May 21, 2011. The date of the Rapture.

Been thinking... this Rapture thing... :flypig:
I could be all for it... :rockon:
If and only if I could be certain it would end the U/A... While Parking thread. :frusty:

Hell and damnation! :target:
I'd even ask the Enrapturer to move the date of salvation :angel:
forward a month or four.
:rapture:

 

you guys crack me UP!

 

Occasionally, yes. But not typically.

That guy is no more wacko than anyone else who believes in a magic man in the sky who will give us eternal paradise after we die as long as we believe that he had his own son killed to atone for our sins, and will send us to eternal torment if we don't. The only difference between him and mainstream Christianity is that he's willing to put his credibility on the line (and prove himself wrong) by naming a date, whereas other preachers cover their asses by saying nobody knows when it will happen.

This is correct. Most Christians do not believe in the rapture. But they all believe (by definition) that god sent his own son to die to atone for our sins. And if that isn't bunny-flubbing insane, then I don't know what is. And they all believe in a judgement day. One day on which Gabriel will toot on his trumpet, the dead will be raised, and god will decide whether you deserve eternal paradise or eternal torment.

(Though Universalists believe that god will let everyone into paradise, which is at least consistent with the notion that god is supposed to love us. But they are a tiny minority of Christians, and most Universalists have now become Unitarian Universalists and most of those aren't even Christians anymore, to their credit.)

 

My simple mind is having a problem with this statement. An unpreformed experiment may indeed have no result, even if I concider no result to be "a" result, but how do you get from there to a statement in fact that "the future is an unperformed experment"? For me, it's as simple as an experiment into the future I perform 5 nights a week (proving to me that there is a future). I set my alarm clock to go off at a time in the future. But if the future does not exist, then I can not set an alarm clock to ring at a future time. That would defy logic and QM, yet 5 nights a week, in the early AM, it rings and wakes me up. But as I said, I am simple minded.
For those who are not so simple minded, there do seem to be some problems with the QM Theory, and I do believe it is still a theory, such as the Measurement Problem. Some, with much brighter minds than myself, will even argue that QM proves the existance of God.

So if you've watched the video, you know where my beliefs lie, and there is a "WE" in this group of chatters, even though "we" are indeed a minority.

 

Wow what a video, thanks.

 

I didn't watch the video because the title shows that it's going to be another of the Bible-thumpers favorite tactics: Claim that "science" says something that science does not say, and then extrapolate from the false claim to an assertion that religion has been "proven."

Further, the assertion that QM is "just a theory" is one of the more ignorant statements to come out of the nut-jobbery of religion. We've been over this ad nauseum in the evolution arguments: In popular parlance, "theory" means an idea without evidence; while in science a "theory" is a sophisticated construct backed by so much evidence that it would require extraordinary counter-examples to dislodge it.

Quantum mechanics is the most phenomenally successful idea in the entire history of science, and its accurate predictions are what make possible the computer you are reading this on.

So no, I'm not going to waste 8 minutes of my life watching some fraud spout lies.

 

Awwh, come on D, please? I really want to hear your take on it.

 

The first 6 minutes was an interesting summary of quantum mechanics and the logical problems it presents. I'm not sure I agree with the one statement that "light", as an electromagnetic force, is what holds atoms together. One expression of electromagnetic radiation is light, but his description to me is a bit of a stretch. And he uses the term "measurement problem" instead of the better known description "Heisenberg uncertainty principle". Still, minor quibbles.

The last two minutes goes into parallels between QM and Biblical verses, which actually I thought could have been better done, although I didn't really have enough time to reflect on it - some more explanation could have been useful. I keep thinking of the "Ancient Aliens" show on TV lately, and how that could tie into it too (initially I was very skeptical of that idea, but now only moderately skeptical...basically that aliens came here with advanced knowledge and presented themselves to our ancestors as god(s) from the skies, but that's a different topic).

At any rate, some of it does make sense, like the parallel between creation (Genesis 1) and the Big Bang. I always felt there was nothing contradictory in those two descriptions (except a bit with the order of evolution), with the idea that everything was initially a void (vacuum), then light and dark was created (matter and energy), then planets and stars, then the earth and moon, then day and night (which kind of invalidates the idea that each "day" of creation was literally only 24 modern hours, instead of an idiom for passage of time, IMO). But this was not elaborated on, and they went on to some points that I thought were weaker, like some hand-waving to say that various miracles could be the result of changing things at the quantum level. You can believe that if you want to (how would a human without special tools, which Jesus apparently was, be able to do that even if He had that knowledge?). That's not where I would have spent my follow up at if I were making the video. The inter-connectedness of things was interesting. I liked the first 6 minutes, the rest of it needed some work.

 

and that my belief in God is

is not only showing that you may have less self control than I had once though, but some, including myself, will consider it out right flaming. Insults and name calling has never made a point of view valid.
Food for thought: while no one can prove beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty the existence of God, likewise, no one can disprove the existence of God beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty. So if the only way one can believe in a God that no one can prove exist is through faith, to an equal extent, since one can not disprove the existence of God, one must have faith to believe there is no God.
(My)Conclusion: we all have faith, it's simply a question of where we put that faith.

 

That's fine Daniel, I respect your opinions and thoughts, but here you probably spent 8 minutes composing a reply about something you didn't watch, and you kind of missed the mark in your presumptions about this video. I know in general you're not afraid of new experiences, but here you starting to be close-minded and sound like the people you're spouting against.

 

No one can prove beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty the existence of Thor, likewise, no one can disprove the existence of Thor beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty.

Do you believe in the Norse Pantheon? If not, why not?

 

I cannot believe that an omnipotent sentient god that cares what we do would allow all the organization that claim to have been given an exclusive franchise by that god would let those clowns get away with it.

 

This reminds me of another issue bearing on my quarrel with Spiderman: The Heisenberg uncertainty principle does not merely say that you cannot measure the position and velocity of a particle simultaneously; it states that a particle does not have both a position and velocity simultaneously. It is one of the most unsatisfying concepts in QM, and yet it's been demonstrated to be true.

Spiderman might want to say that because god is special, he can know both simultaneously. But I say that god (if he exists) cannot know what does not exist.

To thbjr, I say that I'm not flaming you or anyone else. I am flaming the IDEAS contained in religion. Ideas which were invented at a time when humans didn't know jack about the world around them, so they made up stuff. That's all well and good. But that people today would believe ideas made up twenty thousand years ago by cave men, is just beyond imagination.

On parallels between creation and the big bang, I once listened to a sermon by a very liberal preacher. He went on and on about how we are free to draw our own conclusions about evolution [i.e. we can believe the evidence or we can believe the fairy tales - D] but then he went on to assert that you MUST regard the big bang as a "miracle." Sadly, he had not studied modern cosmology or physics because even though we do not yet know for a certainty how the big bang began, there is no need to invoke a god to explain it. The big bang, even without a god, is entirely consistent with QM.

We cannot prove there is no god. But hypothesizing that there is a god does not solve any questions. You're still left with "where did god come from?" and claiming "he's always been there" does not work because even if there is such thing as "before the big bang" then the big bang could have come from that, without the need of a god.

The god hypothesis serves no purpose. It could be true. But there is no reason to imagine that it is. There is zero evidence for it, and it leads to so many contradictions that it is clearly invalid in its most common forms, as held by both mainstream and fringe Christianity. Religions that view god as having no interest in humanity, or as being hostile to humanity, are more internally consistent than religions that claim god loves us, especially when those religions include everlasting torture as the punishment for failing to believe in and/or join a particular church.

 

The God Experiments

Einstein was not a research scientist, he was a theoretical physicist.

If we are asked to consider what AE theorized -- in the common
useage of the word -- about God, then we should not object to
considering what other scientists have said.

Executive summary: There is reason to believe that the idea of God is
the result of structures, processes, etc., internal to all humans. To
believe in the idea of God may be a natural thing. The idea that there is
a God, is not the same as, and would not prove the existance of a God.

A summarization:

The God Experiments

The December issue 2006 of Discover magazine has an interesting
article entitled, The God Experiments. Five key views about
God/spiritual experiences are put forth.

1. Inventing God. Stewart Guthrie, an anthropologist at Fordham
University in New York wants to explain God away. He has written a
book entitled, Faces in the Clouds. Guthrie maintains that belief in
supernatural beings is the result of our tendency to project human
qualities onto the world. Religion is just systematic anthropomorphism
that enhanced our ancestor's chances of survival.

2. God-Part of the Brain. Andrew Newberg has written the book, Why
God won't go way: Brainscience & the Biology of Belief. (see review
below) He scans peoples brains using SPET while they are having a
spiritual experience. Newberg concludes, an "evolutionary perspective
suggests that the neurobiology of mystical experience arose, at least in
part, from the mechanism of the sexual response."

3. God might be a cerebral mistake. Michael Persinger states that the
left temporal lobe of the brain gives us our sense of self. When our
brain is disrupted (by injury, drugs, trauma) the left side of the brain
may interpret activity in the right side of the brain as another self (out
of body, or mystical experience).

4. The God Gene. Dean Hamer of the National Cancer Institute is trying
to link religion/spiritually to a specific gene called VMAT (vesicular
monoamine transporter) as a result of twin studies. He has written the
book, The God Gene.

5. The Spirit Molecule. Rick Strassman traces spiritually to a single
compound, dimethyltryptamine (DMT). In his book, DMT: The Spirit
Molecule, he states that DMT triggers mystical visions. He thinks DMT
is produced in the pineal gland deep in the brain.

The God Machine. Todd Murphy a neuroscientist who has worked with
Persinger is marketing the "Shakti headset" which is a scaled down
version of Persinger's God machine so one can explore your
consciousness.

From bibleandscience.com, includes links to the above.

The Discovery mag article:
The God Experiments | Memory, Emotions, & Decisions | DISCOVER Magazine

Some comment:
The God Experiments - John Horgan / Discover Magazine - RichardDawkins.net

Needless to say, much, much more on the 'Net.

 

Christianity is an example of evolution. The default religion is the one you're born into, so to an individual it rarely seems to change. But in the long term, religions come and go, survive or die based on how they compete against other religions. It's survival of the fittest. So far, Christianity is one of the most fit religions when compared to other religions and compared to scientific understandings (despite what some PriusChatters will say).

To go off-track a bit, it's definitely evolved over time. The Catholics picked up the pantheon principle from the Greeks and Romans (except the saints are the pantheon), farther from Italy the Protestants did away with much of the worship of saints and the Virgin Mary. But then we picked up Christmas from the pagans (the particular day, and the tree worship became decorated trees and boughs inside the house). Orthodox Christians give food offerings to their dead loved ones. Each area contributed something pre-Christian to their traditions, much like a virus adding harmless baggage to our genomes. (The truly incompatible additions wouldn't survive, but there's so much harmless baggage it's hard to tell what was original). And there's the outright fights against religious competitors, which is a large part of how the Norse Pantheon was eliminated. The people had to adopt the new religion if they wanted to be part of the new economic/political system, but some vestiges remain, like the names of the days of the week and tales like Beowulf. And flying reindeer

 

Imagine a thread stating because the Chevy Malibu BAS hybrid or Honda Accord hybrids were failures - all hybrids are bad. How would that thread go?

The same reasoning is used here...because a few people have set a date for the Rapture on May 21, 2011, it supposedly discredits all Christianity - even religion in general.

Really?

 

And presumably an example of the vast time scales involved. For instance, the Roman Catholic Church eventually apologised to Galileo 350 years after he died, and apparently now admit to a heliocentric solar system.

 

I think this guy... (one of my all time favorites) got it right
The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clarke

"Well, they believe that when they have listed all His names — and they reckon that there are about nine billion of them — God's purpose will have been achieved. The human race will have finished what it was created to do, and there won't be any point in carrying on."

POOF...
THE END!!!!!!


If you want to read the whole story, it's short, well, hence "Short Story", go here ...

http://hermiene.net/short-stories/nine_billion_names_of_god.html

 

I watched the video and I think Daniel got it pretty right.

I never heard anyone refer to magnetic force as light before, maybe I need to get out more.

The video was a conglomeration of cherry-picked theories assembled to make it seem there is a greater force controlling the universe and that force might as well be called god. Why not call it the great bunny?

Jesus called himself the light just like many other profits who claimed to "light the way". I doubt Jesus was trying to say he holds the universe together. Did Jesus visit unknown nations, after all he would have known they were there. The Australian and American natives made no record of his visit. You would think someone would have noticed a European in those places and drawn a picture. Asian were keeping written records and no mention. Odd, don't you think?

 

We have veered away from the original matter here, but no complaints from me. I do listen to Harold Camping sometimes on shortwave radio, and find him a fascinating fellow.

I have no basis to decide if he is right or wrong, but hoping for 'wrong'. Too many projects will remain uncompleted this May.

A couple of quotes:
"Even as a tree has a single trunk, but many branches and leaves, there is one religion but any number of faithsâ€
M. Gandhi

A. Einstein took the concept further:
"All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom.â€

I imagine that Einstein intended freedom to include a greater understanding of the physical world so that science could be added to the list.

Religions do ennoble, and that is a big plus. However a few I could name also hold that "ours is right and all others are wrong". I *believe* that this slows down the process of ennoblement and understanding. However a noble person would not deny anyone their own faith, so there you are. We all have to bumble on towards wherever we are going.

Back to May. After the true believers are taken to Heaven, all people who have ever died will be raised as bones (or whatever) to their shame. That could be about 10 billions if the world began about 7000 years ago (per Camping) or quite a few more if you count from evolutionary divergence from other hominids, and include the other species much like modern humans who are not 'with us' any more. Then, a bunch of earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and floods. It would be quite a mess until the Earth is finally destroyed, scheduled sometime in October 2010.

A bright spot in Camping's world is that there is no Hell. Quite a relief because personally I was not relishing the prospect of burning forever.

Best of luck to all!