I'm thinking there's a specific reason he wants us all on our knees. All you had to do was ask, Snowy. No need to be coy.

(August 30, 2014 at 7:10 pm)Stimbo Wrote: I'm thinking there's a specific reason he wants us all on our knees. All you had to do was ask, Snowy. No need to be coy.

Personally, I never go down on a guy who can't provide intellectual conversation when I get back up.

Oh I dunno, there's something to be said for the dumb blond(e) stereotype.

(August 24, 2014 at 10:52 am)Surgenator Wrote:

(August 24, 2014 at 2:10 am)Wyrd of Gawd Wrote: You do realize that most of the universe is simply an optical illusion (or mirage) and that it's therefore not real.

That explains why I can jump out of a window and fly when making the 'vroom' sound. Because the universe (and its laws) are not real.

If you do some thinking you will realize that most of the universe is an optical illusion.

The premise is that the universe is 13-14 billion years old because that's how long it took for the light from distant objects to reach us. Our Sun is about 4.5 billion years old. Stars are being formed and dying all the time. So it's safe to say that some, if not all, of the most distant objects that we see are no longer in existence. And if they no longer exist they are an optical illusion.

If you see a star forming at 4.5 billion light years from us it is completely different at this very second. So what you are seeing is not reality. Reality ceases to exist at a certain distance. Objects within our own solar system are within our sphere of reality because we see them in what passes for real time although the image of the Sun is 8 minutes old. The nearest star image other than the Sun is 4 years old. The farther you go the older the image and at some point the object will no longer exist even though you can still see its image.

So yes, most of the universe is simply an optical illusion because you can not say with any degree of certainty that what you see still exists.

At this very second the objects in the universe are completely different from what you see.

(August 29, 2014 at 12:14 am)snowtracks Wrote: in a couple days, I'm posting evidence (that's right, evidence) that the universe was determined. going to be a lot of people getting on their knees confessing their sins, and there are beaucoup sins to be confessed.

the universe's expansion rate has been balanced at just the right rate to make advanced life possible. if the expansion rate were too rapid, stars and planets would not form since gravity wouldn't have adequate time to pull together the gases and dust that make up these bodies. if the expansion rate weren't rapid enough, the stars formed would rapidly collapse and become black holes or neutron stars. what determines this expansion rate is gravity and dark energy (a property that stretches the universe's space/time surface). in the book 'the grand design' by hawking, mlodinow, of which I have in ebook form, in chapter 7 this statement is made. "the laws of nature form a system that is extremely fine-tuned, and very little in physical law can be altered without the possibility of the development of life as we know it". goes on to say that the cosmological constant (the energy density that causes the universe's expansion) has a value 10^120 (as a comparison the est. atoms in observable universe is 10^80 (http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=num...e+universe). continuing - "the one thing that is certain is that if the value of the cosmological constant were much larger than it is, our universe would have blown itself apart before galaxies could form--once again--life as we know it would impossible".
heavy metal are essential to make planets, and make advanced life possible, examples - nitrogen, oxygen, potassium, boron, iron, etc. these elements are produced in the furnaces of stars from hydrogen, helium. 9 billion years after the big bang, a period that encompassed 3 generations of stars (formed, burned, scattered cycle), stars spewed enough of these heavy elements into interstellar space to form earth's solar system which was 4.5 billion years ago. without the ultra precision spot on balance between gravity and dark energy over this extended period time, heavy metal production wouldn't have taken place. afterward, these heavy metals in high concentration then had to be broken down (bacteria action) into soluble form which took several billion more years. when coincidences like these multiply, the 'random happenstances' point of view grows less and less plausible and reaches a point where it should be abandoned.

OK... and?

No one knows where the universe came from, To believe you know is ignorance.

(August 31, 2014 at 2:45 am)psychoslice Wrote: No one knows where the universe came from, To believe you know is ignorance.

To not know that someone could know is ignorance.

(August 31, 2014 at 2:51 am)Chuck Wrote:

(August 31, 2014 at 2:45 am)psychoslice Wrote: No one knows where the universe came from, To believe you know is ignorance.

To not know that someone could know is ignorance.

So do you know ?.

Fucking hell, it's the argument from fine tuning again.

Listen up, Snowy. The only possible way that this fine tuning crap even is a problem for us is if you can demonstrate that the universe as it is now is a "success" state that was being aimed for, and for which it was possible to fail. From a purely naturalistic viewpoint a universe is a universe is a universe; no specific iteration has any greater or lower chance of existing than any other, and the fact that the universe as it is can support life is merely a coincidence, as it was not made to support life. Life is just a side effect of the way physics panned out.

Your argument only is one if we take life to be the end goal of the universe, and it isn't, or at least, you haven't even attempted to demonstrate that. Yes, your argument, your "evidence" that's going to convert us all, literally requires that we presuppose that the universe was created for life. If we don't, the entire thing vanishes. No longer an argument, and more of just a statement of probability in a context that we have no reason to care.

Good job.

Oh, and Snowy? You're a christian, right? Pretty interesting, then, that the "argument" you chose to make does not imply the christian god at all. Is your position so weak that you're reduced to simply arguing for deism and expecting that we won't notice? How is this going to convert us?