General Discussion

[Gawge]

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fenian wrote:

The fact is, its possible to believe in intelligent design and not believe in the bibile and lots of people do.

Einstein believed in a non personal god (something that started everything but not a human with a beard that we pray to but a substance of thought), so did many other people far more intelligent than anyone you see on the TV or can follow on twitter, or anyone on this forum.

Most ridiculed religion and are often quoted as being anti religious which is true, but that does not mean they were against the idea of a god, or the idea of intelligent design, even darwin wouldnt bother arguing with you about a god or intelligent design, just that things evolve and change.

its perfectly acceptable for people to believe in intelligent design.

Its also perfectly fine to believe there is no intelligent design and we are mortal because the mortal being is far superior to an imortal being as it can adapt and survive at a greater pace than the imortal.

As long as there is no answer, its not crazy to believe what you want.

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Although it seems like there might be quite a bit of discrepency on this issue, I don't think that there is too much. Some say that they don't believe there is a God, others believe that God is some sort of thing which started everything. Pretty much everybody agrees that there is a lot which we don't know, and that probably something very spectacular was our cause - some people just like to call that 'God', others call it an unbelievable bit of luck/chance. Nobody really knows, and I think the wording it largely semantics.

However, talking about some sort of omnipotent God that concerns himself with our sexual habits and governs our life is in a completely different viewpoint. Although people have their right to their own opinions, I have the right to think they are rather ridiculous. 

Also, the appeal to authority is a fallacious argument. Just because Einstein, or whoever, believes something does not make it a sound argument. Though, that being said, Einstein didn't believe in some sort of overlord creator.

[InfiniteStates]

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Gawge wrote:

However, talking about some sort of omnipotent God that concerns himself with our sexual habits and governs our life is in a completely different viewpoint. Although people have their right to their own opinions, I have the right to think they are rather ridiculous.

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Agreed. I personally think that a need to believe in a deity of any form is simply an extension of our inherent primitive need for social hierarchy. After all, where do you go after alpha (fe)males, presidents/kings/queens or whatever?

And historically that primitive need has been exploited as a form of control in some instances, or as a form of explanation for mysterious events in others.

[fenian]

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InfiniteStates wrote:

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fenian wrote:

Its also perfectly fine to believe there is no intelligent design and we are mortal because the mortal being is far superior to an imortal being as it can adapt and survive at a greater pace than the imortal.

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Everyone is entitled to believe what they want.

Adaptability for evolutionary survival occurs over generations, so it doesn't matter if you live 10 minutes or 10 thousand years, your evolutionary adaptability is exactly the same. The species with highest evolutionary adaptibility is the one that has the shortest reproduction cycle, not the lowest or highest mortality rate.

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I think it stands to logical reason looking at the world that the longer you live the longer your reproduction cycle is, for example some animals that live very long dont reach sexual maturity till they are 20 years old (bowhead whale specifically, but others like rougheye rockfish, Galapagos Tortoise etc all mature and reproduce slow), and some take over a year to have a baby, while those with short life spans like the may fly have faster reproduction cycles.

I dont see why an imoortal being would even have reproduciton urges. I cant think of a single long living animal that gives birth a lot.

[InfiniteStates]

Frogs can live up to 40 years and produce 1000s of offspring in a year when it's warm. But regardless, associating adaptability with mortality is circumstantial at best.

[InfiniteStates]

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InfiniteStates wrote:

But can beliefs themselves negatively affect others? Even disgraceful (IMO) beliefs like racism and the like...?

Surely it's only when those beliefs are acted on that the line is crossed?

And does "acting on" include sharing with others?

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Tragic.

[fenian]

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InfiniteStates wrote:

Frogs can live up to 40 years and produce 1000s of offspring in a year when it's warm. But regardless, associating adaptability with mortality is circumstantial at best.

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Thats due to survival rates, if an immortal being had a low survival rate it would need to reproduce a lot, but then chances would be none would ever live forever as their survival would come to an end from starvation, or predation or climate etc etc

If such beings did exsist, then being mortal would be a better solution, as in that way they wouldnt have centuries or older dna leaving them suceptiable to old problems.

For example if we still bred with original humans and neanderthals we would still be dying from stuff that killed them even though we had evolved the adaptions would take way longer and leave our survival rate low, if we were mortal we could completley ditch dna problems over a few generations.

[InfiniteStates]

I am aware of why, but thanks anyway.

[fenian]

don't mention it.

Also this is all irrelevant, because as far as I know although we create the higgs boson, we only look for it after it has been destroyed, we will never be able to see one or control one directly.

Consider if we were able to create a star the size of a pin head, but it could only ever appear for .000001 of a second then vanish, the area it would appear in was the size of a golf ball, and we only see the light from it after it has decayed and disappeared, and the place it appears is random.

Could we ever find a practical application for the star? could we harness it..no one can say no for sure but its not really likely.

Could understanding how the star is made make us understand other stuff around us better and be helpful in that way? well yes and thats why they do things like this.

This is what higgs boson will do for mass and gravity for us, probably wont change a thing, but will allow us to understand both mass and gravity completley which may or may not have a huge impact.