me: The earth is definately NOT ten thousand years young.

@shinyblurry Have you ever heard of the horizon problem?

Sigh. Orbiting earth is also hard, and there are hundreds of problems with it, which is why mankind went thousands of years without doing it. But long before we actually managed to do it, we knew that it should be possible, because we knew the earth was a sphere. I can imagine there was lots of heated discussions on how to do it, that would be little comfort to a flat-earther. "See! You cant put things in orbit, earth must be flat!" Like thats how stupid you sound when you go "Horizon problem! The universe must be 6000 years old!"

Why do you even bother reading about things like the Horizon problem? Are you seriously suggesting that this makes your case?

Whether the universe is six thousand or 13.72 billion years old is not in scientific dispute, ok? we might have to finetune it give or take a few million years, but there is no doubt about the general size of the number. If everybody has fucked up completely the last 100 years, then perhaps one could imagine the number needs to be trippled or cut in half or whatever (I really doubt it because we now have correlating data from so many fields) but 6000 years? Thats a JOKE. Its complete and utter nonsense, It's balls-out-clownshoes-and-two-fucking-trouts-on-your-head-barking-wackaloony-insane-babble-from-crazyland-wrong to the nth degree.

Other than the fact I now see Alfred Hitchcock restrained on a fridge dolly, with a muzzle, babbling something about Farver Beans and nice Chiantis, it looks awesome...

Man, you guys are jerks. I would have so much fun with her; she is a rare breed... she is a real life Madlib; lets get high and babble baby; lets talk about feminism I know that would be an interesting interstellar topic.

Genji,

I appreciate your words, Ezra, thank you. Let's say that you're right, that my life is meaningless, and that I am the one who determines what is true. Do you know what I would determine to do? What I would determine to do is to do the same things I am doing right now. Even if I knew Jesus Christ was not God, I would still determine to follow His blueprint for the ideal person, because following that blueprint has radically transformed my life for the better. There are many who aren't Christians who feel the same way, that Jesus got it right. If I wasn't a Christian, I would follow the ideal He set forth, summed up in the great commandment, to love your neighbor as yourself. To turn swords into plowshares. To pray for your enemies and hold banquets for the homeless. To walk two miles when someone asked you to walk one. To give the shirt off your back to someone else who needs it. To love everyone unconditionally, and see every person as fundamentally worthy of my respect. That is what my life about it, and I wouldn't consider that to be a wasted life, even if I was wrong.

I've also lived the alternative. Contrary to what you say, I was never really afraid of death. I can't say I liked the idea of death, but I accepted it; and so I was resigned to triviality, and meaninglessness. I was also content to go to the grave with those beliefs. Like everyone else, I got by on my dreams, my relationships, and whatever gratification I could get out of the moment; I indulged in the pleasures of sin freely, and felt little shame.

So I didn't come to be a Christian out of fear, or a need to be comforted. I came to be a Christian because God touched my life and shook me from my agnosticism. He showed me I wasn't quite as smart as I thought I was. He showed me that the material reality is but a thin veil covering a much greater truth. He showed me that the truth was always staring me right in the eyes, but I was too blind to see it. What He showed me was that He had always been there, my entire life, and that many of the things I wrote off as coincidence really were not.

You see, it is perfectly reasonable and rational for me to believe there is a God. He has simply given me too much evidence to deny it. It's not a convenient belief that fills in all the scary things about life; rather, it is my reason for being, my logos. It is also my eternal gratitude to the Creator for rescuing me and loving me even though I don't deserve it. To know God is to know truth, to know who you are, and why you're here. To know God is to have hope for your future, and an ever present peace and contentment. You believe I am fooling myself, but I say that even if you're right, it is a life worth living, a life well enjoyed, a life that hopefully will touch many others in positive ways. If that is the only meaning I die with, its worth it to me.

>> ^GenjiKilpatrick:

Shiny.
Accept it. You're an ape.
You're a conglomeration of amoeba.
Your life is a just a blip in the twinkling of the universe.
There is probably no god or gods.
There's probably no purpose or reason for your existence.
You are the being that gives purpose or meaning to your life.
When you realize that.
When you realize that there's not supernatural sky daddy to hold you when you're scared or confused..
You'll understand that you've been talking all this nonsensical religious babble in order to establish that purpose.
That the only reason you and jihadist are so adamant about your own personal interpretation of the essence of the abyss..
Is to distract yourself from the fact that your life is just another series of events in this long chain of entropy, chaos, disorder.
The only reason you're so religious is because you're an ape that's too scared to accept your death and the triviality of your existence.
One day, I hope you'll realize this.
On that day, you'll be "born again" just like you were when you accepted "Jesus Christ" and Christian doctrinal teachings.
On that day, you may become self-actualized..
And from then on, understand that we homo sapiens are very lucky.
For we, among few other animals, are able to choose their life's meaning and purpose.
Please don't waste yours.. being a religious troll on the interwebs.
Your brother,
Ezra.

Shiny.

Accept it. You're an ape.

You're a conglomeration of amoeba.

Your life is a just a blip in the twinkling of the universe.

There is probably no god or gods.

There's probably no purpose or reason for your existence.

You are the being that gives purpose or meaning to your life.

When you realize that.

When you realize that there's no supernatural sky daddy to hold you when you're scared or confused..

You'll understand that you've been talking all this nonsensical religious babble in order to establish that purpose.

That the only reason you and jihadist are so adamant about your own personal interpretation of the essence of the abyss..

Is to distract yourself from the fact that your life is just another series of events in this long chain of entropy, chaos, disorder.

The only reason you're so religious is because you're an ape that's too scared to accept your death and the triviality of your existence.

One day, I hope you'll realize this.

On that day, you'll be "born again" just like you were when you accepted "Jesus Christ" and Christian doctrinal teachings.

On that day, you may become self-actualized..

And from then on, understand that we homo sapiens are very lucky.

For we, among few other animals, are able to choose their life's meaning and purpose.

Please don't waste yours.. being a religious troll on the interwebs.

Your brother,
Ezra.

>> ^BicycleRepairMan:

>> ^shinyblurry:
lennox babbling

Religion and science are not in conflict because of how Galileo was treated ot because Huxley debated a bishop, they are in conflict, and will forever be in conflict because of the way they work:
Science is the systematic way of removing faith from the equation, and to systematically question and test every assumption to prevent us from fooling ourselves.
Religion is precisely the opposite: Its a systematic way of perserving faith in the face of doubt and uncertainty. Its a systematic way of avoiding the hard questions and keep fooling oneself.
Which is why its defenders often attack those who question and destroy previous assumptions about the world (Darwin or Galileo). The two examples Lennox gives are symptoms of the conflict, not the conflict itself.
As Jerry Coyne puts it in "Why evolution is true": "Not all religious people are creationists, but all creationists are religious" So when we ask ourselves why more than 40% of the US deny the factual existance of the fundamental process that created and drives all living things on earth, the answer isnt just ignorance or stupidity. It is organized ignorance, stupidity and dogma, or religion as some call it.


Very eloquent, i'd only recommend getting rid of the "hard questions, foolish" bit because it sounds insulting. Otherwise it's a really well constructed explanation that even a theologist would find hard to deny.

Do you realize how dogmatic your position actually is? I mean, do you actually find your analysis here intellectually satisfying?

Are you willing to challenge your beliefs? I recommend two books for you:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0890510628/ref=tmm_pap_used_olp_sr?ie=UTF8&condition=used

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/1595553223/ref=sr_1_1_up_1_main_olp?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1342692277&sr=1-1&condition=used

>> ^BicycleRepairMan:

>> ^shinyblurry:
lennox babbling

Religion and science are not in conflict because of how Galileo was treated ot because Huxley debated a bishop, they are in conflict, and will forever be in conflict because of the way they work:
Science is the systematic way of removing faith from the equation, and to systematically question and test every assumption to prevent us from fooling ourselves.
Religion is precisely the opposite: Its a systematic way of perserving faith in the face of doubt and uncertainty. Its a systematic way of avoiding the hard questions and keep fooling oneself.
Which is why its defenders often attack those who question and destroy previous assumptions about the world (Darwin or Galileo). The two examples Lennox gives are symptoms of the conflict, not the conflict itself.
As Jerry Coyne puts it in "Why evolution is true": "Not all religious people are creationists, but all creationists are religious" So when we ask ourselves why more than 40% of the US deny the factual existance of the fundamental process that created and drives all living things on earth, the answer isnt just ignorance or stupidity. It is organized ignorance, stupidity and dogma, or religion as some call it.

>> ^shinyblurry:
lennox babbling


Religion and science are not in conflict because of how Galileo was treated ot because Huxley debated a bishop, they are in conflict, and will forever be in conflict because of the way they work:

Science is the systematic way of removing faith from the equation, and to systematically question and test every assumption to prevent us from fooling ourselves.
Religion is precisely the opposite: Its a systematic way of perserving faith in the face of doubt and uncertainty. Its a systematic way of avoiding the hard questions and keep fooling oneself.

Which is why its defenders often attack those who question and destroy previous assumptions about the world (Darwin or Galileo). The two examples Lennox gives are symptoms of the conflict, not the conflict itself.

As Jerry Coyne puts it in "Why evolution is true": "Not all religious people are creationists, but all creationists are religious" So when we ask ourselves why more than 40% of the US deny the factual existance of the fundamental process that created and drives all living things on earth, the answer isnt just ignorance or stupidity. It is organized ignorance, stupidity and dogma, or religion as some call it.

>> ^BoneRemake:

Where the fuck did little one come from ? you watch some elven sci fi movie while high ?


i have a metric left handed screwdriver in my gut and i do not comprehend what you babbled out. please cum back into the lounge shy greeenhorn

Safe nuclear refers to many different new gen4 reactor units that rely on passive safety instead of engineered safety. The real difference comes with a slight bit of understanding of how nuclear tech works now, and why that isn't optimal.

Let us first consider this, even with current nuclear technology, the amount of people that have died as a direct and indirect result of nuclear is very low per unit energy produced. The only rival is big hydro, even wind and solar have a great deal of risk compared to nuclear as we do it and have done it for years. The main difference is when a nuclear plant fails, everyone hears about it...but when a oil pipeline explodes and kills dozens, or solar panel installers fall off a roof or get electrocuted and dies...it just isn't as interesting.

Pound per pound nuclear is already statistically very safe, but that isn't really what we are talking about, we are talking about what makes them more unsafe compared to new nuclear techs. Well, that has to do with how normal nukes work. So, firstly, normal reactor tech uses solid fuel rods. It isn't a "metal" either, it is uranium dioxide, has the same physical characteristics as ceramic pots you buy in a store. When the fuel fissions, the uranium is transmuted into other, lighter, elements some of which are gases. Over time, these non-fissile elements damage the fuel rod to the point where it can no longer sustain fission and need to be replaced. At this point, they have only burned about 4% of the uranium content, but they are all "used up". So while there are some highly radioactive fission products contained in the fuel rods, the vast majority is just normal uranium, and that isn't very radioactive (you could eat it and not really suffer any radiation effects, now chemical toxicity is a different matter). The vast majority of nuclear waste, as a result of this way of burning uranium, generates huge volumes of waste products that aren't really waste products, just normal uranium.

But this isn't what makes light water reactors unsafe compared to other designs. It is all about the water. Normal reactors use water to both cool the core, extract the heat, and moderate the neutrons to sustain the fission reaction. Water boils at 100c which is far to low a temperature to run a thermal reactor on, you need much higher temps to get power. As a result, nuclear reactors use highly pressurized water to keep it liquid. The pressure is an amazingly high 2200psi or so! This is where the real problem comes in. If pressure is lost catastrophically, the chance to release radioactivity into the environment increases. This is further complicated by the lack of water then cooling the core. Without water, the fission chain reaction that generates the main source of heat in the reactor shuts down, however, the radioactive fission products contained in the fuel rods are very unstable and generate lots of heat. So much heat over time, they end up causing the rods to melt if they aren't supplied with water. This is the "melt down" you always hear about. If you start then spraying water on them after they melt down, it caries away some of those highly radioactive fission products with the steam. This is what happened in Chernobyl, there was also a human element that overdid all their safety equipment, but that just goes to show you the worst case.

The same thing didn't happen in Fukushima. What happened in Fukushima is that coolant was lost to the core and they started to melt down. The tubes which contain the uranium are made from zirconium. At high temps, water and zirconium react to form hydrogen gas. Now modern reactor buildings are designed to trap gases, usually steam, in the event of a reactor breach. In the case of hydrogen, that gas builds up till a spark of some kind happens and causes an explosion. These are the explosions that occurred at Fukushima. Both of the major failures and dangers of current reactors deal with the high pressure water; but water isn't needed to make a reactor run, just this type of reactor.

The fact that reactors have radioactive materials in them isn't really unsafe itself. What is unsafe is reactor designs that create a pressure to push that radioactivity into other areas. A electroplating plant, for example, uses concentrated acids along with high voltage electricity in their fabrication processes. It "sounds" dangerous, and it is in a certain sense, but it is a manageable danger that will most likely only have very localized effects in the event of a catastrophic event. This is due mainly to the fact that there are no forces driving those toxic chemical elements into the surrounding areas...they are just acid baths. The same goes for nuclear materials, they aren't more or less dangerus than gasoline (gas go boom!), if handled properly.

I think one of the best reactor designs in terms of both safety and efficiency are the molten salt reactors. They don't use water as a coolant, and as a result operate at normal preasures. The fuel and coolant is a liquid lithium, fluoride, and beryllium salt instead of water, and the initial fuel is thorium instead of uranium. Since it is a liquid instead of a solid, you can do all sorts of neat things with it, most notably, in case of an emergency, you can just dump all the fuel into a storage tank that is passively cooled then pump it back to the reactor once the issue is resolved. It is a safety feature that doesn't require much engineering, you are just using the ever constant force of gravity. This is what is known as passive safety, it isn't something you have to do, it is something that happens automatically. So in many cases, what they designed is a freeze plug that is being cooled. If that fails for any reason, and you desire a shutdown, the freeze plug melts and the entire contents of the reactor are drained into the tanks and fission stops (fission needs a certain geometry to happen).

So while the reactor will still be as dangerous as any other industrial machine would be...like a blast furnace, it wouldn't pose any threat to the surrounding area. This is boosted by the fact that even if you lost containment AND you had a ruptured emergency storage tank, these liquid salts solidify at temps below 400c, so while they are liquid in the reactor, they quickly solidify outside of it. And another great benefit is they are remarkably stable. Air and water don't really leach anything from them, fluoride and lithium are just so happy binding with things, they don't let go!

The fuel burn up is also really great. You burn up 90% of what you put in, and if you try hard, you can burn up to 99%. So, comparing them to "clean coal" doesn't really give new reactor tech its fair shake. The tech we use was actually sort of denounced by the person who made them, Alvin Weinberg, and he advocated the molten salt reactor instead. I could babble on about this for ages, but I think Kirk Sorensen explains that better than I could...hell most likely the bulk of what I said is said better by him



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2vzotsvvkw

But the real question is why. Why use nuclear and not solar, for instance?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density

This is the answer. The power of the atom is a MILLION times more dense that fossil fuels...a million! It is a number that is beyond what we can normal grasp as people. Right now, current reactors harness less that 1% of that power because of their reactor design and fuel choice.

And unfortunately, renewables just cost to darn much for how much energy they contribute. In that, they also use WAY more resources to make per unit energy produced. So wind, for example, uses 10x more steal per unit energy contributed than other technologies. It is because renewables is more like energy farming.

http://videosift.com/video/TEDxWarwick-Physics-Constrain-Sustainable-Energy-Options


This is a really great video on that maths behind what makes renewables less than attractive for many countries. But to rap it up, finally, the real benefit is that cheap, clean power is what helps makes nations great. There is an inexorable link with access to energy and financial well being. Poor nations burn coal to try and bridge that gap, but that has a huge health toll. Renewables are way to costly for them per unit energy, they really need other answers. New nuclear could be just that, because it can be made nearly completely safe, very cheap to operate, and easier to manufacture (this means very cheap compared to today's reactors as they are basically huge pressure vessels). If you watch a couple of videos from Kirk and have more questions or problems, let me know, as you can see, I love talking about this stuff Sorry if I gabbed your ear off, but this is the stuff I am going back to school for because I do believe it will change the world. It is the closest thing to free energy we are going to get in the next 20 years.

In reply to this comment by ReverendTed:
Just stumbled onto your profile page and noticed an exchange you had with dag a few months back.
What constitutes "safe nuclear"? Is that a specific type or category of nuclear power?
Without context (which I'm sure I could obtain elsewise with a simple Google search, but I'd rather just ask), it sounds like "clean coal".

i admire your posts regarding the god boy's bible babble. * quality.

"Babbling and stuttering"? Really? I don't want to defend this as anything spectacular, but it's good for getting a little insight into Ryan's political BS-ing.

I don't know what world you live in, but to me, these guys were having a calm discussion about a news story.

Sorry, got to 1.51 and couldn't take the presenters babbling, and stuttering, any longer.

>> ^shinyblurry:

Craig did extremely well in that debate, especially in the segment where they asked eachother questions. You can see that at the 1:19:00 mark, and I think any objective observer would have to admit that Christopher just completely folded..he was stammering and unsure of himself, a rare thing for him, but there it is on video.
Could you give an example of an argument that Craig used from that debate which you feel is inadequate?
>> ^A10anis:
>> ^shinyblurry:
&
gt;> ^A10anis:
I watched every religious debate Hitch had. And I waited, in anticipation, for someone to provide an argument which he could not refute. It never happened. Using logic, free thought, intellect, rationale and common sense - not to mention his acerbic wit - he demolished all the religious apologists who were unwise enough to take him on.

You must have missed this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KBx4vvlbZ8

Actually, no, I didn't. And, if you seriously think that Craig bested Hitch, you should watch it again. Craig, in every debate, simply uses pseudo babble with a liberal sprinkling of gospel. Never has Craig been able to back up his "argument" with anything but faith, and faith cannot be used as an argument. Hitch, on the other hand.... well, if you can't see it, sadly, you never will.



You say; "Could you give an example of an argument that Craig used from that debate which you feel is inadequate?"
Yes, all of them.
As for your assertion that Hitch "folded," and was "unsure of himself." What are you talking about? He was perfectly concise and logical. He, quite understandably, becomes terse in the face of "white noise" being presented as fact. As you say; "there it is on video."

Craig did extremely well in that debate, especially in the segment where they asked eachother questions. You can see that at the 1:19:00 mark, and I think any objective observer would have to admit that Christopher just completely folded..he was stammering and unsure of himself, a rare thing for him, but there it is on video.

Could you give an example of an argument that Craig used from that debate which you feel is inadequate?

>> ^A10anis:
>> ^shinyblurry:
>> ^A10anis:
I watched every religious debate Hitch had. And I waited, in anticipation, for someone to provide an argument which he could not refute. It never happened. Using logic, free thought, intellect, rationale and common sense - not to mention his acerbic wit - he demolished all the religious apologists who were unwise enough to take him on.

You must have missed this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KBx4vvlbZ8

Actually, no, I didn't. And, if you seriously think that Craig bested Hitch, you should watch it again. Craig, in every debate, simply uses pseudo babble with a liberal sprinkling of gospel. Never has Craig been able to back up his "argument" with anything but faith, and faith cannot be used as an argument. Hitch, on the other hand.... well, if you can't see it, sadly, you never will.