[Fingers of a Martyr]

bloody hell fingers.one minute your on about how to get high on pseudo drugs then the next your discussing religon.it usually takes folk years of real drug abuse to get to this stage.

 

MOLOCH

[a dense loner]

fingers, there's no atheists in foxholes

[Fingers of a Martyr]

eh?  :?   :roll: didn't get that?

[Bubba]

He means that when you're on the battlefield about to be blown to tiny pieces, you'll most likely pray your ass off.

[Fingers of a Martyr]

He means that when you're on the battlefield about to be blown to tiny pieces, you'll most likely pray your ass off.

i wonder why that is though?

i mean lets say your on a plane with 300 other people and it crashes and only you survive. would you think it was chance or divine intervention? i've always felt that thinking the latter is a tad arrogant because it assumes that 'god' valued your life more than the three hundred other people.

[webbo]

i think the point being made is that when your facing imminent destruction with no apparent way out you may find that religion is your only hope.but i guess you may need to be there.

[dave]

what about scientology, whatz all that guuf about>?

[Bubba]

i think the point being made is that when your facing imminent destruction with no apparent way out you may find that religion is your only hope.but i guess you may need to be there.

Exactly - I've read about grown men in battle pissing and shitting their pants, and crying like babies for their mothers. At such times I imagine prayers would trip off your tongue, no matter what your beliefs are back at home.

Nothing like fear and desperation for making people clutch at any straws they think might help them. It doesn't suddenly turn them into christians and believers - it's just a cry for help.

[vivahate]

what about scientology, whatz all that guuf about>?

stealing your money mainly

[Fingers of a Martyr]

what about scientology, whatz all that guuf about>?

scientology is a load of shite. go to www.rotten.com/library then into the religion bit and there should be an article about it. then again it might be under the hoaxes section. seriously.

don't get it mixed up with the Church of Christ Scientists though, which is a totally different ball game. one of the most dangerous cults to be a part of in you're a new born baby. :evil: . fuckin weirdos.

[Fingers of a Martyr]

Nothing like fear and desperation for making people clutch at any straws they think might help them. It doesn't suddenly turn them into christians and believers - it's just a cry for help.

i remember hearing this true story and finding it interesting.

mother and father have a 3 month year old daughter. sadly they are drivin along and a bit of scaffolding falls through the back window and kills the baby instantly.

before this the mother was a die hard 'christian', church and hymns every sunday and all the rest of it. father was die hard atheist, no chance of any form of 'god' etc.

after their daughter's death they switched views like swapping a couple of pokemon cards :?

mother lost all faith and abandoned religion, father gets 'born again' so to speak.

[Nigel]

i reckon if 'science' can prove that you can get something from 'nothing' then there'd be no need for 'god'. but it's a pretty big if.

Yes it is. However they've already done it in a way, by way of the Quantum theory, which says that particles can randomly 'pop' in and out of existence without a cause. But they haven't disproved God.

However I think it is fairly clear to most people that "God" in the sense meant by most organized religions is completely made up. In fact some go further and postulate the idea of religions as "memes", or social viruses. So as a Buddhist (atheists by the way) would no doubt say, stop comtemplating "wrong views" (ones with no valid support) and apply yourself to something more productive. I suggest understanding the infinite. I reckon if you can do that then you ain't far off a God yourself  :shock:

[Fingers of a Martyr]

i like the 'memes' idea :D . religion has an evolution that is just as traceable as human evolution is. in fact probably more so as their probably aren't as many missing links.

in regards to the something from nothing thing, well i suppose you're right. i think, from what i've read, that a electron and proton come into being simultaneously then destroy each other instantaneously without any trace of them being there. i.e no energy :shock: fuck knows, maybe i've got that wrong but i think thats what's been proposed. so physisists agree that the universe couldn't have been created this way.

and i think, although i'm probably wrong again here, in order for this to happen u need 'a void' and 'time'. isn't the beginning of time usually considered to have started with the universe.

JR? :D

I suggest understanding the infinite

imagine a circle :wink:

[Nigel]

You're pretty much OK with the quantum idea, although there is the view that this could be the origin of the universe, it is mentioned in the article you linked to so I won't expand on it.

and i think, although i'm probably wrong again here, in order for this to happen u need 'a void' and 'time'. isn't the beginning of time usually considered to have started with the universe.

You do need a void, otherwise its nihilism. Time? Semantics really. Since time is really a spacial dimension and a void would have dimensions, it depends what you fancy. And that plunges you into the murky world of the observer and your place/effect on all of it.

Probably the neatest version is that this universe popped out of vacuum/black hole/back pocket in some other universe, which popped out of another, which popped out of....you get the picture. This removes any convential conceptual difficulty regarding "boundaries" (starts, finishes etc.) and replaces it with really only one problem, which is infinity. Which was always about anyway so conceptually we're simplifying things. Mind you, there really isn't any problem at all with infinity as such, only the fact that we can't comprehend it. And if you accept that then there isn't much bother at all.

However if you do manage to get you noggin around it you'll probably become "enlightened"   , since this infinite regress of causes with no beginning is the same as the Buddhist view.

[Fingers of a Martyr]

regardin the idea we popped out of another universe through a black hole. doesn't this cause more problems than it answers?

if the universe is expanding into nothingness, shouldn't it, theoretically, not be expanding into the universe from which the black hole that started our universe of?

if the 'bounce' theory has been discredited doesn't that not kinda discredit the black hole thing as well.

i.e if our universe collapses it hasn't got enough matter to cause an 'explosion' for it to expand again so doesn't that mean it can't have done it in the first place through the black hole theory?

[Nigel]

if the universe is expanding into nothingness, shouldn't it, theoretically, not be expanding into the universe from which the black hole that started our universe of?

No. If the universe was a product of a Black Hole it wouldn't expand into the universe of the Black Hole. Quite simply because nothing can escape from a BH. So the new universe would be contained within the BH and not come out of it. However none of it is as simple as that since guess what? All of this would have to arise "the other side" of the singularity, which is a boundary condition encapsulating, guess what; infinity. And we all know what problems that can cause.

On the other point - who says the universe is expanding into nothingness anyway?

And back on topic - you spelt religion wrong!

[Fingers of a Martyr]

i got a bit lost with that last post. :cry:

but basically if our universe doesn't have enough matter to expand again if it collapses in on itself doesn't this prove that it could never have 'bounced' in the first place?

On the other point - who says the universe is expanding into nothingness anyway?

i dunno i got told that in school. is it?

[Nigel]

You got told it in school! I defer to that...

[Fingers of a Martyr]

:roll:

[Stu Littlefair]

Black holes, quantum relativity, multiple universes - is this a bouldering site.  :?

The other day I was chatting to Sir Martin Rees, who is a strong advocate of avoiding an inital conception for the universe using lots of little universes connected through wormholes. The idea is that new universes get squeezed out of wormholes like toothpaste. Not exactly like toothpaste, obviously.

As Paz will confirm, all this silliness really arises because we dont have a good theory for what happens in the very early universe. After a few femto-seconds things make sense, but much earlier than that and we've got nasty zeros floating around the place, and they dont make much sense. Which pretty much leaves people open to invent what they want.

All I know is that even if we DO get a good theory of quantum gravity, it won't fix my tendons.

[AndyR]

Fuck this, I'm off to boldering.com to check out the mams thread....