Nope, Germans (and Swiss and French).

This is a different camera angle of an "experiment" done by German "Science"-TV-Show "Galileo". This was when they were trying to be all Mythbustery and supposedly were trying to find out how much force was in a waterfall (I don't know you, but I gernerally don't park below switched off waterfalls). The Science-level in "Galileo" is abysmal and way below the level of a good children's education show.
They were helped by Swiss company Liebherr with their Liebherr R9800 mega crane, which is beign built in France.
The full video (in German) is here: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xacbds_galileo-wasser-fall-liebherr-r9800_auto

How can you not see the flaw in this logic? Atheists do not make claims for which evidence must be provided, there is no point in trying to "DISPROVE" god, or any other imaginary entity. the "evidence that god doesnt exist" is that there is no evidence that god does exist.

Drac did make the claim "I'm saying there is no God, so there are no necessary assumptions about his nature, since he doesn't HAVE a nature" So therefore he has a burden of proof.

Also, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Finally, no matter how you've redefined the definition, atheism is the belief that there is no God:

"Atheism, from the Greek a-theos ("no-god") is the philosophical position that God doesn't exist. It is distinguished from agnosticism, the argument that it is impossible to know whether God exists or not"

(Academic American Encyclopedia)

Atheism, system of thought developed around the denial of God's existence. Atheism, so defined, first appeared during the Enlightement, the age of reason"

(Random House Encyclopedia-1977)

Atheism is the doctrine that there is no God. Some atheists support this claim by arguments, but these arguments are usually directed against the Christian concept of God, and are largely irrelevant to other possible gods.

(Oxford Companion to Philosophy-1995)

Atheism (Greek, a- [private prefix] + theos, god) is the view that there is no divine being, no God"

(Dictionary of Philosophy, Thomas Mautner, Editor-1996)

Atheism is the belief that God doesn't exist.

(The World Book Encyclopedia-1991)

According to the most usual definition, an atheist is a person who maintains that there is no god.

(The Encyclopedia of Philosophy-1967)

Atheism denies the existence of deity

(Funk and Wagnalls New Encyclopedia-Vol I)

This is what the world looks like to you, huh? absolute laws layed down and explained by God?

In the scientific worldview, there are no absolutes, our "laws" are based on repeated observations and revisions, take for instance Newtons first law: The velocity of a body remains constant unless the body is acted upon by an external force.

Now, this actually works, it turns out that the world is this way*. It is natural for a curious human to ask "why?" because we expect,perhaps deep down that there is a reason and a purpose behind the world being arranged this way. But there doesnt seem to be any real reason, had Newton or Galileo lived in an alternate universe, where objects would move at random, independent of the forces acted upon them, well, then we wouldnt have this law, would we? Perhaps such a universe exist, but perhaps there are no Newtons there to check, because the evolution of life and therefore Newtons brain, requires objects to behave in this predictable Newtonian way.

We only have one sample, which is this Universe. Shoulds, woulds and perhaps don't explain away design. What you're really trying to express here is the anthropic principle. Take this example..let's say you're standing before a firing squad of 100 trained marksmen, all aiming for your heart, and then you hear the shots go off..and to your surprise you find that you're still alive, that they all missed. Should you be surprised that you do not observe you are dead? If you were dead, obviously you couldn't observe it. However, you are justified in being surprised you are alive, since all 100 marksmen missing you is extremely improbable. Which is the same reason we should be surprised that there is a conspiracy in the physical laws to support life in the Universe.

Anyway, here we are, we make our laws based on our observations of how things seem predictable, and if things arent that predictable, we cant make laws about them. For instance, why hasnt god, being so clever with the whole "law of motion" trick and all, made a similar law-system for finance? ie: "every 50 years, the market will collapse" and so on? or evolution " the ultimate goal of all of evolution is for all species to evolve big brains trunks, like the humans elephants have?

God laid down a lot of laws about how we should behave. The reason for the chaos in the world is because we haven't obeyed those laws.

No, it seems while God likes order and laws to apply to inanimate object, he's decided to go for chaos and indetermency when dealing with large, complex systems.

You'd almost think there was no god at all, huh?

*Yeah,yeah Einstein, relativity blah blah, for all intends and purposes, Newton will suffice here.

He gave us laws about how to live. Perhaps you have heard of the bible?

>> ^BicycleRepairMan

This is what the world looks like to you, huh? absolute laws layed down and explained by God?

In the scientific worldview, there are no absolutes, our "laws" are based on repeated observations and revisions, take for instance Newtons first law: The velocity of a body remains constant unless the body is acted upon by an external force.
Now, this actually works, it turns out that the world is this way*. It is natural for a curious human to ask "why?" because we expect,perhaps deep down that there is a reason and a purpose behind the world being arranged this way. But there doesnt seem to be any real reason, had Newton or Galileo lived in an alternate universe, where objects would move at random, independent of the forces acted upon them, well, then we wouldnt have this law, would we? Perhaps such a universe exist, but perhaps there are no Newtons there to check, because the evolution of life and therefore Newtons brain, requires objects to behave in this predictable Newtonian way.

Anyway, here we are, we make our laws based on our observations of how things seem predictable, and if things arent that predictable, we cant make laws about them. For instance, why hasnt god, being so clever with the whole "law of motion" trick and all, made a similar law-system for finance? ie: "every 50 years, the market will collapse" and so on? or evolution " the ultimate goal of all of evolution is for all species to evolve big brains trunks, like the humans elephants have?

No, it seems while God likes order and laws to apply to inanimate object, he's decided to go for chaos and indetermency when dealing with large, complex systems.

You'd almost think there was no god at all, huh?

*Yeah,yeah Einstein, relativity blah blah, for all intends and purposes, Newton will suffice here.
>> ^shinyblurry:

Without a controlling influence, there is no basis for these absolute
laws. I can account for it, how do you account for it?

When the church interferes with science, especially in the historical examples where they wielded a lot of power, I consider religion and science to be clashing, instead of coexisting happily. I see your point in making the distinction between church and religion - but when the church interferes in the name of religion I can't consider religion and science to be "coexisting peacefully." Just my 2c

ed: meant to make this a video reply, whoops! oh well.

In reply to this comment by GeeSussFreeK:
>> ^carneval:

I love NDT, but I don't agree with his statement that science and religion have been happily coexisting for centuries...
What about (for example) heliocentricity? The church was not too happy with that originally.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_science
That article indicates that there were, at some points, synergistic effects between the church and scientific establishment; I think happy coexistence is a major exaggeration, though.


Don't confuse, "the church" with the whole of all religious people. One church for one sect of one religion does not the majority of religious minded people make, which was the whole point

Many of the great thinkers, like Newton and Georg Cantor were not the only influential religious people either, the list is huge. I think there has been times where a person has been singled out, like Galileo, but even he was left to his own devices till he got a little more preachy with his ideas; he was a very blunt man

>> ^carneval:

I love NDT, but I don't agree with his statement that science and religion have been happily coexisting for centuries...
What about (for example) heliocentricity? The church was not too happy with that originally.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_science
That article indicates that there were, at some points, synergistic effects between the church and scientific establishment; I think happy coexistence is a major exaggeration, though.


Don't confuse, "the church" with the whole of all religious people. One church for one sect of one religion does not the majority of religious minded people make, which was the whole point

Many of the great thinkers, like Newton and Georg Cantor were not the only influential religious people either, the list is huge. I think there has been times where a person has been singled out, like Galileo, but even he was left to his own devices till he got a little more preachy with his ideas; he was a very blunt man

Absolutely love his enthusiasm. Good job Paul, Galileo would be proud of you.

wash your mouth before you speak of Galileo, you piece of shit Perry.

Galileo? *wtf ????

This video has been seconded as a duplicate; transferring votes to the original video and killing this dupe - dupeof seconded with isdupe by chicchorea.

*isdupe>> ^rasch187:

dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/Galileo-Was-Right-Hammer-and-Feather-on-the-Moon

This video has been nominated as a duplicate of this video by rasch187. If this nomination is seconded with *isdupe, the video will be killed and its votes transferred to the original.

*dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/Galileo-Was-Right-Hammer-and-Feather-on-the-Moon

The belief that Jesus is a myth seems to be more prevelent, actually, and many of the people I have debated here have claimed this.

Fair enough then. For my part, I think the weight of secular evidence is certainly on the side of Jesus existing, and for a bulk of Biblical events and people (especially past the Pentateuch) corresponding to "real regular history".

Even the pursuit of science was founded upon Christian understaniding; It was thought we could determine the operation of the cosmos because the Universe is orderly and has regularity due to Gods oversight

I think that's coming at it a little high. The Greeks who made some of the most significant steps in establishing the effort to understand the universe in an organized way did so before Christianity - and it's their work that set the tone for scientific progress in the West for most of its history. And while I understand you don't see Catholics as Christians (at least in some sense), they were the dominant voice for Christian thought for centuries and did their level best to bury scientific progress (consider, say, Galileo) where they felt threatened by it.

I think we've probably reached "agree to disagree" territory on some/most of the other stuff. I understand where you're coming from, and I think you understand where I'm coming from.

[redacted]

i think you've clearly missed the point of the various holy books. theyre not science books. theyre not history books. its no different than taking any philosophical or theological book, ancient or modern, and calling bullshit on account of it not mentioning some far off nebula as if that means anything as it pertains to philosophy and/or theology

"why not mention something like, 'god created the stars, including the sun'? then people would be like oh, all those points of light are just different versions of our sun" why not? because what the hell does that have to do with the philosophical nature of the scriptures?

again, you want it to be a science book but its not and why should it be?
>> ^Mcboinkens:

>> ^shimfish:
Err...except for all the times the bible mentions stars, which, of course, we used to actually see at night.
Were you expecting a postscript along the lines of "Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is."
>> ^Mcboinkens:
This is one of my biggest conflicts with religion. Not one mention of anything outside of the sun and the moon.


Errrrrr.......you clearly missed the point of my post. No mention of anything humans didn't already know about. If I created a full-fledged universe, I'd definitely hint at the fact that there were other things outside of the Earth, Moon, and points of light that are blatantly obvious. Also, it seems to differentiate between the Sun and stars. Why not mention something like, "God created the stars, including the Sun"? Then people would be like oh, all those points of light are just different versions of our Sun. "In 1600 A.D., Giordano Bruno was burnt at the stake for heresy, for asserting that the Sun is a star, among other things. It wasn't until the mid-1800s, after the work of Galileo, Kepler, Huygens, Newton, and finally, Friedrich Bessel, that it[meaning the sun was a strar] could be proven. The distance to other stars was calculated, and it was found that stars were about as bright as the Sun, when you account for the difference in distance. Also, chemical composition and surface temperature could be determined, and this added further evidence."
It mentions Pleiades and Orion, both of which received there name prior to when the book of Job was written, so no credit there. Besides, those are just constellations.
Why would you not expect any sort of indication that space was bigger than we though? Why leave us in the dark? Why not reveal that the Earth is a globe and not a flatland, like it implies when it mentions the four corners?
"The Third Day
The first appearance of dry ground. The further cooling of the surface set in motion a process of natural contraction, uplifting and motion of the crust (the process continues today, called "plate tectonics"). The earth changed from a smooth one-level molten "cue ball" to a planet with an irregular surface with ocean basins and continental landmasses. With dry ground available, the first plants were made to grow in great abundance. (Genesis 1:9-13)
The Fourth Day
With the sky now clear, the sun, moon and stars were dependably visible. They were to "serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years." The sun marked the day (sunset to sunset), the moon the month (new moon to new moon), and the stars the seasons (constellations are seen in particular seasons e.g. "Orion" is visible in winter in the northern hemisphere, which is summer in the southern hemisphere). (Genesis 1:14-19)"
A mention of dirt, but not gas? It just bugs me that the only things mentioned were the things that were already known about.