Belief is a hard structure to break.

I don't care what other people believe as long as they don't push it on me...when they push it on me I like defying it with logic.

Archie comes from Archimedes

No, I am a mathematician and a computer scientist by training, and a loser by trade.

I don't want to make you even more depressed, Archie... honest, I honestly don't, but I don't see that A+B=C.

I seriously doubt that you have the faintest clue what I "believe".

I don't "believe" in anything any more strongly the String Theorists "believe" in strings.

You seem to be out to science as a some sort of 'club' to beat other people over the head with in the utterly false pretense that science somehow supports your views over theirs.

That, my friend, is your delusion, not mine.

I'm complete harmony with everything that science and the scientific method stands for. Nothing I say goes against science.

I don't need to prove my conjectures because conjectures don't require proof. Moreover, I have already demonstarted more than sufficient observational evidence for the existence of 'spirit' as I define it.

What you might argue with is my definition of 'spirit'. But that moves over to philosophy and is totally out of the realm of science.

What I can, and have shown, is that it makes just as much sense based on current modern scientific theories to suggest that the physical universe arises from "consciousness", as it does to suggest that "consciousness" arises from the physics. The scientific observation that information must exist in the quantum vacuum, and must have also preexisted the Big Bang, is all the 'evidence' I need to support my theories and conjectures.

Therefore my philosophy is as much in harmony with the knowledge of science as anyone's.

The bottom line is that science does support your views over mine. You Sir, are grossly misrepresenting science and exhibiting your own ignorance of science by even remotely suggesting that it does.

Also, I can't understand why you think that the Bible writings can be so inaccurate, and even refer to it being myth. The truth is, what we know about Buddha is enshrined in legends and myths since the texts containing his words were not written until about two centuries after his death by an anonymous author. Meanwhile, much of the new testament was written only decades after the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and even the stories in the old testament that many conveniently label as myth have been confirmed by scientific discovery (the walls of Jericho, the cities of Sodom & Gomorah, to name a few). There is also the writings of the historian Josephus. Your "myth analogy" doesn't stand up under scrutiny.

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then that would mean that you believe that God didn't pop out of nothing and therefore had a creator

To have FAITH that the universe came into being from nothing by pure random accident is really no different from having FAITH that it came into being from something for a reason.

To believe in either scenario requires FAITH.

that faith is required to not believe in something is another way for a believer to pull others into their God delusions

Proof that God exists 101:

Have you ever seen a building? If so, how do you know there was a builder? The building is absolute proof that the builder exists.

I was recently in Myrtle Beach at an art gallery, looking at various paintings. If you were looking at the paintings, how would you know that there was a painter? The painting is absolute proof that the painter exists.

Imagine walking out into a field of apple trees, witnessing hundreds of apples laying randomly on the ground. Now imagine that you walk into the same field one week later, but instead of the apples being strewn randomly on the ground, they are all lined up into three large "figure eights." How would you explain such an occurance? That 1) it happened by chance or "evolved" that way? or 2) that someone with an intelligent mind made it to be that way?

The point: When you look at creation, that is proof that there is a creator. I don't need "faith" to believe there was a Creator; just need to look around.

Think about it: There is "order" throughout the whole of creation....from the atom, to the sun-moon-stars, the seasons of the year, the flowers, the trees, the earth spinning on its axis at the perfect place for "life" to exist. Is it really reasonable to say that the order of creation simply "happened?" I think not.

The same deep scientific principle can be used when referring to the human body. Look at the human eye, for example. 40,000 nerve endings and focusing muscles, and 137,000,000 light sensitive cells working in harmony for one to see. Even Charles Darwin said that to suppose that the eye could have been formed by natural selection was an utter absurdity in the highest degree. (The Origin of the Species, Page 167.)

I sure do disagree with the statement that more faith is required to be atheist.

Letting go of man made religions freed my mind and soul.

Illogical drives me crazy.

And then one has to believe in superiority, hypocrisy and prejudice to be a part of the Christian based religions.

Believing that man is some kind of out of control creature that needs a god to control him and punish him when he is bad is too immature of a belief for me. I have outgrown the need for a parent figure to bail me out, reassure me, spank me, etc....

Anyone who thinks that Quantum Mechanics doesn't present us with extremely interesting and challenging "Philosophical Issues" has got to be a pretty insensitive and mindless individual. Albert Einstein and Neils Borh debated the meaning of complentarity for years, and it became one of the most popular debates in all of science. Still unresolved to this very day.

I read "The Elegant Universe" years ago, even before the documentary came out. I own the documentary and I've watched that more times that I've kept track of. In fact, if you want to see some "Philosophical Scientists" try watching the video documentary. Just about every physicist on there has a philosophical opinion about the science of physics.

Have you read "The Trouble with Physics", by Lee Smolin? He raises many of the same issues that I raise. And he was an active String Theorist for many years.

Personally, I believe it takes more faith to believe that there is no God, than to believe that there is.

Actually, I can prove that God exists in about 30 seconds, without referring to the Bible or faith.

Arcamedees, you seem to be bent on creating an adversarial relationship where none needs to exist.

You say:



You’re jumping to some pretty far-fetched and unwarranted conclusions here. You have no idea whatsoever whether any of my beliefs are “fallacious” or not.

I’ve already told you that science does not conflict with any of my beliefs. If such a conflict existed I would be quite interested in that particular scientific discovery. Currently no such scientific discovery exists.

So your attempt to “pit” science against my “beliefs” is utterly absurd and totally ignorant.



So your idea of the scientific method is to just jump to unwarranted conclusions about what other people might believe?

I don’t see where you have a clue about science or how to properly use it. On the contrary if you’re attempting to use is as a battering ram to support an atheistic view of life then you are indeed abusing it in an extremely ignorant way.

At last! An audience!

In an article by Shawn Tully (Money.cnn.com) the question of deciding if it’s worth paying the penalties is cheaper than covering employees has been explored by some major employers, including AT&T, Verizon, Caterpillar and Deere.

Here is a quote from the article:

[Caterpillar and AT&T actually spell out the cost differences: Caterpillar did its estimate in November, when the most likely legislation would have imposed an 8% payroll tax on companies that do not provide coverage. Even with that immense penalty, Caterpillar stated that it could shave $25 million a year, or almost 10% from its bill. Now, because the $2,000 is far lower than 8%, it could reduce its bill by over 70%, by Fortune's estimate. Caterpillar did not respond to a request for comment.

AT&T revealed that it spends $2.4 billion a year on coverage for its almost 300,000 active employees, a number that would fall to $600 million if AT&T stopped providing health care coverage and paid the penalty option instead. AT&T declined comment.

"Lower-income Americans who can't afford to buy insurance will get help in one of two ways. The bill expands Medicaid, the free government plan for the poor and disabled, to anyone making up to about $15,000 a year. (About 16 million new people are expected to go into Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program because of the bill.) Second, it would provide subsidies to people who aren't poor enough to qualify for Medicaid but still struggle to afford insurance. Individuals making up to about $44,000 would qualify for some kind of subsidy".

I would beg to differ with you on your claim here. You say that String Theory and supersymmety can filled in much of what QM lacks.

That's news to me. I've been following this stuff for years and I've never heard any such claims by any reputable scientist.

On the contrary, String Theory presumes QM as a foundational postulate, just as it also presumes many of the constraints of Relativity to be true.

At BEST, all String Theory has 'promised' to do is meld together Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity into a seemless theory. And it hasn't even come close to fulfilling that "promise".

There is absolutely NOTHING in String Theory that 'promises' to explain away complementarity, or anything close to that. String theory makes absolutely no 'promises' about resolving any of the philosophical issues associated with QM at all.

In fact, if it did resolve them then QM would fall. But how ironic would that be since String Theory is already using QM as a foundational basis? You'd end up having a theory that basically destroys the very theory upon which is stands. There's got to be some self-referenced paradoxes associated with that.

Where did you ever get that idea that String Theory promises to resolve the mysteries of QM? Can you point to a book? I'd be interested in reading it.

We just part company on that particular opinion.

That's all.

You speak about science and 'belief'. But science has absolutely nothing to do with 'belief'.

In other words, you say:


I say that this is utter nonsense. Many scientists had very profound 'beliefs' in their conjecturs before they were actually proven to be 'facts'.

Eistein was quite confident in his theory of Relativity before it had been experimentally verified. String theorists obviously 'believe' in the existence of strings, and even 11-dimensions of spacetime, even though none of these things have yet to be confirmed by science.

Science has nothing at all to do with "belief". Nada, zip, zilch.

Science tries to deal only in observational 'facts'. Things which can be observed and verified via experimental techniques. It doesn't deal with anything beyond that one way or the other.

If you think for one second that I'm suggesting that 'science' should trash the scientific method and instead employ a method of 'belief', they you are grossly mistaken. Like Redykelous had posted in the past, science and religion are two entirely different things.

I in no way put down anything that science does. I'm a physicist myself. I love science and mathematics both. I completely accept the methods of science and all of the 'confirmed' observations. Although, even in that realm I'm forced to accept the word of some other scientists because I can't always make the observations directly myself. And sometimes scientists makes mistakes. Theories fall, and/or are replaced by updated theories that may add entirely new information concerning the nature of previous "observations".

There are some things that I personally 'believe' are so well-rooted in science that they will never be overturned. Like evolution and the 'fact' that the Earth is not the center of the universe. I think we have enough information to recognize both of these things to be a 'fact'.

However, like I say, there is nothing at all in science that conflict with any of my spiritual views. Therefore why not continue to postulate them and make conjectures about them? Who knows? Maybe someday some of these postulates and conjectures may actually become provable.

In the meantime, there is nothing in science that conflicts when anything that I "believe". And as long as that remains the case, then there is no 'scientific' reason to reject these 'beliefs'.

I also recognize that a 'belief' does not equate to a 'fact' and I don't confuse the two.