(August 4, 2013 at 5:26 pm)BadWriterSparty Wrote: Wait...why are we counting Devils and Demons as suspects? I suppose we might as well throw Santa and the Easter Bunny in there for good measure? Where is this wild ride of a thread taking us?!

It's like arguing about any fictional universe. Super heroes or star trek or star wars or religion. It's all the same basic shit.

(August 4, 2013 at 4:02 pm)Rahul Wrote:

(August 4, 2013 at 11:09 am)Chas Wrote: Untrue. In radioactive decay, there is no known cause for a particular atom to decay. All of our measurements are statistical. Listen to a Geiger counter.

Instability causes the atom to decay.

We know why they decay. You could throw a theoretical atom at a physicist and he could predict how fast it would decay based on it's properties.

Isn't it Lead that is the highest element that is completely stable?

No, you can not predict when a particular atom will decay.

(August 4, 2013 at 7:14 pm)Chas Wrote: No, you can not predict when a particular atom will decay.

Well not a specific one. What is your point?

Quote:How do you explain that a dead man came back to life and 500 eyewitnesses saw Him?

People have claimed to see fucking Elvis too.

(August 4, 2013 at 11:18 pm)Minimalist Wrote:

Quote:How do you explain that a dead man came back to life and 500 eyewitnesses saw Him?

People have claimed to see fucking Elvis too.

What a disturbing image to witness. More importantly, can you be a hound dog in your 80's?

Justin Martyr's First Apology - written to the Emperor Antoninus Pius c 160 AD mentions neither Paul nor 500 witnesses.

Obviously, this particular bit of holy horseshit had not been written at this time.

(August 4, 2013 at 11:54 pm)Minimalist Wrote: Justin Martyr's First Apology - written to the Emperor Antoninus Pius c 160 AD mentions neither Paul nor 500 witnesses.

Obviously, this particular bit of holy horseshit had not been written at this time.

Obviously, this particular bit of holy horseshit had not been invented at this time.


*fixed that for you

Well, it's a little more complicated than that, but that will do for now.

(August 5, 2013 at 2:43 am)Minimalist Wrote: Well, it's a little more complicated than that, but that will do for now.

indeed it is...

(August 4, 2013 at 4:02 pm)Rahul Wrote:

(August 4, 2013 at 11:09 am)Chas Wrote: Untrue. In radioactive decay, there is no known cause for a particular atom to decay. All of our measurements are statistical. Listen to a Geiger counter.

Instability causes the atom to decay.

Instability is why the atom decays, it isn't the cause of the atom's decay. If your house is unstable, the storm or whatever that brings it down is still the cause of its collapse.

(August 4, 2013 at 4:02 pm)Rahul Wrote: We know why they decay. You could throw a theoretical atom at a physicist and he could predict how fast it would decay based on it's properties.

We know that they decay, we don't really know why. If you threw a chunk of radium-226 at a physicist he could tell tyou that half of its atoms will have decayed in 1,601 years, but if you gave him a radium atom he couldn't predict whether it will decay tomorrow or in 10,000 years.

(August 4, 2013 at 4:02 pm)Rahul Wrote: Isn't it Lead that is the highest element that is completely stable?

Lead is the element with the heaviest stable isotope (lead 208). It hasn't been observed to decay, as yet, but more sensitive instruments may allow us to determine a decay rate in future, one that us probably a number of years with 20 to 25 zeroes before the decimal point.