@noseeem

Yep I'm shitty with grammar and spelling But I can fix anything and hold my own in front any Dr. or C suite within my field of expertise.

Personal experience? BSEET Penn State.
33 years as a medical Field service Engineer.


28 years working for Global conglomerates and 5 years in house at UNC Chapel hill NC.
I’ve been with Siemens Medical and General Electric most of my career.
I’ve serviced/ install Cathlabs, Vascular labs, Rad/ RF rooms and Mammo rooms. Plus others.


Last 20 years installing / servicing Medical Ultrasound.
This includes Cardiac, Radiology ultrasound and Woman’s health, OBGYN
I’ve seen more ultrasounds hearts and heartbeats than you can imagine..
Being Hippa compliant, I look at images for quality and for servicing.

All the Techs I talk to say the same . Heartbeat starts about the 6 to 10 week of pregnancy
And yes there are images that capture this along with all the other images and measurements. Doppler is used for this.

Per quick Google search
When does the heartbeat show on ultrasound?
A fetal heartbeat may first be detected by a vaginal ultrasound as early as 5 1/2 to 6 weeks after gestation. That's when a fetal pole, the first visible sign of a developing embryo, can sometimes be seen. But between 6 1/2 to 7 weeks after gestation, a heartbeat can be better assessed.

Your fucking up the wrong tree today. Go back to being the big guy at you high school.

You can even do this at home

From yt comment thread..

I'm the owner of these shoes and wanted to add to the overwhelming positive response to the video and restoration. First tho, thank you Steve for dedicating yourself to your craft and being able to make this service available for folks like us. Steve knows my history on these but thought i would share some bits of it as a testament to his skills.

I bought these shoes new in the mid 90's after graduating from college being told from a friend's dad at the time that these would last a career, 25 years later, Steve completed the first resole of them. Ive worn these shoes initially every day to work and eventually reducing the wear to only special occasions knowing that Florsheim didnt make the shoe nor no longer refurbished the V-cleat soles. These shoes have seen every significant event in my career from first days of every new job, job interviews, friends weddings, my own, important meetings, anything that was important these shoes have witnessed it. ive tried to keep the best care of them only hand polishing them myself and having used shoe trees its entire life. i love the finish which is unique to this shoe and can only be had with decades of hand-polishing.

ive kept an eye out for someone that could restore the soles in the way the originals were made for the last 10 years and just recently stumbled across one of Steve's videos and the one that showed his award winning restoration of these shell cordovans down to the nail. from there i watched most of his videos almost like an interview to ensure i was comfortable with letting these shoes be worked on as they are only original from the factory once. we talked over every tiny detail and some months later...here they are. i honestly didnt think i would find anyone that could restore these to original condition.

thank you again Steve...incredible job...and it really didn't matter to me how much it would have cost to restore these. they are priceless....including all the near falls ive had with those nails on slick floors ! i wouldn't have it any other way.

I could probably work in a different field if the employer was willing to make certain exemptions for my issues. Realistically, I would have a very hard time dealing with stress and some of my meds would make working difficult (or even getting to work in some cases). Working in a high stress field like I was would be nigh impossible.

Thankfully, I have been in the right place at the right time (for the most part, in my career. I've worked for quite a few big-name tech companies at their height and I was always one of those people who took judicious advantage of employee stock options, so while not rich in any way, I am comfortably well off enough to basically 'retire' early. My wife works a job she loves, we own our home, and we decided against having kids a long time ago, so we are doing fine.

When I first started volunteering to serve at a homeless shelter, many years ago, I didn't know exactly why I was doing it. Certainly it felt like the "right" thing to do. I was at least confident that I wasn't doing it for personal gain because I didn't wear it on my sleave, didn't brag about it or hang my ego on my personal identity of being a good person. When dissillusionment set in, when I realized just how many of the people I was serving were homeless by choice, I pushed through and carried on...and I still didn't know why. I just trusted that I would get it one day.

Eventually I made a connection to the time I spent living in Sweden. In the town I lived in, every night a group of vagrants assembled in the market square. Every bit as dirty and drunken as the worst homeless person that most people imagine them all to be. Fighting, having sex in the public restroom, vomiting and carrying on loudly all night. But this was socialism, so they went home every night to their government payed for apartments. I realized that no matter what you do, there will always be a segment of society that just doesn't give a Fuck and is happy to take and never give back. We've all known these people. Family members, friends, acquaintances, who use up the good will of everyone they meet until they've got no one left to use and it falls to the larger community to support them. No economy, government or community planning will ever compell them to support themselves. We loathe them and shun them. Politicians with ulterior motives tell us that ALL homeless and disadvantaged ARE them. But it's a lie. There are the mentally and physically ill who have no support structure, who NEED their communities to help them. Most of these people were once functioning members of their communities who no longer have the ability to survive on their own.
And so I came to understand that it's better to feed a hundred leaches to serve a single helpless individual.

Boy was I proud of myself for realizing that.

And then I was layed off and my job shipped to India, followed closely by my wife spending a year in and out of the hospital, with no insurance. A careers worth of hard work, reduced to a data point on a corporate profit sheet. Waiting for the other shoe to drop, when the medical debt comes for me and everything I've built in my life is taken, to become a line in someone else's ledger. Betrayed by the greed in the system. Because I upheld my end of the social contract. I worked hard in school, excelled in my career, had two kids and bought a house in a neighborhood with good schools. But the system is run by the greediest and most power hungry. Politics and business is the domain of the high functioning sociopath. And to a sociopath, you're not a real person like them. You're a data point, a line in the ledger.

Then I came to respect the other segment of the homeless. The ones who rejected the social contract, who don't feel societal pressure to give more than they take. Because they got it right. It's all a lie. You don't earn anything in America. You don't deserve the fruits of your labor. You subsist at the whim of the people with money and power. And when it serves them, you get nothing.

We are all standing in line for food, hoping there's a room for the night.

"Mama told me when I got married Jeff would be nothing more than an anchor for my career goals."

Meh, I'm just waiting for them to release a Star Destroyer capital ship. Then I'm going to hire some minions in a fleets of scythes (sweet looking ship) and begin my career as a space pirate in style!

Thanks for the links. I'm new to advocating for states' rights

> "What is the optimum size political unit for you?"
My main concern is SENS and reprogenetics for everyone who wants them. Making my purpose in life to be building my career maximizes my odds of making it to SENS. I'm fine with living in huge nations as long as taxes are low, law and order are maintained, and the government is fiscally sound. But I think all 3 of those issues are going to be under increased pressure.

>"Would you consider yourself Right-wing?"
No, I just consider myself a science and tech nerd. When I debate with right-wing people, they think I'm a hippy. I'm too self-reliant and career and family-focused to really care much about politics. I think we'll eventually have a Star Trek world. I dislike any trends that seem to make that outcome less likely.

But I read enough science to know that wool has been pulled over our eyes about human evolution and inequality.

>"What would you consider to be a meritocratic utopia?
I think Silicon Valley is the closest thing we have to a meritocratic utopia.

>"Why not scale it down to counties and municipalities?"
In my work, I collaborate with people on the other side of the country. It's best for us to work with them than with cheaper people in Ukraine or India because we share a cultural background and are within the same legal environment. It'd be much harder to take legal action against someone in other countries, and that means parties can't have the level of trust afforded by shared legal protections. Commerce increasingly interconnects the world, and dividing large jurisdictions into many smaller jurisdictions would be a drain on commerce.

i dont pay taxes.
i refused ten years ago and have stuck with that path.
and its been sunshine and rainbows ever since....
ok..not really.my income is severely crippled due to me not paying taxes BUT goddamn does it make me feel good!

i do not pay taxes not to be a cheap ass but rather to protest a system that is so obviously rigged against me.(and you).

as for american libertarianism.
i will say they have the civil rights down.
i totally agree with their philosophy of personal liberty and right to do whatever you want as long as you aint stepping on another blokes shoes.

but when they start with the "free market" sermons i start to look at them as wide-eyed and innocent children.
do they not SEE whats going on?
free market?
what is this free market you speak of?
america is NOT a free market.
it is corporate socialism.
or welfare if you want to troll a bit.

go ahead and de-regulate corporate america.
see what happens.
better yet,just look at some african nations,or former soviet states.
guilded estates with private armies for the uber-wealthy and elite while the majority of the population live in either indentured servitude or total squalor.

i am noticing a disturbing trend here in america.its like they are preparing.
we have a government bought and paid for by corporate america,which does the corporations bidding.
the co-opting of the tea party and the crushing of occupy.
a massive surveillance operation.
militarized police forces across the country.
civil liberties made into mere "suggestions" and no longer inalienable.
executions of american citizens with no due process (bye bye habeas corpus).
a standing army that has been in place for over 60 years and a war on terror that will never end.

it is madness.

so i cannot blame my libertarian friends for calling for smaller government.
because the government has become TOO big and no longer is "for the people,by the people".
it serves its corporate masters.
which is why the "de-regulate" argument truly baffles me.

just as my liberal friends who wish to use the system to correct these imbalances.
what?
the system is utterly BROKEN.
we no longer have a functioning democracy!
why would you even suggest to use a system that threw us all overboard to lick the boots of their masters 30 yrs ago?
the mind..it boggles.

every political philosophy has its flaws.none are perfect.
libertarianism has some very good points while others are a bit...naive in my opinion.

for me the end result is this:
i do not trust power nor authority because i find them to be illegitimate until they prove themselves otherwise.
so i am suspicious when someone tries to force their authority on me based on arbitrary and subjective parameters.(like a cop,or judge or some rich dude).

i am a humanist by nature so my political philosophy flows from that birthplace.
i will never step on you to further my career nor take food out of your mouth.
corporate america has spread a propaganda campaign that is insidious.

capitalism is good.
greed is good.
dog eat dog world out there.
here,buy this,it will make you feel better.
wear that and you will be sexy.
you are lone wolf,against the world,drive this car you lone wolf and be a rebel.

its all bullshit.
human beings feel better when they are co-operating.
when they feel their life has purpose and that they are needed.
not by living in a perpetual 7 yr olds wet dream.

oh
my
god.
you fuckers got me ranting!
i hate you both......
/drops mic

@enoch

Well, note that the "governs best, governs least" quote IS Thoreau speaking, and although I think it's nonsense (I don't personally want to live completely outside any social structure, I don't think it's practical to separate myself from all of the advancements of society), I DO still think that Thoreau was a brave and noble person for believing in something and seeing that belief come to fruition. That's freedom.

But, when you're constantly putting down a system that you seem to wholeheartedly disagree with, but still support, that's hypocrisy, again, acc to me.

I brought up the issue of taxes because that's what Thoreau did. It's not terribly complicated. He felt that the system of government he was a part of was corrupt and restrictive, so he chose to not participate in it by not paying his taxes. He was jailed because of it, and when his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson bailed him out of jail he was upset. He WANTED to remain in jail because he didn't want to contribute to the social system he disagreed with so.

So when blankfist compared himself to Thoreau: http://videosift.com/talk/Gov-t-stopped-funding-charity-private-donations-surge-500#comment-1185054

I felt, and am reminded every time I see this type of propaganda, that there are a few ways of looking at this american libertarianism and those who follow it:

1) They don't believe in the government, but still support it through taxes.
2) They don't actually believe in the principles outlined in their own philosophy, and that's why they support what they affirm is a corrupt, freedom crushing, system, and that explains their support of it.
3) They believe in their ideas, but want to change things through the current system of government, which seems like a bit of a weird Catch 22.
or
4) They just want to have a theoretical discussion.

I've asked and asked, but he maintains that he's a freedom fighter who supports the government that he hates (through the payment of taxes, etc.)

There are other options I've probably considered along the way that aren't mentioned here, but I really put more thought into this than trying to tear blankfist down. It's genuinely confusing to me for someone to seemingly believe something so strongly and not act on those feelings.

Let me give you an example of what I mean. My first teaching job was in a very rural part of the US. Word got out quickly to the principal that I didn't say the pledge of allegiance in the morning (I have a variety of reasons for this, but the main one is that I am an atheist and don't agree with the phrase "under god"). I was brought into the principal's office after his stooge assistant "stopped by" my room several days in a row before and after the announcements. He wanted to know why I wasn't saying it and the conversation was respectful but went something like:

"Well, I choose not to, and I make sure everyone, including myself, is respectful during that time of the day, but I make it clear to the students that they don't have to as well."
"But don't you think you're setting a bad example for the students?"
"Well, no...? (at this point I knew they basically wanted me to just fall in)"

Long story short, at the end of the year, my job no longer existed. They moved the journalism teacher to another building and my position went from Eng teacher to Eng/Journalism teacher (I don't have a journalism license). Since I didn't have a license for that, I couldn't stay. :-/

It was hard to deal with, impossible to prove, but I'm better off 7 years into my career not being surrounded by those people anyway. They REALLY wanted me to just say the pledge, but it wasn't in my job description that I had to say the pledge every morning, and today, I'm happy to be in an inner city school with a more diverse and understanding population where I don't have to.

That's one BIG example from my life, and I'm no Thoreau, but neither is Blankfist. Now if he would just admit it.

@SDGundamX

I remember you as being an intellectual in other threads, so I'll reply to your comment.

"Your career is to surf the Internet and judge the worth of people's lives? How much does that pay?"

No, my career is in the tech industry, where I'm a young team lead who is smarter and nicer than most. I have a small amount of free time sometimes, and I enjoy debates with smart people so I can refine my understanding of the marketplace of ideas.

I grew up in an insufficient family, so I have compassion for people who are trying to do their best.

"FUCK curing diseases!!! I'm devoting my career to ketchup!!!" -MIT Researcher

You quote The Blind Watchmaker and The Origin of Species but I highly doubt that you’ve read them yourself. If you haven’t then you’re not better than someone who is contesting the bible without having read it. You quote a LOT of scientists that you say are hostile to your position but again, have you actually read the works that you’re quoting from in their entirety? I doubt it.

Well, I have read them and I think it's fairly obvious that I understand the subject matter.

Here are just two things that I read recently that I think are worth repeating:

...degree of thermodynamic disorder is measured by an entity called "entropy." There is a mathematical correlation between entropy increase and an increase in disorder. The overall entropy of an isolated system can never decrease. However, the entropy of some parts of the system can spontaneously decrease at the expense of an even greater increase of other parts of the system. When heat flows spontaneously from a hot part of a system to a colder part of the system, the entropy of the hot area spontaneously decreases! The ICR (Institute for Creation Research)...

....illustrate a fact, but they are not the fact itself. One thing is certain: metaphors are completely useless when it comes to the thermodynamics of calculating the efficiency of a heat engine, or the entropy change of free expansion of a gas, or the power required to operate a compressor. This can only be done with mathematics, not metaphors. Creationists have created a "voodoo" thermodynamics....

I never made the argument that entropy can never decrease in a system. I made the argument that even if you want to use the energy of the sun to explain why life is becoming more complex, you haven't explained the information that makes that possible. More energy does not equal more order. I also don't know why you keep bringing up articles from the institution of creation research and expect me to defend them. I am more than willing to admit that there are some terrible theories by creationists out there, just as there are terrible theories by secular scientists.

For myself, I am only a materialist because there isn’t any demonstrable, non-anecdotal, reproducible evidence for the existence of anything non-material. I hope you can understand that. There is the appearance of design and there is DNA, and we don’t know how everything got started but that’s not good enough for me to believe that it was designed, I need something more concrete because that is the criteria for which I will justify something as believable. I’d be very interested in some sort of evidence like that but it hasn’t happened yet and conjecture just doesn’t work for me so I’ll reserve judgment but maintain doubt and that’s all there is to it.

I can understand your position as a materialist, having formally been one. I did not see any evidence for God or spirit either, and it really rocked my world to discover that there was more, and that material reality is only a veil to a larger reality. It is mind blowing to discover that everything that you know is in some way, wrong.

I think there is some very good evidence pointing towards a Creator, but that isn't going to get you there necessarily. It seems to me though, after talking with you a bit, that if there is a God, you would want to know about it. Maybe you're not terribly interested in pursuing the subject at the moment but you now strike me as someone who is open to the truth. If He does exist, would you want to hear from Him? If He let you know, would you follow Him?

On the scope of evidence, I think the two of the most powerful arguments are the information in DNA and the fine-tuning of physical laws. There is no naturalistic process which can produce a code, and that is what DNA is. It is a digital code which stores information and is vastly superior to anything we have ever designed. It is a genetic language which has its own alphabet, grammar, syntax, and meaning. It has redudancy and error correction, and it is an encoding and decoding mechanism to transmit information about an organism. Biologists actually use linguistic analysis to decode its functions. You also have to realize that the message is not the medium. In that, like all information, you can copy the information in DNA to storage device like a hard drive, and then recode it later with no loss in information. This is a pretty good article on the information in DNA:

http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com/read-prove-god-exists/language-dna-intelligent-design/

The fine tuning evidence is also very powerfully because it is virtually impossible for the laws to have come about by chance. It's important to understand what fine tuning actually means. I'll quote Dr Craig:

"That the universe is fine-tuned for the existence of intelligent life is a pretty solidly established fact and ought not to be a subject of controversy. By “fine-tuning” one does not mean “designed” but simply that the fundamental constants and quantities of nature fall into an exquisitely narrow range of values which render our universe life-permitting. Were these constants and quantities to be altered by even a hair’s breadth, the delicate balance would be upset and life could not exist."

So it's not a question whether the Universe itself is finely tuned for life, it is a question of how it got that way. In actuality, the odds of it happening are far worse than winning the powerball lottery over 100 times in a row. Random chance simply cannot account for it because there are dozens of values that must be precisely calibrated, and the odds for some of these values happening by chance is greater than the number of particles in the Universe! For instance, the space-energy density must be fine tuned to one part in 10 to the 120th power, an inconceivably huge number. That's just one value out of dozens. Many scientists understand this.

Here are some quotes from some agnostic scientists, which a couple of Christians thrown in:

Fred Hoyle (British astrophysicist): "A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question."

George Ellis (British astrophysicist): "Amazing fine tuning occurs in the laws that make this [complexity] possible. Realization of the complexity of what is accomplished makes it very difficult not to use the word 'miraculous' without taking a stand as to the ontological status of the word."

Paul Davies (British astrophysicist): "There is for me powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all....It seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature’s numbers to make the Universe....The impression of design is overwhelming".

Paul Davies: "The laws [of physics] ... seem to be the product of exceedingly ingenious design... The universe must have a purpose".

Alan Sandage (winner of the Crawford prize in astronomy): "I find it quite improbable that such order came out of chaos. There has to be some organizing principle. God to me is a mystery but is the explanation for the miracle of existence, why there is something instead of nothing."

John O'Keefe (astronomer at NASA): "We are, by astronomical standards, a pampered, cosseted, cherished group of creatures.. .. If the Universe had not been made with the most exacting precision we could never have come into existence. It is my view that these circumstances indicate the universe was created for man to live in."

George Greenstein (astronomer): "As we survey all the evidence, the thought insistently arises that some supernatural agency - or, rather, Agency - must be involved. Is it possible that suddenly, without intending to, we have stumbled upon scientific proof of the existence of a Supreme Being? Was it God who stepped in and so providentially crafted the cosmos for our benefit?"

Arthur Eddington (astrophysicist): "The idea of a universal mind or Logos would be, I think, a fairly plausible inference from the present state of scientific theory."

Arno Penzias (Nobel prize in physics): "Astronomy leads us to a unique event, a universe which was created out of nothing, one with the very delicate balance needed to provide exactly the conditions required to permit life, and one which has an underlying (one might say 'supernatural') plan."
Roger Penrose (mathematician and author): "I would say the universe has a purpose. It's not there just somehow by chance."

Tony Rothman (physicist): "When confronted with the order and beauty of the universe and the strange coincidences of nature, it's very tempting to take the leap of faith from science into religion. I am sure many physicists want to. I only wish they would admit it."

Vera Kistiakowsky (MIT physicist): "The exquisite order displayed by our scientific understanding of the physical world calls for the divine."

Robert Jastrow (self-proclaimed agnostic): "For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries."

Frank Tipler (Professor of Mathematical Physics): "When I began my career as a cosmologist some twenty years ago, I was a convinced atheist. I never in my wildest dreams imagined that one day I would be writing a book purporting to show that the central claims of Judeo-Christian theology are in fact true, that these claims are straightforward deductions of the laws of physics as we now understand them. I have been forced into these conclusions by the inexorable logic of my own special branch of physics." Note: Tipler since has actually converted to Christianity, hence his latest book, The Physics Of Christianity.

Just because the universe and life might have the appearance of design doesn’t mean it was designed. After all, we might all be brains in vats being experimented on by hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings and all of this is simply like the matrix. Maybe Déjà vu is evidence that it’s true but there simply isn’t any reason to believe it just like there isn’t any reason to believe in any gods.

But if that were true then the Universe is designed, and this is simply some kind of computer program. In any case, although we could imagine many scenerios I am talking about something very specific; That Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that He rose from the dead. Moreover, that you can know Him personally, today.

All of the concepts of god and gods have been moved back every time we discover naturalistic explanations where once those gods were accredited. What makes you think that it’s any different with these things? Just because we don’t know what’s behind the veil doesn’t mean that the idea of someone pulling the levers is a better explanation than a currently unknown natural, non-agency explanation. If we don’t know, then we don’t know and putting a god in the place of “we don’t know” isn't a good way of helping us learn more about our universe

The primary question is whether the Universe has an intelligent causation. You believe that Universes, especially precisely calibrated and well-ordered ones just happen by themselves. I happen to think that this is implausible to say the least. You're acting like it's not a valid question, and because we can describe some of the mechanisms we see that we can rule out an intelligent cause, which is simply untrue. You could describe every single mechanism there is in the Universe, but until you explain how it got here, you haven't explained anything. The real question is not how they work but why they work and that question can only be answered by answering why they exist in the first place.

It is also just a fallacy to say that because some peoples beliefs about God have been proven false, that means all beliefs about God are false. Scientists used to believe that there were only seven planets and that the Earth was flat. Does that mean that all ideas scientists have are false? No, and neither does it mean that all beliefs about God are false because people have had ridiculous beliefs about God.

The God I believe in is not ridiculous, and the belief in His existence has led to ideas that formed western civilization and propelled modern science itself. The idea that we can suss out Universal laws by investigating secondary causes is a Christian one, that came from the belief that God created an orderly Universe based on laws.

It is also not a brake to doing science to believe that God created the Universe. Some of the greatest scientists who have ever lived believed in God. People like Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, Max Planck, Mendel and Einstein. It certainly didn't stop them from doing great science.

Also, as I have explained, it is not a God of the gaps argument when God is a better explanation for the evidence.

We know that the universe, space-time, matter had a finite beginning but we can’t say anything at all about that beginning with any certainty. We can’t even say that whatever was that caused the universe is spaceless, or timeless. We just don’t know. This is the god of the gaps argument that started this whole thing. You’re putting a god in as the explanation for what is effectively a gap in our knowledge without anything solid to go off of. It would not be a god of the gaps argument if we eventually could know with a high degree of certainty that there is a god there fiddling with the controls but we don’t. That is the crux of this whole debate. That is why “I don’t know” is a better answer than “A god did it” because it’s absolutely verifiably true where as a god is not.

The ultimate cause of the Universe must be timeless because it must be beginningless, according to logic. I'll explain. You cannot get something from nothing, I think we both agree on that. So if the Universe has a cause, it must be an eternal cause, since you cannot have an infinite regress of causes for the Universe. The buck has to stop somewhere. This points to an eternal first cause, which means that cause is timeless. If it is timeless it is also changeless because change is a property of time. If it is changeless it is also spaceless, because anything which exists in space must be temporal, since it is always finitely changing relation to the things around it. It's timelessness and spacelessness makes it immaterial, and this also makes it transcendent. I think it is obvious that whatever created the Universe must be unimaginably powerful. So we have something which already closely describes the God of the bible, and we can deduct these things by using logic alone.

We just don’t know if the universe is entirely regressable into some sort of endless loop which folds in on itself, or something else, or even if there is a god or not. Furthermore, I hope you look into what physicist mean by “out of nothing” because it doesn’t mean what I think you think it means. It took me a while to understand what it meant and to be honest, it is a bit of a deceptive word play but it’s only that way because there isn’t another way to describe it. I don't actually believe that the universe came from "nothing". I don't know how it all started, so therefore, I have no belief. I don't need an answer to the big questions. I can say "I don't know" just fine and leave it at that.

“A proponent of the Big Bang Theory, at least if he is an atheist, must believe that the universe came from nothing and by nothing.” Anthony Kenny

British physicist P.C.W. Davies writes, “The coming-into-being of the universe as discussed in modern science…is not just a matter of imposing some sort of organization or structure upon a previous incoherent state, but literally the coming-into-being of all physical things from nothing.”

Physicist Victor Stenger says “the universe exploded out of nothingness the observable universe could have evolved from an infinitesimal region. its then tempting to go one step further and speculate that the entire universe evolved from literally nothing.

In the realm of the universe, nothing really means nothing. Not only matter and energy would disappear, but also space and time. However, physicists theorize that from this state of nothingness, the universe began in a gigantic explosion about 16.5 billion years ago.

HBJ General Science 1983 Page 362

the universe burst into something from absolutely nothing - zero, nada. And as it got bigger, it became filled with even more stuff that came from absolutely nowhere. How is that possible? Ask Alan Guth. His theory of inflation helps explain everything.

discover April 2002

I think we can both agree that it is better to know than not to know. That's been one of your primary arguments against the existence of God, that we simply cannot rest of the laurels of God being the Creator because that will lead to ignorance. I have already demonstrated that there is no actual conflict with belief in God and doing good science, so your argument is invalid, but I think it's ironic that on the other side of it, you are arguing that ignorance is a good thing and leads to better science. That you're even intellectually satisified with not knowing. I hope you can see the contradiction here.

The reason why I personally don’t find the whole god argument all that interesting, and the reason why I don’t actually care about it, is because it makes a heck of a lot of claims regarding the nature of god and it’s properties which just can’t be verified. There is nothing that we can concretely discover about god and no predictions that we can make which could eventually be verified meaningfully. How can we possibly know if creator is timeless, or spaceless, unimaginably powerful, transcendent, unembodied, etc? Is it rational to believe that; do you have an equal ratio of evidence to belief? What predictions can we actually make about this god(s). All we have are books and stories written and passed down throughout history. Everything else is just unjustified belief to me.

As I explained above, we can make several predictions about God based on the evidence. Belief in God is rational and can be justified. However, I understand that until you have a personal experience, it is probably going to be unconvincing to you, since this is way you see the world. You demand evidence, and lucky for you, God provides evidence. If you asked Him to come into your life, He would demonstrate it to you. He provided evidence to me, and I know you He will provide to you, especially if you take a leap of faith ask Him for it.

>> ^IAmTheBlurr:

This isn't a stupid rule, it's a stupid application of the rule. Only the punter knows what he was thinking. He could have been looking at his teammates and giving a gesture of "Look at me, I'm the punter and I'm about to score the first touchdown of my career." The referee can't know that he's taunting and to me it didn't look like he was. The rule should be amended to read thou shalt not make any gesture that might be interpreted as taunting or showboating.

I suppose I should "fuck off," given that I wasn't his friend, child, or spouse, given that I wasn't "close to him." Except that I'm not going to fuck off.

Who are you to tell me not to mourn the loss of someone who's served as an inspiration—and dare I say a personal hero—to me and, evidently, to lots of other people? Why does it matter whether or not I knew him personally? I'm not mourning his death because of his abilities as a marketing guru, nor am I mourning his death as a user, per se, of Apple products (though they do enable me to be more creatively productive on a daily basis). I'm mourning his death because he taught me, at a relatively young age, important lessons about disregarding external expectations, about thinking of death as a motivational tool, about the importance of continually reflecting on the direction of my life and my career.

The sentiment you (and lots of others) are expressing—namely that there's a general disingenuousness surrounding the public's mourning of Steve Jobs's death—seems to me to be incredibly presumptuous. And your point about Ralph Steinman, one of the winners of this year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, is categorically irrelevant. No doubt Ralph Steinman led an inspirational and remarkable life, one that deserves celebration. But he wasn't a public figure in the way that Steve Jobs was; he didn't have the same platform for public speeches and public interviews that made his thoughts readily available to the public at large. (If you were to make some kind of argument that, as a scientist, he ought to have more of a platform for his ideas, then you might have a valid point. But that's not what you expressed.)>> ^Jinx:
His death should be mourned in private sincerity by those close to him, not as a CEO, but as a friend/dad/husband. The rest of the world can fuck off.

hi,
i'm dr jobe martin and i am a dentist.
now dont let my biblical name fool you.
because through my career with teeth i have come to understand that evolution is wrong.
why?
because i am a dentist and that means i am a doctor which gives my thoughts and conclusions on biology more weight and authority.
ken miller?
never heard of him.

*promote