LHC

[Jackalope]

[pocaracas]

Are super-colliders dangerous?

Bem vindo, Filipe!

First and foremost, you should do an intro thread so people get to know you.
Just go here and start a new thread: https://atheistforums.org/forum-11.html

Second, why would you ask something like "Are super-colliders dangerous?" on an atheist forum?
- What is your goal, when you ask something like that?

Are bees dangerous? - YES and NO!
Are cartoons dangerous? YES and NO!
Are Churches dangerous? YES and NO!
Are super-colliders dangerous? YES and NO!

It all depends on what sort of danger you're referring to.
Someone allergic to a bee sting will find bees very dangerous.
Kids taking their whole outer world info from cartoons will become stupid, so it's dangerous for them...
Churches are buildings and can fall... they also tend to be occupied by bigots and other dangerous people...
Super colliders waste a log of energy and money and manpower.... IF they blow up, they can hurt someone.... they may generate harmful radiation.... but they're also built so as to minimize these effects to the people working there, so they're generally harmless to the population.

[Filipe Barbosa]

Atheism is obvious, so I asked something on the Science section of this site. I know little about the LHC, so we might already be in a 'parallel Universe', for all I/we know. In doubt, the rule must always be caution, which means to abstain from non-imperative risk-taking. What's the necessity of the LHC, especially compared to other global urgencies? (The LHC is somewhat related to atheist and faith issues because some people believe in a so-called 'God particle'). By such a yes-and-no-principle, nuclear weapons would be a 'necessary evil'.

[robvalue]

You think we are risking entering parallels universes? I don't know much about the collider either. But I don't see what it has to do with alternate realities, if there are any.

And if by entering them there's no discernible difference to anything, would it even matter?

[One Above All]

(The LHC is somewhat related to atheist and faith issues because some people believe in a so-called 'God particle').

No. First of all, science and atheism have no relation to one another. Second, the name "god particle" is missing one little word. Namely "damned". It was in a book, and the writer wanted to write "god damned particle", because it was so god damned hard to find. The publisher or editor or whomever, decided to remove that word. The name of the particle is "Higgs boson".

And FYI: don't go babbling on about science you don't understand just because you read it in the interwebz. Collisions like this happen every single day, at a rate much higher than the LHC could ever produce, and with energies far greater than it can muster. Ever heard of the sun? That giant ball of plasma, representing about 98% of the mass of the entire solar system? Yeah, that thing spits out particle radiation that would kill you in seconds without protection (such as the Earth's magnetosphere), and those particles are much more energetic than the ones used in the LHC, which represents a tiny fraction of the mass of the Earth, and an irrelevant fraction of the mass of the solar system. Those particles also react the same way that they do in the LHC, but with a lot more interference in the upper layers of the atmosphere. In the LHC, we got two protons colliding a while ago. Since then, more protons have collided with our upper atmosphere than all the particles used in accelerators on Earth since the first accelerator was ever turned on. If those reactions were catastrophically dangerous, we'd never have been born, because the sun has been here for about as long as the Earth itself, spitting out oodles of radiation since it first started fusion reaction.

[pocaracas]

[Cyberman]

[One Above All]

[Homeless Nutter]

[...] (The LHC is somewhat related to atheist and faith issues because some people believe in a so-called 'God particle'). [...]

Nope. LHC is no more related to atheism, or faith, than any other scientific enterprise. Just because some ignorant people with a religious agenda call Higgs boson a "God particle" does not make it a religious matter. Many politically motivated people all over the world call the president of USA (any of the recent ones anyway) "the Antichrist", or "Satan". Should we then say presidential elections in US are related to the Apocalypse?

Religions don't like science, because all the "knowledge" they offer has been obtained thousands of years ago, by primitive tribes and hasn't been updated since. Modern science makes religions look stupid, irrelevant, obsolete and harmful. Which is why they're trying to interfere and spread propaganda, whenever any scientific project becomes popular in the media.

Scientists are - for the most part - happy to simply ignore religion and let the fruits of their work speak for themselves. Religions are concerned about people not giving them money anymore, since they produce nothing of any practical use, while science does. They should be worried, but that doesn't mean they get a say in any scientific discussion. Their only goal is to slow down and control progress, in order to keep their power and income.

And let's ask a question - what is the necessity of building giant statues and churches, especially compared to other global "urgencies", like famine and disease? If there is a god and he hates idolatry - like almost all religions claim he does - on the judgement day every statue and church dedicated to the "wrong" god will jeopardize salvation of the people. Why not just stop all that, until we are sure which god we should worship and use the resources saved to feed and heal people? Believe me - we could build dozens of LHCs, for the money being thrown away on religion...

[polar bear]

Borrowing from Bill Maher. NEW RULE...if you make your subject of your OP "LHC" you must provide new and productive information about it. I get geeked up when I read about it and this thread went into some weird direction.