>> ^spoco2:

OK, yes, that was many shades of awesome.
I have some unicorn tears over here if you wish to use them. Just fyi.
if you know that if you polish unicorn's horn, it produces magical unicorn mayonnaise?

>> ^JiggaJonson:

promote
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2011/12/In-Memo
riam-Christopher-Hitchens-19492011
gets teary eyed


Thanks for the promote Jigga, I didn't see this one the 1st time around. I'm gonna miss the Hitchslaps...

A friend of mine found this quote from Ann Druyan, Carl Sagan's wife, after he died. Found it pretty inspiring:

"When my husband died, because he was so famous and known for not being a believer, many people would come up to me - it still sometimes happens - and ask me if Carl changed at the end and converted to a belief in an afterlife. They also frequently ask me if I think I will see him again. Carl faced his death with unflagging courage and never sought refuge in illusions. The tragedy was that we knew we would never see each other again. I don't ever expect to be reunited with Carl. But, the great thing is that when we were together, for nearly twenty years, we lived with a vivid appreciation of how brief and precious life is. We never trivialized the meaning of death by pretending it was anything other than a final parting. Every single moment that we were alive and we were together was miraculous - not miraculous in the sense of inexplicable or supernatural. We knew we were beneficiaries of chance… That pure chance could be so generous and so kind… That we could find each other, as Carl wrote so beautifully in Cosmos, you know, in the vastness of space and the immensity of time… That we could be together for twenty years. That is something which sustains me and it's much more meaningful…

The way he treated me and the way I treated him, the way we took care of each other and our family, while he lived. That is so much more important than the idea I will see him someday. I don't think I'll ever see Carl again. But I saw him. We saw each other. We found each other in the cosmos, and that was wonderful."

Just because the universe might be eternal, does not mean that God is the automatic solution, nor the simplest explanation. That's just the one that makes sense to you. I would say that an eternal universe filled with rocks and gas is a little less complicated than an eternal, thinking, feeling, all-powerful being. But again, that's just my opinion. Those are large concepts, and the rules of physics, or even the seemingly bizarre rules of quantum mechanics do nothing to help explain them.

To me it is simply a probability argument. If you say that everything is equally unlikely, then if you strip away all other concerns, you just have the question..was the Universe deliberately created? The answer is either yes or no. You have evidence that perhaps there is design, which implies an intelligent (and powerful) creator. You have evidence that perhaps it could have happened by chance, by naturalistic processes. From there, you have to figure out what explanation best matches reality. You could ask, does something as wonderful as life and as amazing as the Universe just happen by itself? You could ask, am I just a bunch of atoms moving through space or is there something more to me than that?

Is an eternal God hard to grasp? Yes, but easier I think than something from nothing. If it is something from nothing we will always be ignorant of the initial conditions. If God created it, He will (presumably) educate us about the mystery of His existence. He promised this:

1 Corinthians 13:12

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

It is basically saying that God promises full disclosure when His Kingdom is established on Earth..

Occam's razor is simply a pragmatic way to find a solution, it does not prove anything, but just suggest what a likely answer might be. People use that argument about the complexity of universal laws all the time, but the fact of the matter is, we still don't understand 99.99999999% of the universe or how it works. We can see that if we "tweaked the dials", it would probably look much different than the universe we know, but there isn't a scientist out there in this world that could tell you with any certainty what would happen. Only that on a large scale, things might fall inward or burst outward faster, or that water might not congeal the same way.

Well, just in the initial conditions of the Universe, you have several values which just defy any naturalistic explanation. Even atheist scientists have to admit that a straight forward explanation indicates a designer:

Fred Hoyle, Astronomer said

"A commonsense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super-intellect 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."

This has major implications for scientific theories, because it isn't simply a matter of it being incredibly unlikely, it is also matter of contradicting the predictions of standard models. I think you'll enjoy this article:

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/hep-th/pdf/0208/0208013v3.pdf

Speaking of complexity, here's an exercise for your brain: Think about a mountain, on part of that mountain, pressure builds up, and a rock slide starts to fall. When it finally settles, the rocks, all the little pebbles and large boulders and particles of dust are arranged in just a certain way. Even though it's just a pile of rocks, it contains within it an inconceivable amount of complexity. Nowhere else in the entire universe, will there ever be a pile of rocks that have the exact specifications of this one. And even if it did, it wouldn't be composed of the same stone, And even if was, the elements that make up the stone wouldn't be arranged the same way. Nor would it be the exact same temperature, unless it was in the exact same relative position in the universe with an identical sun, with all the particles of gas and dust in between them arranged in exactly the same way.

In a way, the pile of rocks, when you think about it, is an impossibility. And yet it exists. There is no simple solution to explain it. An eternal creator, or the laws of physics? Either way, the true meaning is something that neither of us can comprehend. And to say that either one is "simpler" than the other is merely a statement of faith. Not fact.

Sure, taken by itself, such a thing is astonishing to behold. Divorced from its circumstances, it is perplexing to say the least. Yet, either explanation for the origin of this impossibility leads to a definitive conclusion. If it was naturalism, there is no meaning to it. It just happened that way and at best you can invent a meaning for it and decide to believe it. If it was created, however, it was created for a purpose. It has meaning because of that purpose; it is invested with meaning. In naturalism, you are practically looking at something alien. It is cold, dead, inexplicable, and doesn't care about you. Under creation, you are at the least staring this quote from Einstein dead in the face:

"I'm not an atheist, and I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations."

I go a step further because I believe God has revealed a bit about his Dewey Decimal System, but essentially, I am in staring at this in awe and wonder. I think those rocks are amazing and startling, but I also praise God for making them that way.

>> ^Ryjkyj:
We love you too. (but it's a rough, heathen love)
Just because the universe might be eternal, does not mean that God is the automatic solution, nor the simplest explanation. That's just the one that makes sense to you. I would say that an eternal universe filled with rocks and gas is a little less complicated than an eternal, thinking, feeling, all-powerful being. But again, that's just my opinion. Those are large concepts, and the rules of physics, or even the seemingly bizarre rules of quantum mechanics do nothing to help explain them.
Occam's razor is simply a pragmatic way to find a solution, it does not prove anything, but just suggest what a likely answer might be. People use that argument about the complexity of universal laws all the time, but the fact of the matter is, we still don't understand 99.99999999% of the universe or how it works. We can see that if we "tweaked the dials", it would probably look much different than the universe we know, but there isn't a scientist out there in this world that could tell you with any certainty what would happen. Only that on a large scale, things might fall inward or burst outward faster, or that water might not congeal the same way.
Point being, just because we can tell that the universe would be different, doesn't mean that it was designed. It just means that it is this way.
Speaking of complexity, here's an exercise for your brain: Think about a mountain, on part of that mountain, pressure builds up, and a rock slide starts to fall. When it finally settles, the rocks, all the little pebbles and large boulders and particles of dust are arranged in just a certain way. Even though it's just a pile of rocks, it contains within it an inconceivable amount of complexity. Nowhere else in the entire universe, will there ever be a pile of rocks that have the exact specifications of this one. And even if it did, it wouldn't be composed of the same stone, And even if was, the elements that make up the stone wouldn't be arranged the same way. Nor would it be the exact same temperature, unless it was in the exact same relative position in the universe with an identical sun, with all the particles of gas and dust in between them arranged in exactly the same way.
In a way, the pile of rocks, when you think about it, is an impossibility. And yet it exists. There is no simple solution to explain it. An eternal creator, or the laws of physics? Either way, the true meaning is something that neither of us can comprehend. And to say that either one is "simpler" than the other is merely a statement of faith. Not fact.

Inexplicably bitter upper-middle-class-raised community activist versus successful entrepreneur who came up from nothing.

Wish I could be proven wrong about liberal schemes in the best way: with low unemployment, prosperity and more, not less, freedom.

But freedom and vote-buyin' libs guaranteeing an equality of outcomes aren't compatible.


>> ^Boise_Lib:

>> ^quantumushroom:
Yeah, he did a poor job clarifying his personal beliefs, versus beliefs about what government should or shouldn't be allowed to do.
Of course, compared to the Kenyawaiian narcissist, Cain is a genius many times over, with actual business and life experience.

LOL...oh wait, you're serious?
Even bigger LOLs.

>> ^rgroom1:

FAKE FAKE FAKE
watch the stock of the gun during the misfire: it inexplicably becomes an inch wider while the barrel that was pointed at his face turns away.


Faking it? That's what she said.

>> ^rgroom1:

FAKE FAKE FAKE
watch the stock of the gun during the misfire: it inexplicably becomes an inch wider while the barrel that was pointed at his face turns away.

And the gunshot sound ends abruptly instead of carrying like the previous shots.

Yeah, I think you're right there. At first I thought it was just the stock jumping from the recoil, but it goes back perfectly in place to where it started. >> ^rgroom1:

FAKE FAKE FAKE
watch the stock of the gun during the misfire: it inexplicably becomes an inch wider while the barrel that was pointed at his face turns away.

>> ^rgroom1:

FAKE FAKE FAKE
watch the stock of the gun during the misfire: it inexplicably becomes an inch wider while the barrel that was pointed at his face turns away.


Ooh, good call. Yeah, he did a crappy composite job there. Glad it wasn't real.

FAKE FAKE FAKE

watch the stock of the gun during the misfire: it inexplicably becomes an inch wider while the barrel that was pointed at his face turns away.

Aside from their inexplicable use of Comic Sans, pretty much nailed it.

Humans and in fact all animals capable of learning patterns of some kind, have a natural bent towards recognizing and in turn, attempting to discern patterns of cause and effect. "This happened because I did this" and so on. When events occur that we can't explain however, this instinct doesn't shut off. We want to know, we have an inborn *need* to know what caused this earthquake, this inexplicable illness, this strange mental phenomena. With no readily available explanation humans will invariably make up their own reason for it.
This in no way makes any of it real by any stretch of the imagination. Why is there so much religion and belief in a higher power? Because *surprise!* the human race didn't know or comprehend 99.9% of anything going on for the past several hundreds of thousands (or thousands if you believe in a god that is attempting to play practical jokes on us all), so we made our own reasons for it. Only relatively recently have we begun to truly understand anything at all about the greater universe, whether you contest six thousand or a hundred thousand years of human history. Only a few hundred years at best have we been able to seriously study and understand all of "this". Compared to the thousands of years before of attributing every little thing we couldn't grasp to deities of one form or another, it would be more surprising if there wasn't as much religion as there is right now.
Sheer numbers is not an argument for anything. Just an argument that because there are a lot of you, it somehow means your right. When a few people believe in something unprovable or highly unlikely, we call this mental illness. When many believe the same things, we call this religion.

QM...where do you get your information? From Trump?
As far as I can tell, most if not all jobs 'created' (moved) by Trump are NOT in this country. Indications are that the net job gain/loss in this country are squarely in the negative column for Trump, probably internationally too, but that's much harder to tell. You can say he lost, then won, but indications are that the losses are larger than the wins, and the wins are wins for him alone (and other chair-persons who get large payoffs for bankrupting and 'strip-mining' companies), not his company's American employees or the companies themselves for the most part. By his account, his involvement with the bankrupt casino was most likely considered a 'win' because HE made money selling his name, the fact that the business failed and the employees lost their jobs doesn't seem to bother him in the least, or even register.
Also, the numbers I've seen show large private sector job growth, true, not back to pre-Bush levels yet, but Bush drove/spent us into the ground for 8 years, turning surplus into insurmountable debt and deficit while also deferring payment of many of his 'project's' costs until after he left office (the sneakiest thing he did as president, he found a way to make the next president find a way to pay for many of his failed policies and projects (can you say unpaid for tax cuts?), amazing), climbing back up is bound to take time. The stock market is back higher than pre-Obama and moving in the right direction, jobs are sure to follow.
And as to 'his earness', why not quit parsing your words and come out and say 'his browness', it's fairly obvious that's the problem most of the far right have with him, a little honesty would be refreshing. Making up BS and infantile names to call someone because you're afraid to admit and confront your REAL issue with them is what spoiled little girls do, not grown men and women. I'm sure you won't agree, but you can't possibly defend your childish name calling over the years, or your incessant unpatriotic attacks against YOUR president during war(s). Sometimes your vitriol IS as excruciating as watching "the situation" attempt to roast Trump because it comes from the same uninformed, hyper arrogant, infantile, inexplicably self righteous attitude (I call it "Peggy Hill Syndrome").
Then there's the real question for you, what if you got what you wanted and removed Obama, do the Retardicans really think Biden would be better for them somehow? Perhaps so, if what they really want is someone to give them gaffs to exploit, he almost certainly would. If they want reason and thoughtfulness, they had better hope with all their might that Obama stays right where he is. Compared to most Dumbocrats, his plans seem hyper-conservative.

>> ^quantumushroom
Trump creates jobs that create wealth. Trump has lost and won, lost and won again, the real deal who earned his arrogance. What the fuck is a community organizer?
His Earness created more government jobs, which actually drain taxpayer money. Otherwise he hasn't done shit, unless you count making things worse as "doing something".
This is nowhere near as excruciating as watching "the situation" attempt to roast Trump during Trump's Comedy Central roast.

I am inexplicably reminded of the Lernaean Hydra for some reason.

This is inexplicably hilarious.

RUBBER is the story of Robert, an inanimate tire that has been abandoned in the desert, and suddenly and inexplicably comes to life. As Robert roams the bleak landscape, he discovers that he possesses terrifying telepathic powers that give him the ability to destroy anything he wishes without having to move. At first content to prey on small desert creatures and various discarded objects, his attention soon turns to humans, especially a beautiful and mysterious woman who crosses his path. Leaving a swath of destruction across the desert landscape, Robert becomes a chaotic force to be reckoned with, and truly a movie villain for the ages. Directed by legendary electro musician Quentin Dupieux (Steak, Nonfilm), aka Mr. Oizo, RUBBER is a smart, funny and wholly original tribute to the cinematic concept of no reason.