10.7 Billion Year-Old Spiral Galaxy Stuns Astronomers
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The religion/science argument is the funniest I've ever seen, mainly because you guys are arguing over stuff neither side said. No one even mentioned religion until an atheist attacked it, and the religious side attacked the atheist for stuff he didn't say either. What the hell do you guys do whenever there's a blackout, yell at a wall for a few hours?
A spiral galaxy, you say?
Somewhere, on some planet in that galaxy, there are two men named Simon and Kamina.
Somewhere, on some planet in that galaxy, there are two men named Simon and Kamina.
I wonder if it had any life in that galaxy.
All of it died, of course, but I wonder how far back life existed.
All of it died, of course, but I wonder how far back life existed.
While I'm no expert, from what I remember it's quite unlikely. At least nothing that would be remotely similar to life on Earth. This early back in time, there were not enough heavy elements around yet for metabolisms like we know them in animals, plants, bacteria etc..Not G. Ivingname said:
Those early stars forged them from hydrogen and helium in their cores and when they died the heavier elements were spread throughout the universe.
Again, not an expert, but if I understand the concept correctly, then anything like what we currently consider life could probably only have come about as early as the second generation of stars (our star is considered a third generation star if I remember correctly, by the way).
Point One: Our sun is particularly young, isn't it possible it was formed after most other stars? Maybe by more than three days but no-one but fundamentalists interpret the three days as literally three days. So the phrase is often interpreted as God created the basis for light to exist and so stars began to form. Then our particular sun came into being a little later down the track.Clearing the Eye said:
Points Two through Four: Despite the fact that we only know what God thinks by what's in the Bible (which has been retranslated so many times I'm not sure whether to trust it as The Word of God anymore), why do people re-watch movies even though they know how it'll end? Why do people make games and then play them over and over again? You may say the outcome for a game can be different each time, but if you think, God may have made everything knowing it's outcome, but he did have a certain amount of influence and even though He could see the result of that influence immediately, it would be akin to someone changing a choice in a game and playing it out to see what changes at the end, only instantaneously. This is also a good point about how "God made everything evil." Yes, He did, but it was necessary as part of the whole free will thing and if He is as loving as is said, then He has given us, as a race, the best possible outcome using small influences and still allowing us to have free will on the matter of good and evil. On the point of being angered by evil acts He knows will happen, why do you scold a child who's doing something you know they will invariably do due to curiosity or what have you? It?s discouraging people but I?m sure that those people who did wrong and were immediately punished would have been treated fairly in the afterlife.
Point Five: The Flood is one I tend to stay away from because geological tests have shown that there was actually a flood where Noah likely lived but it certainly wasn't to the scale of forty days and forty nights. It is very possible that most people died in it and that someone may have survived by building a boat and putting all their livestock and family on it but that's hardly what's written in the Bible. So either someone's fleshed out a story and slipped it into a book he saw a bunch of monks writing, or it's a story altogether and simply meant to provide a moral message (as well as striking the fear of God into people).
Points Six and Seven: I don't have an answer because I'm not an archaeologist and I don't have data or evidence to contradict your claim of no evidence. But I will say this, do you think that the Egyptian Pharaoh would want to document a bunch of slaves that outwitted him and caused a sea of destruction because of his ignorance? And with evidence of miracles, not only is that an unwinnable argument for me to begin with but I?m pretty sure documentation was scarce back then for the peasants whom would have encountered miracles. But again, I'm not totally sure.
About the quote: It's absolutely true. The Bible was written by people, not God. Some may have had a divine influence but I?m sure many were just documenting things either because they thought it was divine influence or because they wanted people to think they had the privilege of being so influenced by divinity. Again, a good reason I don?t do much with the Bible. I?ll stick to the New Testament mostly and take only the messages of Jesus, not the words.
About Jesus, yes there were many people claiming to be messiahs and I?ve read up on a few of them but it?s quite obvious they weren?t the same. I know that sounds like I?m brushing it away but, for example, one of them favoured violence and wanted to overthrow their Roman oppressors. His main ?miracle? was ambushing a platoon of Roman soldiers with only a few peasants by working out when they were going to logically be there. He was considered a messiah because he was one of the few people talking in those days about rebellion. I mean look at Che Guevara today. Anyway, he was eventually killed in a small scale rebellion and most of his followers were killed too, the rest either being tortured or fleeing once they realised he wasn?t the messiah. Also, most deities are said to have been born on 25th December and the reason Christmas is on the 25th December is because when the missionaries traveled, they saw people celebrating with pagan rituals on that day so when they introduced Christianity they gave them the same day of celebration so they?d be more open to it. However, most people know Jesus wasn?t born then anyway so that?s a moot point.
Finally, I realise Christianity is still young and everything you?ve said on this point is correct so I?m just going to wait it out to see if Christianity does the same.
Basically, I never saw any reason why religion was such a hot topic on the internet (well actually I do, it?s because people want to look better than each other for the littlest things, including opinion, but that?s not what I mean). It doesn?t hurt anyone that I believe in something so why can?t I just believe in it in peace? The only difference it makes whether who?s right is what happens after we die and after that I don?t really think opinions matter anymore. People say religion is holding us back as a society but I just have to point at our latest scientific breakthrough and I?m like ?Did religion stop that?? Just look at this thread! There wasn?t even a breath had between when the anomaly was found and when it was solved. No-one saying ?Oh it must be God so stop looking.? Besides, things such as how the universe came about aren?t such a big deal when you think about it. I mean all it does is satisfy a curiosity and once we?ve done that to the nth degree that whole part of science will close down. If you ask me, the part of science trying to define the universe is holding back our progression more than religion because those scientists could be working on more practical things, you know things that could actually help people. Don?t get me wrong, finding out the how of the universe is important, just not as important as things which could be going on down here. And with that I end with this, I know you didn?t say it but people say "it?s Science vs. Religion? so often it hurts, science is the how, religion is the why. We can never really know the why without being outside the universe. If religion is correct, we?ll get that glimpse. If not, then I guess we?ll never know.
PS: This ate up a good hour of my time and I know I didn?t have to write it but I wanted to show that the things people take as fact aren?t always the whole story (and I know, I?m not completely right either, in fact I hadn't even considered some of the points you raised and I may very well be wrong on them), as well as just how much time can be spent on something like this and we really haven?t gotten anywhere so I won?t post anymore on the subject unless it?s a quick-fire question.
I was going to pick apart your every response (no one else on the entirety of the planet recorded a mass escape of slaves from an Egyptian ruler and god? lolol), but then you went and said that. Now I'm just going to lay it out straight; religion is the single most destructive force in human history. No other cause outside nature has led to and been the catalyst for as much death, suffering and misery as religion. More human beings have died at the hands of the faithful than by the heathen's. From the archaic sacrifices of infants, the god ordered genocides of entire peoples, a legacy of hatred, bigotry and condemnation that sees men alienated from one another and keeps minorities in constant fear, to the modern day wars that cripple our growth as a species and ensure the poverty stricken remain impoverished.Nyaliva said:
The human species cannot flourish to its full potential and achieve peace within itself until religion is shamed into self-extinction. Until every false prophet and every purveyor of ignorance is corrected, stupidity will run rampart. While preachers spread myth and baseless faith, the naive and the desperate will be led into spiritual slavery. Just as we round up the con-man, so too must we round up the priest. Just as we educate the dumb, so too must we illuminate the faithful. As we give the schizophrenic their medication, we give the religious a dose of reality. As every child grows up and leaves behind their invisible friends, humanity will mature and leave behind theirs.
It's not okay to lie anymore. We have to stop kidding ourselves. We cannot allow religion to exist in a time when we would strive for knowledge and understanding. Thankfully, as a species we are less religious than ever before in history. Statistically, per capita there are fewer individuals that belong to any particular faith than there has been since perhaps the dawn of the biped ape. Humans have been around for a long time--it's about damn time we stop believing in fairy tales, and, like it or not, people are figuring that out.
I just hope I'll be around to see it.
Do you know how many atheists there are in the Senate? Zero. The House of Representatives? Zero. How many Supreme Court justices? Zero. How many presidents in the entire history of the United States? One. Thomas Jefferson.saintdane05 said:
But please, do go on about how you're oppressed because you had to read a couple comments on the internet from people who are tired of being marginalized. I'm sure that's totally reasonable.
EDIT: Okay, that president things was just something I remembered and it didn't quite sit right for me, so I looked it up and it turns out Thomas Jefferson wasn't really a Deist like I thought. He was more of a pre-Unitarian, which isn't so much atheist. There were several presidents who didn't make their religious views public, but the president that has the most evidence in favor them actually being completely atheist is Abraham Lincoln. I did not know that. That's pretty cool.
There is an explained possible reason [http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4191] for that.Clearing the Eye said:
Citation needed.Clearing the Eye said:
How do you know that?Clearing the Eye said:
There is nothing slavish about my people having a religion(see:Judaism). In the face of so much hate, it has helped kept us going when we had nothing else.Clearing the Eye said:
As for rounding up rabbis, what decade are you living in? This isn't the past, Jews finally have a country again, which will protect us.
And I hope that the religion and culture of my people never again has to suffer from the hatred of others.Clearing the Eye said:
You don't have to like religion, but please don't try to consciously destroy the primary form of identity for my ethnic group.
Another example of bad science being used in astrophysics. Instead of following the scientific method and rejecting a theory/hypothesis that is opposed by observation, they just continue to make up a bunch of asinine ifs, maybes, and buts to force these conflicting observations into the existing paradigm. Now, I'm not even saying their wrong, this could very well be the explanation, but this isn't good science.
True, but what is actually stated is that nothing can accelerate to the speed of light, as the energy required to accelerate the object quickly spirals to infinite. There's nothing in our understanding of quantum mechanics that states that something that's already moving at light-speed can't accelerate to...well...any speed.Pinkamena said:
This was something actually addressed by Einstein himself.
As such, if we can find a way to get something going at C without accelerating to the speed, we could, in theory, whiz around the universe at near infinite speeds.
Not that that's something easily attainable. Plus, you know, you've got the pesky problem of "how the hell do I get an object to move at speed without accelerating to said speed?" :/
Not necessarily. See above.Rastelin said: