Madelaine McMasters

16 wrote: Theresa Tennyson wrote: 16 wrote: edit: can try the easy one first: assertion: there is no God There's no way we can have an intelligent discussion on that topic without determining what sort if God there may be or not be. The word "God" can be applied to everything from old-guy-on-a-cloud who created the Universe as a sort of craft project to something like the Hindu Brahman, which is a sort of creative force so huge and incomprehensible that according to some schools it can't even be THOUGH about by our little minds - as soon as you think you're thinking about Brahman, you're actually thinking about a sort of fake or decaffeinated shadow of Brahman because we can't handle the whole thing. It's like talking about a "door" - that sounds like an easy concept at first, but what's the nature of a door? Is the big thing on your garage a door? Very different than the one you first thought of, probably. How about a cat door? Or Ray Manzarek? Any religion can be shot down if take the teachings literally. Metaphorically? Harder to take down. And if you look at a lot of religions when you get past a literal interpretation of the words a lot of them seem to be reaching toward something that sounds pretty similar. when i think about God i used to start with questions like :is there a God. what is God? stuff like that. is no satisfactory answers for them. not to me personally when i think about God now then i start with: what is our/my purpose for God? how does this affect or influence us/me? i dont know what is the answers to these either really. it just makes it easier for me to think about it And... http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/49/2/Religion.htm And finally...

Deltango Vale wrote: Holy crap! I thought I held the record for long-winded posts, but this beats me by miles. Here's your chance to regain the crown, Del!

bejjinks wrote: Pavanne wrote: But to try and conclude from this that there is no choice is not only erroneous, you just can't get there from here. This is what I was referring to in my post. You said that I conclude that there i no choice. If you had read what I wrote, you would have seen that I said we do have a choice. We cannot choose what we believe but we can choose how we handle evidence. Your messages are failing because you are completely missing the point. Of course some Balkans chose to look at the evidence and therefore rejected racism. What I'm saying is they didn't one day wake up and say, "I think I'll be a racist today" and then wake up another day and say, "I think I'll stop being a racist today." First they examined their beliefs. That is a choice. Examining their beliefs led to a change of beliefs. Hypothetical: Someone chooses to let his dog outside without a leash and this choice leads to his dog being picked up by the pound. That person didn't choose to have his dog picked up by the pound but he did have a choice that led to his dog being picked up by the pound. What I am saying is we choose to examine evidence and by examining evidence, that leads to a change of belief. We didn't choose the belief but we chose to examine the evidence that led to the change of belief. It seems to me that any reasonably intelligent person who chooses to examine evidence that challenges their beliefs has allowed for the possibility that the evidence will be strong enough to make them reconsider. So, people can indeed choose to change their beliefs. Whether they do so without reason, or by purposely exposing themselves to ideas they think might change their mind, makes no difference. From my vantage point in this discussion, you have either contradicted yourself, or suggested that people are witless.

Arkady Arkright wrote: 16 wrote: why is it on the interwebz that whenever there is a debate about theology someone comes along and wants scientific evidence of a theological statement Because without real provable evidence it's just your opinion - no more or less valid than anyone else's baseless assumptions. 16 wrote: i take it that you do know the difference between theology and science. Yes - theology is a set of fables designed to enslave otherwise free minds, whereas science is an attempt to describe the world as it is, not as whoever indoctrinated the 'believer' wishes it to be. I think your assessment of theology sounds a bit harsh, Arkady. No doubt theology has been used as you describe, but it's not always so, is it? If our irrational predilection for thoughts of the supernatural, particularly in the form of overseeing, caring gods and eternal life after death, evolved as a coping mechanism, then aren't we slaves to our own evolution? Once we recognize this in ourselves (and I believe we have for ages), it's not unthinkable that people will work others for their own advantage (or the advantage of the species), but also not unthinkable that people will develop irrational belief systems simply because that's what we do. So, knowing that we like to think of stuff like this, my concern arises not so much over our doing it, but over harm coming from it. Of course, that opens up another can of worms. Who defines what harm is? This becomes even more problematic when there is scientific evidence that mental state affects physical health. So, challenging someone's belief system can induce stress that's ultimately unhealthy. I don't think we're going to keep an impenetrable firewall between science and theology for this reason. Thankfully, the complexity of these issues and my uncertainty over them don't stress me, so I'm able to admit this is a huge hairball without losing sleep over it. I do, however, hope to attain the health benefits that "faith" seems to bring by doing the sorts of social things that often accompany religion. My recent experience hosting a potluck dinner has left my refrigerator filled with food rich enough to clog my arteries. So, even these efforts leave me uncertain of their benefit. ;-)

bejjinks wrote: To those of you who keep insisting that brainwashing is easy and especially to those who claim that parents brainwash their children into religious beliefs, here's my reply. Boo hoo. Pity Pity. You can't take the responsibility for your own gullibility so you have to blame it on others. "Yes judge, I let that mean old woman convince me that blue balloons float and green balloons sink. It's all that mean old woman's fault. We must enact laws preventing people from speaking because all they have to do is say something and I believe them without question. But it's not my fault. I'm the victim here." Madelaine, you didn't brainwash those kids. Those kids chose to listen to you and believe you. But those kids will eventually figure out that you were lying and then they'll never trust you again. And Deja, if you were brainwashed, why aren't you a Catholic now? Propaganda is not the same as brainwashing. Propaganda still leaves you with a choice of whether to accept it or not. If people accept the propaganda then the people who accepted the propaganda are at fault. They're not brainwashed. They're just blinding themselves to the evidence. I don't think the parents on those south sea islands thought they were lying to their children when they explained the magic of the cargo ships. And having no other explanation, those children grew up believing the explanations and carrying on the traditions. Eventually some of them probably found evidence to contradict the explanations and the cults faded away, but the existence of one or two cargo cults, more than 60 years after the last magical visitation, suggests we are perfectly capable of carrying belief systems well past their expiration date. As for children trusting me, my eighteen year old neighbor, who heads off to college this week, says I'm the biggest nut on his phone's speed-dial list.

Deja Letov wrote: Something you should also know in your industry, is that brainwashing does not only happen through tiredness or hunger. It also happens quite frequently through the use of propoganda, torture or just manipulative tactics. And to say the average person is IMPOSSIBLE to brainwash is very inaccurate. Perhaps you should read up on the Korean War before making that statement. Some were brainwashed through hunger and sleep deprevation but some where also simply brainwashed by means of guilt, social pressure or just plain old psychological harassment. I agree. One needn't do anything out of the ordinary to pin a belief to the corkboard of someone's mind. I can't count how many times I've offered up a completely absurd explanation for something, only to have it believed completely. All it takes is for my explanation to map reasonably well onto someone's already existing world view. I could take a young child out into my yard on a beautiful sunny afternoon and convince them that blue balloons float and green balloons sink because colors like their own kind. Absent any other explanation, and delivered with sufficient sincerity (I can fake sincerity with the best of you), why wouldn't the child believe me? It's not hard to imagine a child raised in a loving, nurturing enviroment filled with absurd explanations for their experiences. In fact, I don't have to imagine it at all, I was raised in that environment. Fortunately, those absurd explanations, which delight me to this day, were often accompanied by experiments showing that another explanation, in this case buoyancy and the density of various gases, is also delightful, and can be verified. My SL friends believe I own a tractor, simply because I have told them so. My RL friends believe I have a tractor because some of them have helped me fix it, watched it dig up their yard, or been induced to mow my lawn with it. Notice that the evidence available to each group of friends is vastly different, but their beliefs about my tractor are not. During WWII, natives of isolated South Pacific islands were awed by the visitations of military cargo ships preparing supply bases in the region. To secure the cooperation of the natives, the ships brought amazing gifts, the likes of which they had never seen (Manhattan for $24 in beads!). The technologies possessed by the military were so advanced as to seem like magic (Clarke's Law). When the war ended and the supply ships vanished, the natives began performing rituals, such as painting themselves to look like soldiers and marching on the beaches, hoping for the return of the "Cargo Gods". Cargo Cults were born. I don't think the US set out to indoctrinate the island natives in some sort of religious worship, it just happened naturally. We were witness to the creation of religions from nothing over a very short period of time. Although most of the cargo cults have faded, one or two remain to this day. And so belief systems spring from our evolved ability to see patterns and associate effects with causes. In ancient times, these mechanisms were sufficient to protect us from the perils of the day (predation) and to allow us to plan complex strategies (astronomy based agriculture). The reduction in stress offered by associating cause and effect (and thereby being able to anticipate and avoid harm) offers an explanation for belief in things, even if they may not be true, so long as the danger of the false belief is less than the benefit of the stress reduction. But, when the peril of false belief outweighs the benefits, harm comes. The resurgence of infectious disease due to rejection of vaccines for their imagined role in Autism is just one example. And so we must be ever vigilant for the errors in judgment that are so natural for us to make, and the ability of people to exploit that weakness, regardless of intent.

VRprofessor wrote: Madelaine McMasters wrote: When I took statistical analysis in grad school, the professor truly impressed me with his introductory lecture. He passionately argued that we are so thoroughly wired to find patterns that we see them where none exist and attribute causation where there is scarcely correlation. This was human nature and his job was to help us corral that nature so we could look at a thing and "In our hearts, know that it is right." He was not so much concerned that we master the mathematics of statistics (though we'd not pass if we didn't), but to make us ever aware of how easily we fool ourselves, and to recognize the situations in which we are particularly vulnerable. We've evolved a natural bias that we can escape only by education. Absent the intellectual endeavors of countless "doubters" before us, we'd be unable to see that the "magic" of the world around is is not magic at all, but the even more wondrous result of complex processes governed by laws we're still trying to understand. The truth may be out there for us to grasp, but we've not yet reached it. Vast numbers of humans claim to have looked at the evidence, without dogma, without bias and without coercion, and from that have come to wildly different and often conflicting beliefs. My heart tells me they can't all be right. Good prof. That is the very message I try to teach my students. For anyone who cares to read a few hundred very readable pages on the flaws inherant in human reasoning I can recommend Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow which pretty neatly summarize approximately 40 years of reasearch into the study of human decision making. Adding just a bit: Science concerns itself with the natural world. God exists in the supernatural world. Any one who claims a "scientific analysis" of the evidence for/against God is speaking nonsense. In the usual and scientific sense there can be no "evidence" of/against God. There can be only what you feel and believe. Those who confuse religion and science diminish both. I'm quite happy to let religion and science play in their own sandboxes. Science has been accumulating sand at an ever increasing rate, yet religion's sandbox never seems to empty. I expect this to continue. I've never been comfortable calling myself an athiest, as that seems to require more certainty than I can muster. I don't believe there is a creator, but I can't prove their isn't. I relegate the existence of a creator, or not, to the ever increasing pile of things I don't now. I'm a very curious person and love learning. The irony of "the more I learn, the more I don't know" amuses the heck out of me.

Celestiall Nightfire wrote: bejjinks wrote: I am a psychologist so I do know about brainwashing. bejjinks wrote: .....because I believe that if people would honestly look at the evidence without dogma, without bias, without coercion, than people would come to the same beliefs I have. To convince people of the truth, coercion isn't necessary. I agree! So, you're now an atheist same as me right? Because, if you would honestly look at the evidence, without dogma, with bias, without coercion, then you would come to the same beliefs I have. (Do I even need to point out the failure of your logic?) When I took statistical analysis in grad school, the professor truly impressed me with his introductory lecture. He passionately argued that we are so thoroughly wired to find patterns that we see them where none exist and attribute causation where there is scarcely correlation. This was human nature and his job was to help us corral that nature so we could look at a thing and "In our hearts, know that it is right." He was not so much concerned that we master the mathematics of statistics (though we'd not pass if we didn't), but to make us ever aware of how easily we fool ourselves, and to recognize the situations in which we are particularly vulnerable. We've evolved a natural bias that we can escape only by education. Absent the intellectual endeavors of countless "doubters" before us, we'd be unable to see that the "magic" of the world around is is not magic at all, but the even more wondrous result of complex processes governed by laws we're still trying to understand. The truth may be out there for us to grasp, but we've not yet reached it. Vast numbers of humans claim to have looked at the evidence, without dogma, without bias and without coercion, and from that have come to wildly different and often conflicting beliefs. My heart tells me they can't all be right.

Ingrim wrote: why is this "Game" so boring? theres litterally nothing to do in it. no goals, nothing. its completely pointless. What do you think of real life, which seems to share many of the same attributes?

... wakes up and gives Val a hug, Hippie a pinch and Lia a peer over her glasses.

leon Bowler wrote: All I see is words that someone else told you, not one original idea, not one of you has added a thing to this thread, you have only added words that someone else told you, as to Hawkins name, yes I spelt it wrong, but it was the the chairman of radamec "Jim Dan...." that offered the meeting that I turned down, even though he still invested in my ideas. I have patents in wave tech, regardless of what all you say, I doubt whether any of you reach anywhere near my level, when one of you have an idea that is your own rather than something you heard then I will chat with you, but not one reply here is worth answering Although I've repeated ideas of others, I've also verified them for consistency myself. Given the choice between believing that the observations I've made support what I've been told, and believing that you are on the verge of proving everything we know is wrong, I must agree that I doubt whether I reach anywhere near your level.

Ceka Cianci wrote: Madelaine McMasters wrote: Ceka Cianci wrote: Madelaine McMasters wrote: Ceka Cianci wrote: we'll never know Never say never! sorry i didn't mean it as we as a spiecies..more like we as in our lifetime..hehehe Still never say never. Either hope you live long enough to see the answer or hope they hurry up and find it! Personally, I'll hope they take their time finding the answer and I'm still alive to witness it. I love a good mystery. i'm just thinking that if we could ever actually reach the speed of light to even send someone or something.. that by the time the person or thing even reached the speed of light..something like 2million years i think would pass for us when they or it just reached it.. not counting the journey itself.. Ceka, we've been sending messages since Tesla's first radio transmissions in 1892. Those signals have now reached out 120 light years, encompassing more than 15,000 stars. If Philip Rosedale gave any broadcast interviews in 1999, as he was forming LindenWorld, that would have reached 33 stars by now. In a bit more than a hundred years from now, our signals will have reached more than a quarter million stars. I imagine that other civilizations have developed the ability to send radio signals and are wondering when they'll hear back. If, like us, they developed nuclear weapons shortly after developing radio, I must also wonder if they'll survive the wait for a reply. I've a friend who doesn't think it likely for any civilization to learn to harness the power necessary for interstellar flight without first destroying itself. That's his argument against visitation by aliens. I'm a bit more optimistic.

Ceka Cianci wrote: Madelaine McMasters wrote: Ceka Cianci wrote: we'll never know Never say never! sorry i didn't mean it as we as a spiecies..more like we as in our lifetime..hehehe Still never say never. Either hope you live long enough to see the answer or hope they hurry up and find it! Personally, I'll hope they take their time finding the answer and I'm still alive to witness it. I love a good mystery.

Eagle Himmel wrote: Hi guys. I use to use qavimator for all the animation I did in sl. I liked it because it was very easy to use and it was free. However they haven't updated it since 2007 and it won't work with the new Lion operating system. I need a program that is free or very inexpensive that does good animations that is easy to learn, and all for the mac. Anyone know of such a program? Eagle, I think you've got an old PowerPC version of QAvimator, which requires the no longer available Rosetta. A link to the "Universal" version can be found here... http://referencethis.com/QAvimator-osx-universal-svn-2008-12-06.zip

8-22-1953 Port Washington, WI town drunk Ian McFarland nicks himself while shaving and loses so much blood his eyes clear up. (Thank you, Phyllis Diller) 8-22-2012 The Republican National Committee sends out 113 million e-mails distancing itself from Todd Akin, taking the spam e-mail crown from the Storm botnet which held the record since 2007. 8-22-2143 Roberta Wheeler's sixth grade science class in suburban Chicago constructs an Earth piercing laser and points it straight down, hoping to drill to China. The students are shocked when saltwater gushes from the hole, leading geography teacher Steven "Kettle" Morraine to shake his head and propose a field trip to Shelby, Montana.

Perrie Juran wrote: Madelaine McMasters wrote: 8-20-2012 After 58 years of making us laugh, Phyllis Diller finally exits the stage to go off dancing with Fang. (At 42, I don't look as good in a minidress as she did at 95.) 8-21-2012 Failing her third attempt to swim between Cuba and the US, Dianna Nyad declares that her dislike of box jellyfish has grown to abject hatred. 8-21-2042 Nonogenerian Dianna Nyad finally "swims" the distance from Cuba to the US, on her 33rd attempt, by floating on a large smack of box jellyfish trained to follow a hydrophone playing Beatles music. If you've ever run into a bloom of jellyfish you'd hate them also. Fascinating creatures but if I never encountered one again in the water I'd not complain. I stepped on a Portuguese Man O' War when I was little, which taught me that if you're gonna panic, it's better to do it on a beach than in the water. Have you ever heard Ms. Nyad speak? She's a fascinating creature too, and very impressive.

Ceka Cianci wrote: we'll never know Never say never!

Phil Deakins wrote: And will you lot stop talking about astronomy please. All that discusssion is actually tempting me to take it up! ... bats her eyelashes and enjoys the idea that she can still play the temptress.

Phil Deakins wrote: Madelaine McMasters wrote: What you will see me argue is that I see no evidence that a creator is taking an active role in daily life, nor that all the intricacies of existence were mapped out by a grand planner. Maybe someday an experiment will show otherwise, but until then, I think it's more likely that people are praying to their imaginations because the "side effects" of that particular irrationality have proved evolutionarily advantageous. You haven't seen me argue that either. I've never mentioned or even hinted at an intelligent creator, and yet we seem opposed in this discussion Things like the cosmic microwave background do point towards the Big Bang, but have nothing to say about time before that point. If we are confined to witnessing only four of a potential ten or eleven dimensions, we may never know what the heck is going on. If the "always there" idea doesn't hold any water, then the universe simply appeared from nowhere/nothing. While I'm happy to call that a creation, it eliminates the creator. That's okay by me, as is the "always there" idea. That all falls into the vast pool of "things I don't know". I didn't say you were arguing for an intelligent creator, just that I argue against it. As far as I can see, we're in general agreement. You favor a particular cosmology, I'm ignorant enough of all the details that I have to admit to preferring the explanations that seem weirdest, but with no expectation they're right. I can't tell if I'm open-minded, or gullible ;-)

Ceka Cianci wrote: i almost wrecked the mower one time cause i got so lost in thought lol almost drove it off into the ditch heheheh I'm the same way. I'm off to mow the lawn with my tractor. If you never hear from me again, you'll know why. ;-)

8-20-2012 After 58 years of making us laugh, Phyllis Diller finally exits the stage to go off dancing with Fang. (At 42, I don't look as good in a minidress as she did at 95.) 8-21-2012 Failing her third attempt to swim between Cuba and the US, Dianna Nyad declares that her dislike of box jellyfish has grown to abject hatred. 8-21-2042 Nonogenerian Dianna Nyad finally "swims" the distance from Cuba to the US, on her 33rd attempt, by floating on a large smack of box jellyfish trained to follow a hydrophone playing Beatles music.

Ceka Cianci wrote: Madelaine McMasters wrote: Nyll Bergbahn wrote: Madelaine McMasters wrote: Multiverse theory neatly disposes of the argument that conditions for life are just too finely tuned to have produced us by accident. If there are an infinite number of universes, there's plenty of opportunity to stumble across the conditions that support everything we observe in our own. The fact that we happen to live in this universe guarantees we'll witness the astronomically unlikely possibility of our own existence. Take two dramamine and enjoy the ride, Nyll! lol. Then I have to wonder where these infinite number of universes are in relation to ours and why aren't they merging or bumping against each other and what is our universe expanding into and..and..{reaches for the Draminine lol] The multiverse proponents postulate that these infinite other universes coexist in a higher dimensional space than the four we perceive (I've heard of theories involving from 10 to 26 total dimensions). Those additional dimensions are difficult to grasp. Imagine a ream of printer paper (which we once called typing paper, then copy paper ;-) filled with creatures that can perceive only the two dimensions of their home sheet. Each sheet would be totally unaware of the other sheets in the ream. Now imagine drilling a hole through the ream of paper with your drill press (every girl needs one!). In the few seconds it takes you to drill that hole, 500 little worlds will report news of some mysterious thing (the drill bit) magically appearing "out of nowhere". Now imagine somehow growing one of the sheets of paper (expansion of that universe). None of the other sheets would be aware. That's how you get endless universes occuping and expanding in the same "space" without interfering with each other. The sheets are occupying a space with more dimensions than they perceive. And so it may be for us, sharing an eleven dimension multiverse with countless other universes, which may themselves have access to more than four of the eleven dimensions, but never all of them, which would allow them access to us and us to access them. also for them to be banging into each other if they were in say the same dimension..they could do that.. but we would never know it.. look at when two galaxies collide.. our solar system might not even know it ever happened..but the time span would be like forever to us.. and the time it would take from the moment of impact to the time it was over for a universe and another universe.. just the moment of impact could take gabzillions of years.. the farther we go out that way the longer it takes stuff to happen.. we may already be colliding with another universe hehehehe OR!!! what if there are a bunch of them and they are in something like a solar system? to where they will never collide..like planets are in their own rings.. omg i'm never gonna get mah chores done today now lol Go back to that ream of paper analogy. Let's say you and I live on one of the sheets and we want to go to lunch together. You call me up and say "Maddy, I'll meet you one inch from the bottom and one inch left of the right edge, at noon" and we're good. Meanwhile, our cosmic sisters on the sheet below do the same thing. Another Ceka calls another Maddy and arranges to meet "one inch from the bottom and one inch left of the right edge, at noon". Well, lookit that! We're all going to lunch in exactly the same place (in both universes, you specifed the location of our lunch accurately and completely), but we don't run into the other Ceka and Maddy. How is that possible? It's because there's a dimension "Z" that we don't know about, and so we aren't really all going to the same place. Now, imagine that the sheets of paper are vanishingly thin, if they weren't, they wouldn't be two dimensional. That means that, although our two lunch date pairs are completely unaware of each other, they're actually vanishingly close together. In fact so close that, by our standards of measurement, we ARE in the same place. This is how the string theorists imagine things. Those extra dimensions (and the worlds they contain) are coiled up into spaces so small we may never be able to detect them. The size of this little space is the "Planck length" which is theorized to be the smallest distance measurable. ETA: I forgot to thank you for lunch!!! ;-)

Nyll Bergbahn wrote: Madelaine McMasters wrote: Multiverse theory neatly disposes of the argument that conditions for life are just too finely tuned to have produced us by accident. If there are an infinite number of universes, there's plenty of opportunity to stumble across the conditions that support everything we observe in our own. The fact that we happen to live in this universe guarantees we'll witness the astronomically unlikely possibility of our own existence. Take two dramamine and enjoy the ride, Nyll! lol. Then I have to wonder where these infinite number of universes are in relation to ours and why aren't they merging or bumping against each other and what is our universe expanding into and..and..{reaches for the Draminine lol] The multiverse proponents postulate that these infinite other universes coexist in a higher dimensional space than the four we perceive (I've heard of theories involving from 10 to 26 total dimensions). Those additional dimensions are difficult to grasp. Imagine a ream of printer paper (which we once called typing paper, then copy paper ;-) filled with creatures that can perceive only the two dimensions of their home sheet. Each sheet would be totally unaware of the other sheets in the ream. Now imagine drilling a hole through the ream of paper with your drill press (every girl needs one!). In the few seconds it takes you to drill that hole, 500 little worlds will report news of some mysterious thing (the drill bit) magically appearing "out of nowhere". Now imagine somehow growing one of the sheets of paper (expansion of that universe). None of the other sheets would be aware. That's how you get endless universes occuping and expanding in the same "space" without interfering with each other. The sheets are occupying a space with more dimensions than they perceive. And so it may be for us, sharing an eleven dimension multiverse with countless other universes, which may themselves have access to more than four of the eleven dimensions, but never all of them, which would allow them access to us and us to access them.

Phil Deakins wrote: Madelaine McMasters wrote: While it may be that we ultimately can't prove the presence or absence of creation, science doesn't really care, does it? It simply seeks to find the truth, as revealed by nature. Science is done by people who may care about such things, but the overall messy process seems to be able to make progress even so. No, science doesn't care about how existance came into being, because science knows that it'll never find out. Science can only deal with existance. I don't believe science knows it'll never find out. I do believe science does not know if it will ever find out. There's a difference. One might make a case for people having an interest in refuting creators that take an active role in daily human life, and can therefore be used as instruments of coercion (my God is the one true God, so I can rightfully take your stuff), but I can't see a reason for people to expend tremendous energy railing against the idea that our universe might have been "created" as a random result of physical laws we've not yet understood. And yet, when I said that the universe must have been created by someone or something, you argued against it No I didn't. I've highlighted the two negatives that might have obscured the fact that I don't know whether the big bang was the only bang or if it'll be followed by the big crunch in a "string of pearls" oscillating cosmology, or if there are an infiinite number of big bangs (or other methods of starting universes) occuring as we speak. I'll let the cosmologists, particle physicists and theoriticians work their way through these considerations. What you will see me argue is that I see no evidence that a creator is taking an active role in daily life, nor that all the intricacies of existence were mapped out by a grand planner. Maybe someday an experiment will show otherwise, but until then, I think it's more likely that people are praying to their imaginations because the "side effects" of that particular irrationality have proved evolutionarily advantageous. Whether something always existed or simply popped out of nowhere is the sort of philosophical question best left to philosophers. I don't see a way to use the term "creator" without implying more than the evidence suggests... so far. It's not that I prefer a "creator" not to be the case, I think it's that most people prefer that "creator" be the case. I've seen more evidence to explain the latter than the former. But the evidence literally suggests that the universe was created. The fact that the universe exists is all the evidence necessary. The only alternative is the 'always there' idea, which doesn't hold any water. I think that most scientists prefer an 'intelligent creator' not to be the case. Things like the cosmic microwave background do point towards the Big Bang, but have nothing to say about time before that point. If we are confined to witnessing only four of a potential ten or eleven dimensions, we may never know what the heck is going on. If the "always there" idea doesn't hold any water, then the universe simply appeared from nowhere/nothing. While I'm happy to call that a creation, it eliminates the creator. That's okay by me, as is the "always there" idea. That all falls into the vast pool of "things I don't know". You didn't provide any alternative ways that existance might have come into being. You said you could think of many of them. Sure, I could propose that I'm imagining all this, making you the creation of my mind. That sounded pretty stupid when my philosophy professor proposed it to me 25 years ago, and I countered that if I was imagining it all, and I had free will, I'd imagine him proposing a better explanation for his own existence. I'm sure he'd heard such retorts before. I could imagine that the laws of physics change over time in a way we can't detect. I bolded the important words in that theory, as they can be grafted on to the tail end of any silly theory, rendering it unassailable and potentially pointless. This is an accusation the string theorists face. While I can imagine literally endless explanations for all we see, just like people have done for thousands of years, I wouldn't believe a single one of them. Figuring this out will be a cooperatve venture. No one of us has the wherewithall to collect the needed evidence to reject the theories we're advancing. And so, like most of humanity, I must have faith in something outside of myself. But unlike most of humanity, I won't extend my faith outside humanity. Excuse the purple, Phil, it's my favorite color today ;-)

Dillon Levenque wrote: Nyll Bergbahn wrote: Jupiter's moons are fun to watch. With binoculars on a tripod to avoid hand shake, all four principal moons should be easy assuming none hidden behind Jupiter or in transit. My first view through a decent telescope was of Saturn and its rings, absolutely gorgeous. It blew me away to realise I could see such wonders with my own eyes. The furthest I've ever seen into the universe with my telescope was the brightest quasar 3C273 at 2.4 billion light years. I've no tripod mount for the binocs and no equatorial for the telescope, so as you know even the Moon and the planets require constant adjustment. Going for distance would be a waste of time. I have with my eyes seen Andromeda, at 2.5 million light years. You're only a thousand times farther out :-). Ooooh, I've gotta go looking for 3C273, it's four trillion times brighter than our Sun! Sunscreen for inhabitants of that solar system would have to come in huge tubes, just to make room for the SPF number. I saw supernova SN1998S, 50 million light years away. Not as far as Nyll's observation, but it was a transient event and those are neat too, unless you live nearby.