Religion

Crono said:
Something that might make it more clear is that space is far from empty ... even if it is a vacuum.

Evidence against any sort of Nihilism IMO. Nobody can find nothing...

Dr. Glass. Every society ever in existence, that we know about, has some sort of beleif in Gods. You have to wonder why... As for condoms, don't care.

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I tried sniffing coke, but the ice cubes kept getting stuck in my nose.
http://www.dimebowl.com

Unlike some religions that don't want Africa to give condoms to it's people...

You are aware that AIDS isn't really that much of a problem in Africa, right?

Historically, malaria has always been a major problem in Africa.
In order to diagnose a case of AIDS in Africa, the medical personnel
and volunteers use score cards, consisting of a symptoms/points system,
when you score enough points, you get an AIDS diagnosis. Malaria
causes symptoms which tally up a 12 only with weight loss,
asthenia(muscle weakness), and fever(there are more symptoms).
All it takes is a 12 to be diagnosed with AIDS.

The other way AIDS is diagnosed in Africa is via HIV tests. HIV
tests give false positives for: flu, herpes, immunizations, hepatis,
blood transfusions, parasites, tuberculosis, and malaria, to name a few.

In fact, one of the more largely used peices of evidence at the
beginning of the African AIDS scare was the alarming number of HIV
positives in natal clinics in Africa. Pregnancy also causes a
false positive.

Just so you know.

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Also change the texture of the dock. Docks are rarely tile. -Facepunch
As I Lay Dying

Crono said:
Also understanding that two forms of matter can't exist in the same place at the same time is imperative.

What do you mean by "forms"? Any number of bosons can exist in the same quantum state. Fermions cannot. However, bosons and fermions cannot be described by a single wave function, so maybe that's what you meant.

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Some people are like slinkys...

They aren?t really good for anything, but you can't help but laugh when one tumbles down the stairs.

I originally said "masses", I thought it was too specific, Masses in the example ... a force due to mass and acceleration (and many other factors) in real life. Anyway, I always get those two mixed up together. I forget which makes up force (Fermions?) and which makes up matter (Bosons?)

Anyway, my point is and was, if you imagine it as a trampoline and bowling ball, both are solid matter, that should give a conceptual understanding since we know we can't shove a ball and fabric into the same point ... realistically. If anything one of the masses would break, neither would exist in the exact same place. I also wasn't talking on a quantum level. If you're going to talk about gravity, it makes more sense to talk on grand scales (maybe as small as planets).

Nothing of what I said is technical nor is it to be used in calculation or higher understanding. It's simply an idea to express the concept to people who have no clue WHY gravity exists. Nothing more.

I don't understand the need to complicate it more by delving deeper just to give a frame of reference to the concept!

I barely know anything about it, so asking me technical stuff ... about as technical as I can get on a particle level is the amount of quarks in basic particles ... I even forget all their states, but I do remember there being 6.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

Sorry Crono, I'm just being a pissant. I haven't read the thread and have no idea what you guys are talking about.

For the sake of trivial information: Fermions are non-integer spin particles, and are the constituents of matter. Bosons are integer spin particles, and are generally force transmitters. However, you'll note that many nuclei are bosons because they have an even number of half-integer spin nucleons. Thus, as a pissant point, you CAN have huge quantities of matter existing in the same quantum state, and thus the same space-time coordinate. They are called Bose-Einstein condensates. I don't think that sort of thing exists on the stellar scale though.

I'm not religious and I highly doubt there is a God.

It's okay.

I suppose I should have pointed out earlier that I'm talking about large scale, nothing nearly as small as atomic or sub-atomic ... which is what you're talking about comes into play.

SEE! I knew I had them backwards!

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

DrGlass said:
any one know why gravity works?

I thought it was something creating a gravitational pull. Something equaling everything in the universe, including that dime in your pocket.

(please note that I have only read about 65% or so of this thread)

Roman Catholic, practicing. (Church every Sunday/Saturday, but I am not a religious physco :razz: ) I fear that I am continuously becoming more and more of an agnostic, but I guess all religions have "tests of faith".

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Breaking the laws of mapping since 2003 and doing a damn fine job at it

christ, my head hurts....lol

tough read, but thanx....i have pillow talk for the old girl tonight.... :heee:

seriously, tthee or so well mannered, well informed gents having a discussion .....breath o' fresh air....

mazey, excellent example also, i understood it clearer at first, but on further contemplation, they both make good examples....my physics knowledge is pretty much limited to engineering and relatives; i hate to say it, but i feel like i missed something...lol gravity is asumed, and calculations are made from that assumption....the liquid with mass traveling thru it helped alot crono, and tb, well.....i always thought a boson was a deck ape, and a furion wa a warrior from a vin diesel movie.... :heee:

.....you guys needed a smartass in there didnt ya?

Doc B... :dodgy:

.....and yes, a little faith is required, imh but not needed opinion....

stadric said:
Just so you know.

hey hey! I didn't say anything about how AIDs was or wasn't
bad/that bad in africa, I'm just saying that religion can create
contradictions where you can't do the right thing and the right
thing. But the info does enlighten

As for all this science jabber, its over my head... though I'm so very
intrested in it all. Read "A brief history of time" a while back,
really sparked an intrest. I found this a little while back
falling into a black
hole GIF simulation of a ride into a black hole. It would
be a cool way to die.

I'm chock full of stuff like that, Doc. On the topics of:

evolution

global warming

radiation

DDT

Stem cells

cloning

It's good to learn.

Because knowledge is power!

<span style="font-weight: bold;">EDIT:

</span>Oh yeah, and marijuana too.<br style="font-weight: bold;">

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Also change the texture of the dock. Docks are rarely tile. -Facepunch
As I Lay Dying

You are aware that AIDS isn't really that much of a problem in Africa, right?

That's nothing but a conspiracy theory. Do you have any responsible sources for that? It's hard enough to propagate condoms anyway, now if the church even says it's a sin to use them (although the official statement from the pope was changed recently) there is no hope at all to make people in Africa use them. The infections could be reduced by high rates. And after so many years of missonary work people in Afrika tend to listen to the church more than people in Europe or the US.

________________________________

I still don't understand what gravity actually is. I mean all of the explanations are about what gravity does but not what it is. For me physics always entered a stage of "magic" when it comes to the power of attraction between two objects. There must be something in between otherwise the force is nothing but pure magic.

Next time I worry about My replies ruining your thread Gwil, remind me exactly how far "Off topic" is again.

This thread went over hill and yon while i was gone.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

I was trying to steer us away from "Religion is brainwashing/God is
made up" as it happens, as I know people love to dive into that
pointless and prejudiced debate.

Well, when I get back I plan on reading many of these replies. I am particularly interested in many. I am curious to read something that doesn't involve being hit with the bible in the back of the skull.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

:razz:

I mainly wanted to avoid arguments about the rights and wrongs of
religion, which people seem to have done well enough. When those guys
started discussing balls on trampolines it was off topic, but good
natured and random enough to leave alone.

Add to the fact I hadn't a f**king clue what they were talking about!

Addicted to Morphine said:
I'm not religious and I highly doubt there is a God.

Mind if I ask why? It's interesting to me.

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I tried sniffing coke, but the ice cubes kept getting stuck in my nose.
http://www.dimebowl.com

<span style="color: white;">Edit: I just remembered that gwil wants to keep all sorts of discussion out of this thread, so I'm moving my reply to a new one.</span>

Do you have any responsible sources for that?

Did you even read my post?

On a side note, do you have any credible proof that AIDS is actually a
problem in Africa? I'm not talking about media sources, I'm
talking about actual scientific facts.

By the way, AIDS rates in the US are still predominantly black
male. The ironic thing about using AIDS as a conspiracy is that
it puts everyone at risk for AIDS, and therefore a potential customer.

Heh, heh, heh, those greedy people and their money.

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Also change the texture of the dock. Docks are rarely tile. -Facepunch
As I Lay Dying

Did you even read my post?

On a side note, do you have any credible proof that AIDS is actually a problem in Africa? I'm not talking about media sources, I'm talking about actual scientific facts.

I read your post. And it sounds like a conspiracy theory. It just does. How many percent of false tests would be necessary to say that HIV isn't really that much of a problem in Africa?

i still don't get the two marbles on a sphere thing. like, if i start on the tropic of capricorn and someone else starts on the tropic of cancer, and we both start moving west, don't we keep moving west, parallel to each other, without ever meeting?

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i eat paint

i still don't get the two marbles on a sphere thing. like, if i start on the tropic of capricorn and someone else starts on the tropic of cancer, and we both start moving west, don't we keep moving west, parallel to each other, without ever meeting?

For a minute forget that you are on the tropic of capricorn and pretend you are on the equator and start traveling west. You will stay on the equator and travel around the earth on a circular path with maximum radius (the equator's radius). These circular paths are called great circles.

Now if you are on the tropic of capricorn, I claim that the situation is exactly the same because of the symmetric properties of a sphere - you are just somewhere on a sphere moving in some initial direction. Lets say I take a ball and draw one point "A" on the equator and another point "B" on the tropic of capricorn, and then I draw tiny* arrows indicating the initial direction at each point. If I randomly rotate the ball around and then hand it to you and say "one of these arrows points along the equator, which one?", then there is nothing you can do tell which one it is. It is equally valid to say that "B" is on the equator and "A" is on the tropic of cancer as it is to say that "A" is on the equator and "B" is on the tropic of capricorn.

Suppose you are on the tropic of capricorn heading west. Rotate and redraw your coordinate system (the lines of lattitude and longitude) so that you are on the equator in the new coordinate system, and so that the new equator is tangent to your initial direction (west) at your initial position. Since the situation is the same in this new coordinate system as it would have been if you were at the equator, you must also travel in a great circle.

The same thing applies for the person at the tropic of cancer or any other position on the sphere. They will also travel in a great circle. Now try to draw 2 great circles on a sphere (where each circle has the same radius as the sphere and is an equator in some rotated coordinate system). Nomatter how you draw it, the circles must cross.

*the arrows must be infinitely tiny for a truly unknowable situation, or alternatively I could glue (finite length) toothpicks tangent to the ball at those points.

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http://maze5.net

Somewhere in the high seventies, if not higher, which is a pretty good estimate, considering how big a problem Malaria has always been in Africa.

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Also change the texture of the dock. Docks are rarely tile. -Facepunch
As I Lay Dying