400,000/year.
What is fair what is not?

What is your salary compared to the truly suffering out there? Is it fair to you?

Heck, people blame Dave for making too much "just blogging". Yeah, envy and looking at others how good they have it, but at the end, they just don't know that we all struggle in our own ways.

Maybe there is some that don't, but why does that matter that much?

How many musicians struggle vs the ones that make it. Art the same, Sports the same, Life the same.

We are no better than any other colonies out there trying to do the best for our colony regardless of the other colonies. Nature dictates that, but it does "feel" wrong to me and many, but its still our nature!

Natural selection really means the survival of the fittest, of course that is not fair but that's what nature really is. What makes us so superior to our peers?

I know, the notion that if I can do this, then everyone can, so they should work and figure it out on their own!

But how is that fair? At the end of the day we are discussing 1st world problems while ignoring the rest and our own humanity, well I guess not ignoring it as much as following it and not fighting it in order to be at least more Human "as the concept not the reality of it"

Edit: At the end of the day, who is right or who is wrong?
Well, we all are Wrong.

The only people who are Right.... let me rephrase that.... the only people that have no Right, don't have a voice all because of our Natural tendencies.
The concept of being Pious is the struggle against Nature, not Science, well maybe Science since Nature is right. But we kind of think we know better and we fight it because some of us don't feel right hurting others.

Edit2: So, unless someone wants to refute that we do tend to fight our Nature instead of following what Science dictates, it means we are in a way contrary to Nature itself. Why is that? are we truly different than the rest of Nature?
Do we have something that makes us different than the natural order?
Yeah, we do have bigger brains than the rest of the animals (actually consuming a lot of energy) but those are there to actually give us an advantage but we tend not to pull the trigger although most times we do pull that trigger.
Yet, we do pause at times, as in, we are superior beings. Why is that? What makes us different than the rest of Nature and don't follow Natural Law?

[han]

Science law is far more superior then religious law.(nobody and nothing can escape from it)

thous shalt not kill???you shall not commit adultery???
even one who introduce the story do it...

[miguelvp]

Science law is far more superior then religious law.(nobody and nothing can escape from it)

thous shalt not kill???you shall not commit adultery???
even one who introduce the story do it...

So, let's fuck everything up and be primal as Nature intends.

Edit: or instead: making a hypocritical display of virtue (definition of Pious) and take the high ground (well the high ground implies ready for battle too)

[han]

Science law is far more superior then religious law.(nobody and nothing can escape from it)

thous shalt not kill???you shall not commit adultery???
even one who introduce the story do it...

So, let's fuck everything up and be primal as Nature intends.

Edit: or instead: making a hypocritical display of virtue (definition of Pious) and take the high ground (well the high ground implies ready for battle too)

too late.. ISIS already do that..

[miguelvp]

Science law is far more superior then religious law.(nobody and nothing can escape from it)

thous shalt not kill???you shall not commit adultery???
even one who introduce the story do it...

So, let's fuck everything up and be primal as Nature intends.

Edit: or instead: making a hypocritical display of virtue (definition of Pious) and take the high ground (well the high ground implies ready for battle too)

too late.. ISIS already do that..

Inequity is doing that.

[han]

Quote: "Inequity is doing that."
There is no good or evil, we create them. If no sentinel present, who care what happen to the universe.

[miguelvp]

Quote: "Inequity is doing that."
There is no good or evil, we create them. If no sentinel present, who care what happen to the universe.

I agree, but you can only push a group of people so far until they rebel.

I've seen how the Algerians are treated in France, or the Moroccans  in Spain, it's even worse than how they treated the Gypsies back in the day, I say they should welcome them, specially with the low growth population in Europe, they do need Immigrants to keep the economy up.

But Human nature dominate us after all.

We are not to blame as well, the whole "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." doesn't have much meaning in here anymore.

Yeah, let us just go back to all the insane wars from medieval times or throughout History itself.

Nature rules, but to me that's a lack of perception.

Edit: Inserting quote, that's all.
Edit2, taking out the not because we are to blame as well. It was a typo

[miguelvp]

If you are not with us you are against us, is totally anti-democratic because it takes away the  freedom of choosing your point of view.

It's a new dogma, but not a good dogma in my opinion.

Edit: but this goes against nature, majority rules is the norm, so dissenting views gets you killed. So I guess we go with natural law and don't complain what the majority decided and if we are against them we are a minority and deserve to die.

[daqq]

b) There are countless religions with incompatible ideas (the "they can't all be right" bit)

If there was one that was right, what would you expect from it?

Proof? Non-falsifiability? I mean, seriously, how hard is it for an all powerful deity to make people take it seriously? If a god wants to be taken seriously, he could quite literally arrange the stars to form the following text:

Hi there, I'm God, the correct religion to follow is Christianity, the correct interpretation was found by one obscure little sect with 42 members in the Russian taiga, the Followers of the Holy Potato and Borscht, ask them about it.

Or perhaps whisper it to people before going to sleep? Maybe encode it into pi, or e? Be a bit more explicit?

At the moment the evidence for deities is on the same levels as evidence of the existence of Hogwarts and Harry Potter.

[Fungus]

You would be hard pressed to find anyone here who can claim that they are a descendant of that particular group of settlers.

I am related to the first free settlers to come to Australia.

I think he was referring to the groups of "non-free" settlers that used to get shipped over there.

[Fungus]

the media does make it seem that this country is full of religious zealots.   Thankfully that is not the truth on the ground in most places.

In the early 90s I lived in the USA as an exchange student for 1 year. I lived in a rural area in upstate NY, and as far as I can remember, religion was a very important part of everybody's life. There were a multitude of faiths: mormons, catholics (minority), protestants, baptists, and so one, but it seemed like everyone had to adhere to one form or another of christianism. By the time I didn't declare myself as an atheist, but I didn't like going to church and I had my quarrels with "god": apparently there is no "Customer Service" in heaven for a poorly heard prayer!

I also spent some time in Arlington, VA, and I was literally just across the street from Washington, DC. The folks I lived there with were also religious, although not as much as people in NY state.

Try playing some online games. At about 3pm (European time) a whole load of players usually come online with names like "Jesus is King", "Jesus is Lord", etc.  Guess which country is waking up...

[Fungus]

Things are not that simple really.

Yes they are.

The Catholic church has always maintained that there is not a Holly Book to follow, it is in essence a way of life following the teachings of Jesus.

The Bible doesn't hold all the truths, is inaccurate, distorted, open to interpretation and not to be taken literally.

You've just thrown away the only evidence that the whole thing isn't a Fairy Tale.  The only thing you have left is dogma.

[miguelvp]

Things are not that simple really.

Yes they are.

The Catholic church has always maintained that there is not a Holly Book to follow, it is in essence a way of life following the teachings of Jesus.

The Bible doesn't hold all the truths, is inaccurate, distorted, open to interpretation and not to be taken literally.

You've just thrown away the only evidence that the whole thing isn't a Fairy Tale.  The only thing you have left is dogma.

I didn't throw away  a thing. The reality is that, We, as Human beings, Do Not Care about other Human Beings.

Natural Selection at its best.

If that's what you want, well, that's what it is.

As predators and Natural beings, that's our essence, and that is the truth. Is that a good truth for us?
I doubt that.

[Fungus]

Science law is far more superior then religious law.(nobody and nothing can escape from it)

thous shalt not kill???you shall not commit adultery???
even one who introduce the story do it...

So, let's fuck everything up and be primal as Nature intends.

Weird that mortal man can produce things like the Universal Declaration of Human rights.


PS: For those who haven't read The Bible: The "Ten Commandments" usually quoted is really only the first ten items of Mosaic Law. It doesn't stop after 10, it goes on for pages and pages. It has all the "stone the queers" and "how to sell your children into slavery" stuff.

The place where it actually says "The Ten Commandments" is Exodus 34, verse 28.

Exodus 34 really interesting reading. A classic example of where The Bible totally messes up and contradicts itself.

Please take 2 minutes: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus+34&version=NIV

Now tell me again that The Bible is divinely inspired.

(My favorite: "Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk")

[Fungus]

At the moment the evidence for deities is on the same levels as evidence of the existence of Hogwarts and Harry Potter.

At least Harry Potter is consistent, logical and doesn't self-contradict.

[AlxDroidDev]

At the moment the evidence for deities is on the same levels as evidence of the existence of Hogwarts and Harry Potter.

At least Harry Potter is consistent, logical and doesn't self-contradict.

At least Harry Potter doesn't make anyone feel guilty about anything.

At least Harry Potter does kick someone's butt when they've done something bad.

[daqq]

At least Harry Potter is consistent, logical and doesn't self-contradict.

Even though I do enjoy the franchise, it must be noted that it does have plot holes you could drive a truck through. I mean, seriously, what's the deal with the time turners? They pointedly choose to ignore the existence of the single most useful device that could have resolved the plots in minutes. Or the whole liquid luck thingie? Seriously? Why isn't pretty much everyone doped up on it before every major event, battle, test...? It is difficult to make? What kind of excuse is that? Can't they just outsource to an alchemist who knows his stuff?

And how can you keep an entire massive population hidden away when they constantly do amazing things?

On the other hand it doesn't want your foreskin, your first born or your soul, or to spend tons of man hours worshiping Harry (though many do so), so I guess it's OK. Also, the worst thing you get for having a dissenting opinion is a heated discussion with name calling.

[EEVblog]

The reality is that, We, as Human beings, Do Not Care about other Human Beings.
Natural Selection at its best.

Err, not quite.
There is evidence for altruism and the golden rule et.al having benefits in natural selection.
Plenty to learn on the topic, perhaps start here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reciprocal_altruism

Even bacteria appear to have altruistic like tendencies:

[han]

Quote
"At least Harry Potter is consistent, logical and doesn't self-contradict."


Lets build a time machine,set to 2000 year to the past, throw a star wars novel to the Sumerian, and we will have Jedi religion dominate earth.. 

[rrinker]

 Just as long as you don't accidently leave behind any L. Ron Hubbard books.

[Circlotron]

The Bible ... is inaccurate, distorted,

Please provide examples of these inaccuracies that you have found.
And your claim of distorted logically implies that you know what the undistorted version is. Do tell.

[daqq]

Please provide examples of these inaccuracies that you have found.

Well, the whole world wide flood that took out everything aside samples of animals that got on to a gigantic ship that was a hobby project by an elderly citizen, then suspiciously disseminated the various species only onto various continents (kangaroos anyone?) and no where else, and somehow removed any geological evidence of itself is somewhat fishy.

[bookaboo]

The reality is that, We, as Human beings, Do Not Care about other Human Beings.
Natural Selection at its best.

Err, not quite.
There is evidence for altruism and the golden rule et.al having benefits in natural selection.
Plenty to learn on the topic, perhaps start here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reciprocal_altruism

Even bacteria appear to have altruistic like tendencies:

Richard Dawkins explains this in detail in "The Selfish Gene", it's fascinating how well many human (and animal) behaviours both good and bad are easily explained.

[Fungus]

I didn't throw away  a thing.

Yes you did.  What is Christianity based on if you throw away The Bible?

(If I were you I'd stop digging now).

The reality is that, We, as Human beings, Do Not Care about other Human Beings.

Wrong. Ludicrously wrong.

eg. Go check out the major charities of the world:

Red Cross? Atheist
Oxfam Intermon? Atheist
Doctors without Borders? Atheist
Amnesty International? Atheist
etc. etc.

Plus Atheists in general give more to charity than religious people.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights. A secular work that's a far better moral guide than The Bible.

Catholic Church? Still largely responsible for the continued AIDS epidemic in Africa and the fact that people still have Polio.

[Fungus]

I've seen how the Algerians are treated in France, or the Moroccans  in Spain, it's even worse than how they treated the Gypsies back in the day, I say they should welcome them, specially with the low growth population in Europe, they do need Immigrants to keep the economy up.

Not by ALL the French and not by ALL the Spanish. A small minority who aren't part of mainstream society.

[miguelvp]

The reality is that, We, as Human beings, Do Not Care about other Human Beings.
Natural Selection at its best.

Err, not quite.
There is evidence for altruism and the golden rule et.al having benefits in natural selection.
Plenty to learn on the topic, perhaps start here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reciprocal_altruism

Even bacteria appear to have altruistic like tendencies:

Systems Theory at its best, life is self-organizing, self-renewing, self-maintaining and self-transcending.

That doesn't take away our tribal tendencies and our collective nature.
We are fine until we don't need a specific group, so it's a symbiosis and a balance as long as it suit us, once it requires too much effort or we perceive that we need those resources all bets are off.

[miguelvp]

I didn't throw away  a thing.

Yes you did.  What is Christianity based on if you throw away The Bible?

(If I were you I'd stop digging now).

Nope, the Bible is still there, but it's not the ultimate answer according to the Catholic point of view.

I'm not digging anything anyways.

[Lightages]

So where is the evidence that a god or gods can even exist? All we have have are stories and people trying to explain things with hand waving and logical knot tying. Where is the evidence beyond personal experiences and old books that are provably wrong and provably violent and bloody?

[Lightages]

Something else to consider when someone tries to say that the majority of people believe the way you do.
http://phys.org/news/2016-01-evidence-bad.html
Read the whole article and don't cherry pick.

[Circlotron]

Something else to consider when someone tries to say that the majority of people believe the way you do.
http://phys.org/news/2016-01-evidence-bad.html
Read the whole article and don't cherry pick.

So, the majority of the people here say there is no God and that the Bible is untrue. By that reasoning they are all wrong.

Churches can take a long walk off a short pier AFAIAC, BTW.

[mtdoc]

Something else to consider when someone tries to say that the majority of people believe the way you do.
http://phys.org/news/2016-01-evidence-bad.html
Read the whole article and don't cherry pick.

So, the majority of the people here say there is no God and that the Bible is untrue. By that reasoning they are all wrong.

I agree, that is a poor article with little but conjecture. The broad point is likely valid but only in limited cases and not as widely applicable as they imply (with no evidence to support).  Phys.org should do better.  In any case not really applicable to this discussion IMO.

Churches can take a long walk off a short pier AFAIAC, BTW.

Also agreed!

And FWIW:
Church/Religion != God

[EEVblog]

The Bible ... is inaccurate, distorted,

Please provide examples of these inaccuracies that you have found.

 
Start with the very first page.

[Lightages]

Something else to consider when someone tries to say that the majority of people believe the way you do.
http://phys.org/news/2016-01-evidence-bad.html
Read the whole article and don't cherry pick.

So, the majority of the people here say there is no God and that the Bible is untrue. By that reasoning they are all wrong.

Churches can take a long walk off a short pier AFAIAC, BTW.

I think you need to consider that the disbelief of something is not the same as belief. I do not believe in something you you might know, not because I hold belief against what you know, I just have no knowledge of it. Atheism is this; the lack of belief in something asserted by someone else. It is nothing more. The lack of belief in anything is not a consensus, not a majority belief.

[Fungus]

The Bible ... is inaccurate, distorted,

Please provide examples of these inaccuracies that you have found.

Start with the very first page.

And then go to Exodus 34 (which I posted about a couple of pages back). If you can come up with a logical explanation for Exodus 34, I'm all ears.

New Testament? Please show the slightest historical support for the great Roman Census. Rome was a huge bureaucracy. We've still got the receipts for the Roman Legion's underpants; where's the paperwork for the census? Not one person wrote about it outside The Bible?

(And what would be the logic of sending everybody to their home town for a census anyway...wouldn't you want to know where people actually lived?)

[coppice]

And then go to Exodus 34 (which I posted about a couple of pages back). If you can come up with a logical explanation for Exodus 34, I'm all ears.

Why do you like to single out that chapter? Compared to most of the rest of the book its pretty straightforward and clear. Compared to things like god can't get you if you are in your car (the iron chariot thing), and the monotheistic god can't go into another god's domain its pretty straight up stuff.

The thing about boiling a goat in its mother's milk is probably a reference to a practice of some other religion. There's a reference to the goddess Asherah a few lines before. Its probably just saying don't follow the practices of other cults.

[Fungus]

And then go to Exodus 34 (which I posted about a couple of pages back). If you can come up with a logical explanation for Exodus 34, I'm all ears.

Why do you like to single out that chapter? Compared to most of the rest of the book its pretty straightforward and clear.

But... what happened to the Ten Commandments? Where did "Thou shalt not kill" go? Those aren't anything like the commandments I was tought

[coppice]

And then go to Exodus 34 (which I posted about a couple of pages back). If you can come up with a logical explanation for Exodus 34, I'm all ears.

Why do you like to single out that chapter? Compared to most of the rest of the book its pretty straightforward and clear.

But... what happened to the Ten Commandments? Where did "Thou shalt not kill" go? Those aren't anything like the commandments I was tought

The ten commandments gets repeated, because of the stone smashing incident, and they aren't the same in both cases. There don't appear to be 10, either, but maybe that's just an issue of how you count them. The no killing rule is, however, clearly stated in both places:

Exodus 20:13 "Thou shalt not kill."

Deuteronomy 5:17 "Thou shalt not kill."

The snag is the rest of book keeps telling the same people to kill their enemies, kill their naughty children, kill rape victims, etc., so the 10 commandments seem to have a lot of caveats which are not properly footnoted at the time the basic rules are stated.

[Fungus]

The ten commandments gets repeated, because of the stone smashing incident

I know.

and they aren't the same in both cases.

You got that part right.

What happened? Did god forget the other ones? Am I the only one seeing the fail?

[coppice]

The ten commandments gets repeated, because of the stone smashing incident

I know.

and they aren't the same in both cases.

You got that part right.
What happened? Did god forget the other ones? Am I the only one seeing the fail?

I presume this is mostly down to the lack of printing presses. The whole thing is an editorial mess. While producing copies was a major undertaking they would only ever have been in the hands of a small number of people. Even when Constantine got serious about spreading Christianity through the Roman Empire he only paid for a small number (50, 100, something like that) of copies of the bible to be made. Most churches never had a copy, and most priests had never seen one. Cleaning up the inconsistencies was not really a priority. If they had been able to mass produce copies when these books were new, and put them in the hands of the average person, I presume they would have undertaken a massive editorial review so the books told a better story. As it was the religions had stuck so well by the time of the printing press that apologists had plenty of expertise in papering over the cracks..

[Fungus]

What happened? Did god forget the other ones? Am I the only one seeing the fail?

I presume this is mostly down to the lack of printing presses. The whole thing is an editorial mess. While producing copies was a major undertaking they would only ever have been in the hands of a small number of people. Even when Constantine got serious about spreading Christianity through the Roman Empire he only paid for a small number (50, 100, something like that) of copies of the bible to be made. Most churches never had a copy, and most priests had never seen one. Cleaning up the inconsistencies was not really a priority. If they had been able to mass produce copies when these books were new, and put them in the hands of the average person, I presume they would have undertaken a massive editorial review so the books told a better story. As it was the religions had stuck so well by the time of the printing press that apologists had plenty of expertise in papering over the cracks..

Let's see if I've got this straight:

God who created the entire universe just for the benefit of a bunch of apes living on one tiny planet, God who guided every single atom during the evolutionary process, God who can read all our minds in real time to see what we're up to, omnipotent omniscient omnipresent God, who answers all our prayers ...

... couldn't get his message to mankind edited/printed properly?

No wonder the world is such a mess. 

[mikerj]

Why do you like to single out that chapter? Compared to most of the rest of the book its pretty straightforward and clear.

Ok, according to Exodus, God (A.K.A. "Jealous") does not leave the guilty unpunished;

"he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.”.

What a great sounding guy huh?  He's happy to punish four generations of offspring to make up for the sins of one person.

But wait, Deuteronomy 24:16 contradicts this:

"Fathers shall not be put to death for their sons, nor shall sons be put to death for their fathers; everyone shall be put to death for his own sin."

And so does Ezekiel 18:20:

"The person who sins will die. The son will not bear the punishment for the father’s iniquity, nor will the father bear the punishment for the son’s iniquity; the righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked will be upon himself."


That's ok then, must have been a typo in Exodus. No punishing of the sons, but killing sinners is fair game.  'Jealous' clearly isn't isn't into whole liberal Christian forgiveness ethos.

[mtdoc]

The Bible and its inconsistencies and inaccuracies is an easy target. Of course with the exception of the fundamentalist evangelicals, most Christian religions make no proclamations about it being the "word of god", etc.

With even a cursory reading of the Bible it's easy to get the the hypocritical, moralizing evangelicals in a tizzy.

[Fungus]

most Christian religions make no proclamations about it being the "word of god", etc.

So they cherry-pick? Got it.

But ... how do they know which verses are important for saving their souls?

Maybe God is really strict about the bacon-eating thing and they decided to disobey that one (bacon==tasty) so they'll end up in Hell. How do they know?


Yeah, I know, Acts 15 completely discards Mosaic Law (for Gentiles...) and replaces it with:

...abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood.

nb. That passage seems to was written to counter the Marcionite movement which was trying to divide the Jews from the early Christians. It comes in response to Acts 15:5: "Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, “The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to keep the law of Moses.”".

And that's basically the idea of Acts: It was written specifically to be read out loud and supply early Christians with some preset replies for dealing with the Jews/Romans who were running the country ("God told us we don't have to be circumcised - circumcision is only for his special chosen people" ).

The historicity of Acts is even more dubious than the other gospels. We know it was rewritten/revised many times in the second century.

(ie. It's still a Fairy Story, but this one has a political purpose behind it)

[mtdoc]

most Christian religions make no proclamations about it being the "word of god", etc.

So they cherry-pick? Got it.

The bible is a historic documentation of the history of early Christianity full of human biases, selective editing, editorializing and embellishments.  Most Christians - even many deeply religious ones acknowledge that.  It's fine to point that fact out but doing so does little to further the Atheist argument IMO.

Personally, I disfavor all dogmatic religious beliefs and IME fervent dogmatic Atheism can be almost as irrational.

[Fungus]

The bible is a historic documentation of the history of early Christianity full of human biases, selective editing, editorializing and embellishments.  Most Christians - even many deeply religious ones acknowledge that.  It's fine to point that fact out but doing so does little to further the Atheist argument IMO.

So what do the deeply religious Christians base their beliefs on?

(And why not some better written, more believable story?)

[han]

quote:
"he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.”.
Are you sure its not about Kim Jong Un?


from wiki"
North Korea's political penal labour colonies, transliterated kwalliso or kwan-li-so, constitute one of three forms of political imprisonment in the country, ...............................
In contrast to these other systems, the condemned are sent there without any form of judicial process as are their immediate three generations of family members in a form of sippenhaft[citation needed]. ................................etc."

[mtdoc]

The bible is a historic documentation of the history of early Christianity full of human biases, selective editing, editorializing and embellishments.  Most Christians - even many deeply religious ones acknowledge that.  It's fine to point that fact out but doing so does little to further the Atheist argument IMO.

So what do the deeply religious Christians base their beliefs on?

(And why not some better written, more believable story?)

Well, I can't pretend to know the answer to that for all of the worlds 2+ billion Christians (1+ billion Catholics) but based on my childhood experience of being raised Catholic (NO, I do not consider myself Catholic or Christian now - I am decidedly a-religious!) , I would guess that for most it begins as a tradition - passed on from family and community and never really questioned.  For many, some personal "spiritual experience" serves to solidify their faith - or for others, abandon it.   But the main thing for most is the traditions, rituals and community that form the basis for their beliefs - and nothing to do with what is written in a book.

Even for the evangelical, fundamentalist Christians (about 1/8 of Christians worldwide) - their belief that the bible is the "word of god" has to come from somewhere - the where is likely similar.

IMO the problem is not ones personal beliefs but the conviction of some that they need to convince and convert others to their belief system and in some cases enslave, torture or kill those who do not submit. 

Of course it's not only zealous religiousity that can lead to this.  Zealous Athiesm can as well (eg. Lenin and Stalin).

[Lightages]

Personally, I disfavor all dogmatic religious beliefs and IME fervent dogmatic Atheism can be almost as irrational.

"Dogmatic" and "Atheism" are contradictory words. They don't belong in the same sentence. Atheism is only the disbelief that a god or gods exist, nothing more. A-Theism, without theism. Anti-theism is another thing, which is many people believe atheism is.

[mtdoc]

Personally, I disfavor all dogmatic religious beliefs and IME fervent dogmatic Atheism can be almost as irrational.

"Dogmatic" and "Atheism" are contradictory words. They don't belong in the same sentence. Atheism is only the disbelief that a god or gods exist, nothing more. A-Theism, without theism. Anti-theism is another thing, which is many people believe atheism is.

Incorrect.  Semantics: What is disbelief other than a belief  that a belief in god is fallacious.  IOW a strong opinion (as all beliefs are).

Common definition of dogmatic includes strongly held, unshakable, sometimes arrogant beliefs that cannot be proven (not just applied to religion).  There clearly are dogmatic Atheists.

Traditionally Atheism refers to the belief or doctrine (a set of beliefs) that there is no god. Only recently has the term been defined to include the "disbelief" in god

[coppice]

Personally, I disfavor all dogmatic religious beliefs and IME fervent dogmatic Atheism can be almost as irrational.

"Dogmatic" and "Atheism" are contradictory words. They don't belong in the same sentence. Atheism is only the disbelief that a god or gods exist, nothing more. A-Theism, without theism. Anti-theism is another thing, which is many people believe atheism is.

Dogmatic and atheist and not contradictory. They relate to different things. An anti-theist is likely as dogmatic as any theist, but if you are an anti-theist you are also an atheist.

[Lightages]

Is a baby an atheist? Are the tribes in the Amazon who had no concept of gods atheists? They don't even know of the concept of god. They are atheists, without the belief of a god. They aren't anti-theists. You can't be against something you don't even have  concept of. The lack of belief is not dogmatic as there is nothing to follow. It is the lack of something.

Are there subsets of atheists who are dogmatic? Are there anti-atheists? Yes of course but the subset does not define the larger meaning. A square is a rectangle. A rectangle is not necessarily a square.

[mtdoc]

Are there subsets of atheists who are dogmatic? Are there anti-atheists? Yes of course but the subset does not define the larger meaning. A square is a rectangle. A rectangle is not necessarily a square.

Agreed.  But no one ever said all Atheists were dogmatic or that all Atheists were anti-theists.  As you now say - both are subsets of of the group "Atheists"  Your prior post seemed to dispute this fact.  I'm glad it's clarified.

[Fungus]

IMO the problem is not ones personal beliefs but the conviction of some that they need to convince and convert others to their belief system and in some cases enslave, torture or kill those who do not submit. 

Of course it's not only zealous religiousity that can lead to this.  Zealous Athiesm can as well (eg. Lenin and Stalin).

I'm trying to think of a reply that doesn't sound too much like "No true Scotsman". 

Saying that Lenin and Stalin were Atheists is like saying the Klu Klux Klan are Christians. Both are technically true, but...

Lenin didn't want to promote critical thinking, he wanted to abolish the church ("The opium of the masses").

The KKK wanted to label themselves as "Christian" to cover up the fact that they were really a bunch of disgruntled slavers, anti-Semitics, and (recently) White-Power Nazis.

[Fungus]

"Dogmatic" and "Atheism" are contradictory words. They don't belong in the same sentence.

Yep.

Atheism is only the disbelief that a god or gods exist, nothing more.

"God" is an unfalsifiable claim. The universe may have a creator (or we might just be brains floating in jars).

The Bible is complete rubbish though. How people can base their lives around that book is beyond me.

The church? Institutionalized, dogmatic belief is never good. It promotes non-critical belief (aka superstition) and promotes tribalism (eg. Christians vs. Muslims, Protestants vs. Catholics). And that's without counting all the bad stuff they do...

[Lightages]

Here is what believing BS without critical thinking can cause:

[Circlotron]

Dilbert the *engineer*, no less.

[AlxDroidDev]

Carl Sagan once said “You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe”

My wife's granfather was an atheist his whole life, and a great man.
In his 70s he discovered he had cancer. After a long battle against it and as death approached and his fear grew, he started believing in god. Reading the Psalms was one of the only things that gave him comfort. I guess he needed to believe in something just to make his death more meaningful.