Wednesday, July 18, 2012

More continuation...

Not posting anything new, just running out of room and so forth...

Thinking about discontinuing this blog, but come to think of it, it seems to be doing that to itself, so maybe I'll just treat it like a slowly dying relative and humor it for as long as it's here...

(I'd miss you all, so that's there too...)

200 comments:

  1. Brian:
    It appears that you may need to come up with some new rant, as you have done so effectively in the past, to restart the interest that your blog has always generated in the past. Even though I have not posted very frequently, I have followed closely and found this blog generally stimulating and often stimulating. Don't lose heart, especially since you now know that you ARE a "true Scotsman".

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  2. "...have followed closely and found this blog generally stimulating and often stimulating...".
    Please replace stimulating with "thought-provoking" whereevr you choose.

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  3. Hey, we could have said, "We said it all!", after thousands of comments on DD's blog. It's summertime, so, what?, we're expecting a systematic review of the crystals found in the Earth's crust from you?

    Fuck no, we'll steal topics from other blogs and discuss them, bitch about the latest Republican twists and lies, why not?

    Shit, I'll talk about how smart my little bird is compared to some of these 'mirrors' that actually get air-time on television simply because they can repeat the party mantra!

    Come to think of it, that's exactly what Eric is, a Catholic 'mirror' on the World! "Pearls before swine..", what a joke, he comes here since none of his own are actually THINKING, that's the truth of it.

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  4. Ok, I'm with Ian. Like any program we can tune in when it interests us and not when it doesn't - like when the word 'Aquinas' shows up, for example.

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  5. Don't know if Eric has given up on us, but I was wondering if, since the USA is a 'nation of laws', let's say that there was a law which stated that it was against the law for me not to pay my debts, if he was willing to swear that I did, in fact, owe him money well beyond the limit of our deal, if the law was that the state payed him and incarcerated me until they felt that I had paid my debt, if that would be lawful and just, according to himself? (lots of 'ifs' there, I know.)

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  6. Okay.... I'm glad that you aren't all happy with the idea, I guess. I mean, I like these discussions....

    I may be Irish, but originally Scottish.... the name can be both.... some Grahams left Scotland for Ireland a long time back... I was originally told that I was half-Irish, and my first name is after all Brian.... I had that name when i was adopted. Anyhow, I really like it.

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  7. Now I need a sporran and a byrnie and a' that...

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  8. I think that I tend to swerve toward political discussions more so than theological ones because all I see when we get into Aquinas or whatever is an irreversible stalemate... that system was DESIGNED to beat us with bullshit. The sheer amount of bullshit and ass-smoke is to me both astonishing and disgusting at the same time. When I talk to Eric, I leave the experience feeling soiled. Like I've been playing with excrement.... and I generally don't like to do that.... lol.... The right-wing politics to me shows the idiocy of the religion and their lack of both morality and critical thinking skills in a more clear and relatable way. But that's just me. I also see that many of you seem to love diving into the details.... I used to do that, in the beginning, when I first ran across Eric on the old DD blog... but after a while I realized that it was not a real argument, since he clearly was bending facts and the truth to his purposes, and that was his whole game. So I tend to opt out of it. I have to; it makes me sick.

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  9. This is what it looks like to me:

    Pboy (for example): Eric, I maintain that one plus one equals two.

    Eric: Pboy, clearly the smeddiform lazingale is not farfellating in a resonance with the numerical halindrome in this instance, and furthermore one can clearly see (if one has eyes to see!) that arithmetically the unit of variance is polisitating in a reductionist metronomic fashion.... Why hundreds of classical philosophers (list attached) feel the same, that when addition of unitary bodies is in order the numerical identity of each unit necessarily depends on hyperballistic flatternation; only a moron would disagree with this and you're smarter than that.... so then, we can conclude that in reality one plus one is obviously not precisely two but must be allowed a variance due to zoning ordinances in ancient Sparta.... But of course you would know this if you, like me, had studied and read the classics and comprehended the pertinent issues... so the answer is PI over Christ multiplied by the number of Angels currently dancing on pins....

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  10. And on reading back there, the only inaccuracy that I must note is that I only provided one paragraph and Eric has a lower threshold limit of three per post.

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  11. In Eric's world a simple, plain, self-evident fact can be trumped by the sheer weight of the number of famous christians who disagree with it.

    BUt see, even in this I am a victim. Here I am presenting his argumentation style as if it were at all genuine when it is not. It's all cunningly designed to appear so, but it's always a trap.

    Now you know why I opt out. I also do not play with doggies that happen to have rabies. Same reason.

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  12. Here's what I derive from all our talks with Eric:

    One single fact can and does trump all two thousand years of christian dogmatic bullshit...

    ...however...
    Not to a christian bullshitter. Not ever. Never.

    To them a fact is just a challenge to their egos. Something to defeat. Never something to examine in a neutral manner. Never something that induces critical thinking.

    They have their own 'facts.'

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  13. When you are programmed to believe that beliefs are facts, then actual facts become mere beliefs.

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  14. When I 'hear' Eric talking, I'm always reminded of The Holy Grail....

    "And so my liege, that is how we know the Earth to be banana shaped..."

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  15. Perhaps he was hoping that if you sucked in enough salvia..?

    Yesterday afternoon, I thought that was 'it' for me, I got all dizzy and parts of my body seemed to be losing feeling. I'd have gotten myself to the hospital but I couldn't articulate what it was that was bothering me the most, a sort of, kind of, headache on the right side of my head, like a massive toothache without the pain in the teeth, then kind of a pain in my sinuses as if I'd snorted some dishwashing liquid.

    In the end I opted for, "What would I like if this were my last day on Earth?".. answer... pizza and beer. So, I ordered some pizza and got some beer, which I'm still consuming, btw.

    Emma, of course was not pleased, even after I told her that I paid for the stuff out of my own pocket, not on the 'grocery bill', oh well, can't please everyone all of the time, and I'm kind of surprised that I'm still here actually!

    Got in one last 'kick', for a joke, I told Emma, who was being a prick, that I had willed my money to the Sally Ann! LOL.

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  16. Jeeze Pboy, that sounds awful. Are you okay now? What was it, do you think?

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  17. If you guys can make 1/2 a million homeless people 'invisible'/jokes/victims of youthful exuberance, why, why you can make your own heads disappear right up your own asses, no?

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  18. Perhaps he was hoping that if you sucked in enough salvia..?
    ---------------
    Cute...
    Honestly, I've found that while on salvia I tend to be coldly rational in the extreme, and would be even less likely to accept fluffery such as Eric offers. Just an FYI...
    I can even juggle better on salvia. I have better physical co-ordination and time seems to run a bit slower for me. My wife tells me that it's scary. One time I had just smoked some and came out of the room, looked at her, threw a cigarette up in the air spinning end-over-end over my head, and neatly caught it by the filter in my mouth... something I've practiced, but I tend to run about one out of twenty on... first try though on salvia... that's how it works....
    She doesn't partake.... tried it once, just a tiny amount, and felt 'tingles' and didn't like that for some reason.
    It's a very different kind of thing than one can even imagine if one has had other drugs, never mind if one hasn't...

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  19. Pizza and Beer, the oft-overlooked panacea!

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  20. Incidentally, one of the adjustments that I had to make when under the influence of salvia is that 'coldly rational' thingy... My wife is an emotion-based creature, as are many women, but her even more so... Now, knowing what you know about women pboy, how good does that work, being coldly rational in the face of an emotional being?
    Right.... it doesn't. And of course I am RIGHT in my rationality... everything is so damned clear.... but again, is being RIGHT an advantage when arguing with a woman?
    So I had to learn to tone that down, which I did eventually...

    Lol....

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  21. Ann Romney calling us 'You people' now.... "That's all you people are going to get from us...." Nice.

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  22. I'm supposing it was a bit of a stroke. Thank Yahweh I'm not feeling any worse than ever, considering the Lord had himself sacrificed for our sins and.. yada yada.. still don' b'lieve that shite. LOL

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  23. Comment on HuffPo article on how half of US households hold only one percent of the wealth in the country:

    “Poverty is an anomaly to rich people. It is very difficult to make out why people who want dinner do not ring the bell.”
    –Walter Bagehot
    English economist (1826-1877)

    Ha!

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  24. Well, I think you have to go to the hospital right away for it to make any difference. I'm not sure exactly what they do if you do go right away, but in this town this is how it is. I took my dog to the vet pronto, right away, since I knew that he had swallowed something 'bad'. So, right away, the vet was thinking, "Aha, what have you done wrong!?", and she insisted on a fucking X-ray. By the time she got that done the dog had lost it's gag response so there was no point in emergency 'swallowed something bad' treatment.

    Well same thing for humans. By the time they figure there is no request for heavy drugs, no drug seeking behaviour, then whatever the worst is going to happen, happened already.

    So 'get to the hospital right now' is tempered with 'they're a bunch of fucking idiots'.

    Y'see?

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  25. I suppose so, but in the case of a stroke, even if the event is over, you need to get on blood thinners and so forth to prevent a new one.... I'm pretty sure that even if you get to a hospital now, or tomorrow, it'll be better for your long-term survival (if that was indeed a small stroke) than not going at all. My wife was in a nursing program and she is the one that told me this.

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  26. Now I need a sporran and a byrnie and a' that...

    ...and develop a taste for haggis...

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  27. WTF is wrong with haggis you sassenach?

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  28. Ian - get you behind to the doctor. I do not play one on TV - I am one.

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  29. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/18/anthony-parri-accused-of-licking-feet_n_1682676.html?utm_hp_ref=weird-news&ir=Weird%20News

    "Anthony Parri, Accused Of Licking Kids' Feet In Library, Claims He's Been Set Up By Barack Obama"

    Tea-partiers suck... toes apparently.

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  30. Thanks for your concern guys. I'm on atenolol, diltiasem and ramipril, and I take an aspirin or two quite often.

    Got blood and pee work done and an ECG(weird how laying on a piece of paper seems to settle one's heart) and am due to see the doc in one week, whose name is actually Van der Merwe and seems to (not actually) be turning into a prawn here in District 9.

    Weird about the footlicker. He has that in common with Mighty Moe Zee. Guess I'll crack another beer and ponder that coincidence for a bit.

    Seems we passed some kind of threshold in the dog's mind where Emma took him outside, twice now, and he has gotten off his leash, yes, both times, and has been so overjoyed at his freedom that he ran all around the fourplex then sat by the door waiting for Emma to let him in to be with me. I had thought that he'd have run off and played with other dogs or any kid that was at the playground across the street.

    He's not exactly the sharpest pencil in the box but he 'gets it' in the end, that if he runs away that nice man will not be able to be feeding him. Plus who else is going to tell him what a good boy he is while he is taking a dump?

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  31. And now we have another gun massacre, in Aurora Ill.

    At a "Dark Night Rises" screening...

    Can it be that there's no connection to Rush demonizing the movie, very recently? Saying that it was released to help Obama get re-elected?

    Louis Gohmert (grrrr) says it's all because of the war on christianity. I wish he had been in the audience...

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  32. It's these bloody trouble-makers that are making all the trouble, bloodily, as is their bloody trouble-making wont. Still, there has to be people willing to vote these creepoids into office in the first place.

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  33. Did any of you atheist find Jesus yet?
    Observent.

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  34. <---------- This atheist isn't looking.

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  35. Hi Mike.

    Yes, I found him in the New Testament. I read his words. Why don't you follow them? Why do you try to believe in both Jesus' words, and other words in the Bible that contradict them? How is it that you cannot see the obvious, that those words are not valid to a 'real christian.' You can't follow Christ if you can't act like him.

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  36. Ironically while I remain an atheist, albeit a mystic in my spare time, I seem to follow Jesus words in the bible a lot better than you. Why is that?

    Anyhow, nice to see you.

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  37. Of course, I don't follow them on purpose. I just try to generally treat others as I'd want to be treated because I can feel what it is like to be them. Walk a mile in their moccasins, as it were...

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  38. Observant seems to have forgotten how to spell his name.

    Brian Greene was doing his over-emoting thing about time being 'allowed' to go backwards.

    Here's one simple reason why time cannot go 'backwards' no matter how they say it's possible.

    Imagine taking a dump. Now imagine taking a reverse dump. Now gravity only has to 'work' part time. It still keeps us on the ground, but now poops leap out of the water and up the old 'chute'(LMAO) for no good reason at all. Gravity still keeps us on the ground, no problem, but now, for absolutely no possible reason, big smelly poos just jump out of the bowl and disappear up our bums!

    Try to picture this the next time you're sitting on the toilet.

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  39. Did any of you atheist find Jesus yet?

    Yeah, I pay him to cut my lawn.

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  40. Why do you try to believe in both Jesus' words, and other words in the Bible that contradict them?

    Like some of Jesus' other words?

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  41. Dude, isn't gravity due to spatial curvature and thus would apply in both temporal directions?

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  42. Like some of Jesus' other words?
    -------------
    Shhhhh!

    Alright, that's true, in a few or perhaps several instances Jesus acts contrary to his apparent gentle and/or loving nature, agreed. But mostly he's alright... compare him to Leviticus.... that's what I mean....
    Point taken, but I was trying to get something across to someone that doesn't see either one of these points.... figured I'd start with the HUGE PROMINENT differences first for demonstration purposes....

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  43. "Dude, isn't gravity due to spatial curvature and thus would apply in both temporal directions?"

    Well, I thought the problem was clear. There you are doing everything backwards, not floating away or anything 'cos gravity is gravity, right?

    So you are sitting on the can and a poop jumps out of the toilet into your 'system'.

    How does this not defy gravity, backwards or forwards? Recall that you're still not floating away from the planet because gravity is still 'working'. But gravity seems to be choosing to work when it wants now.

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  44. That sounds logical but I'm sensing a flaw somewhere.

    If gravity is spatial curvature then it's not the gravity that is reversed in a reverse-time-sequence, it's the movement of physical objects and energy along those same STRAIGHT lines in CURVED space that is reversed.
    There. I think that's it.

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  45. If I am walking in a straight line, I am walking in a straight line through a curved space which holds me down to this planet's surface. The same happens in reverse. Now if I am falling from a plane, I'm still moving in a straight line that is reversible in the curved space around this planet.

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  46. Okay, maybe someone here can answer this:

    We consider gravity as spatial curvature now.

    And yet I hear talk about seeking a particle that conveys the 'force' of gravity! Gravitons and so forth.

    Is it me, or is there a disconnect somewhere?

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  47. The Higgs boson is not a graviton of course. It is supposed to be the particle that gives matter mass.


    And it's that mass, that causes the spatial curvature that we know as 'gravity.'

    So what need for a graviton?

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  48. Back to gravity and reversibility.

    If I am in a spaceship proceeding in a straight vector...

    And time is reversed...

    I am then proceeding backwards along that straight vector.

    When I am walking a straight line along a planet's surface I am more-or-less still proceeding along a straight vector. The only difference is, the planet keeps interfering with that, and voila! Gravity!

    To expect my poop (in reversed time) to go back up into my ass, is not violating the concept of it moving in a straight vector, at least as much as possible....
    But to expect my body to fly up into the sky in that time-reverse scenario is tantamount to expecting me in the scenario of walking in a straight line to have as a reverse, me flying up in the air! That would violate the idea of my movements as straight-line movements in a curved space.

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  49. Okay let's drop poop from the scenario.(LOL)

    You're walking along and the Earth is resisting your natural path straight down to the centre of the Earth because the mass of the Earth has curved spacetime.

    Suddenly, you slip and fall off a fucking cliff! Now you, and your poo are travelling at terminal velocity and the poo inside you comes out, soiling your underwear, then splat!

    For reasons unexplained, time reverses itself. You unsplat and find yourself hurtling upwards at terminal velocity and the poop in your pants procedes to jam itself back up your bum!

    WTF? You're disgusting! Yech! Putting me off my supper.(LMAO J/K)

    In physics there is no 'suck', there's only 'push'. i.e. stuff moves from higher pressure towards lower pressure. Where's the reversibility here? Suddenly there is 'only suck' and things just naturally move from lower pressure to higher but only to the extent of how things would have been if time were the right way around?

    Example:- You bleed out and die. Time reverses, blood, coming from the ground, having had no previous contact with your body, rushes into your wounds, healing the crap out of you, but then the blood stops gushing in at the point it 'should' only according to if there was a way that time was the other way, instead of keeping pouring into you, say, 'til you explode from too much blood entering you.

    The glass of wine unshattering thing. Here we could reverse all the forces on all the shards and droplets of wine, fine. For an instant the glass is back together, but then, since the glass wasn't made, couldn't be made by shooting shards at each other, the reconstituted glass would just fall apart again. There's no magical physical force keeping the shards together, no magic superglue handy, no reason for shards to turn into an unbroken glass.

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  50. Ian, I get why that's a deal breaker for time travel to the past (I think it's impossible since the past doesn't actually exist anymore). But, if one were to "travel" to the future, it would just be a matter of travelling very fast for a long while.

    What I can't get my head around, is, if I was traveling at ~C, and there was a real time feed in my spaceship (don't ask me how), how would I appear to observers who are not moving at relativist velocities? My assumption is I would appear to be moving very slow.

    Further, and I can get my head around this even less, but would the poop flying back into your butt simply be how a non-moving observer observes you moving backwards through time?

    But I'm thinking this is one of those things where observation is simply not possible, so it's a stupid question.

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  51. Me: "But, if one were to "travel" to the future, it would just be a matter of travelling very fast for a long while."

    I forget where I read it, but someone said "time travel is only half impossible, traveling to the future is simply a question of engineering, but traveling to the past is a matter of breaking all the laws of the universe".

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  52. Exactly Ryan, there is, there exists, only now. The past is gone and the future is being dribbled out to us in the timeframe we're in.

    I don't get Eric's, "But some philosophers think otherwise!", bullshit. They think otherwise because that's what fits their agenda. This whole idea that time is moving forward like pages of a book flipping and all we'd need do is somehow get outside the book and insert ourselves in another spot, is I think to do with, "A book has a beginning and a writer!", so that fits that agenda really well.

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  53. I've heard that 'wine glass in reverse' argument before and I'll go out on a limb here and say, "It's wrong."

    They're not getting the concept of time reversal themselves. Perhaps it's not even a valid concept. But as noted, no glass can come together and stick and 'heal' all the fracturing and be a whole glass again... that's definitely not getting it right.

    Time reversal is just that, time in reverse, and that's more like a movie being reversed than a sequence of events, because in the process all forces and such are also reversed, the concept of molecular bonding itself is reversed, and there's really no way to tell it from forwards.... in fact it's possible that there is no such thing as time outside of our minds in the sense that the universe is 'all there already' and everything that can happen, has happened.... or will happen, but the future is also now as is the past. Only our perception of it., driven by the directionality of entropic processes in our body, moves 'forward.'

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  54. One other thing, this time about space and gravity.

    The two dimensional model of the sheet with the ball on it, producing a depression in the sheet, and the sheet representing three-dimensional space... it has a flaw.

    The assumption that, in the two-dimensional 'sheet' model, that the ball orbiting the heavier larger 'star' ball, the smaller 'planet' ball, will fall down the depression formed by the deformation of the sheet. Why would the ball fall into said depression?

    Think about it.

    This is then extended to the larger macro universe it represents... why does the planet 'fall' toward the larger mass due to the curvature?

    They're invoking gravity in their explanations of gravity here. And I don't think they;re seeing it.

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  55. I must be misunderstanding something, because I keep thinking of things like this:

    If gravity is spatial curvature, then why does it affect an object in rest in space if it is near enough to another object of sufficient mass... I mean, I can see why the path or vector of an object moving in relation to the larger object would have it's straight-line vector 'bent' by the bending of space around the large object... but what if the small object is at rest in relation to the larger object? Why does it fall directly toward the larger object.... if you place it there, it's still relative to the larger mass, and then it begins accelerating directly toward it. Even more radical, accelerate the small object directly AWAY from the large object but not at escape velocity and watch it slow down, stop, reverse direction, and then accelerate toward the large object. How is this accomplished by the bending of space around the large object? I sense a flaw here, but I can't express it.

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  56. I'm sensing that it's not a bending of space so much as a *stretching out* of space by the mass of the object. A stretching that forms a gradient of some kind.

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  57. Hypothesis: Space is curved around massive objects. An object moving in a straight line continues to move in a straight line but that space in which the straight line exists, is curved by the massive object.

    Question: Why then would variables like the mass and the velocity of the object affect it's actual path through visible space?

    If I'm in orbit, and I accelerate, I will move out of orbit due to centripetal force. If I am in stable orbit and suddenly jettison half my mass, I will move into a higher orbit or leave orbit altogether. If I throw a ball slow it arcs more than if I throw it fast. And so on.

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  58. http://global.christianpost.com/news/james-holmes-colorado-shooter-described-as-normal-christian-boy-amid-mental-health-investigation-photo-78623/

    James Eagan Holmes has been described as a shy and well-mannered young man by a neighbor, who claims the Colorado shooting suspect was heavily involved in his local Presbyterian church.

    Read more at http://global.christianpost.com/news/james-holmes-colorado-shooter-described-as-normal-christian-boy-amid-mental-health-investigation-photo-78623/#IfCdGToQwzK6jYXH.99
    ---------------
    See how it goes? I was looking and waiting for this. It had to be there.

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  59. Why then would variables like the mass and the velocity of the object affect it's actual path through visible space?Inertia and momentum.

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  60. If I am in stable orbit and suddenly jettison half my mass, I will move into a higher orbit or leave orbit altogether.

    Only if you jettison your extra mass opposite to the direction of your travel. If you jettison half your mass into your direction of travel, you'll reduce your velocity and spiral into the gravitational mass you're orbiting.

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  61. Let's assume that the mass of an object curves spacetime. Why does it matter if the object is rotating?

    Unless, unless the spinning mass of the object is spinning spacetime as well as curving it.

    Try to wrap your head around spinning spacetime if you don't have a hard enough time envisioning three-dimensionally curving spacetime!!

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  62. @ Brian.. take some Salvia and try to imagine that!!

    Double-dog dare ya! LOL.. no take-backies etc. (I don't know wtf the Dumb/Dumber guys said.. you know what it is.)

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  63. I actually get my objections from when I'm on salvia. Didn't you know? It's easier to visualize.

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  64. Why then would variables like the mass and the velocity of the object affect it's actual path through visible space?Inertia and momentum.
    --------------------------------
    Okay no. Think of the idea of a STRAIGHT PATH. A straight path through space. Now, would changing the mass or the velocity of an object traveling along a straight vector, cause it to veer from that straight vector, or cause the space that the straight vector is passing through to curve? I believe that answer is NO.
    So if the paths through curved spacetime are ALSO STRAIGHT, then WHY?
    See now?

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  65. If I am in stable orbit and suddenly jettison half my mass, I will move into a higher orbit or leave orbit altogether.

    Only if you jettison your extra mass opposite to the direction of your travel. If you jettison half your mass into your direction of travel, you'll reduce your velocity and spiral into the gravitational mass you're orbiting.
    ------------------------
    Again, no.
    If I skate in a spin, if I am rotating on skates and I craw my arms in, the rotation speeds up. If I let my arms swing outward, my rotation slows.
    If I am in orbit, and I jettison half my mass, the centripetal force from my rotation around the planet causes me to move to a higher orbit. It's not the thrust of the jettisoning here, it's the lessening mass. No thrust from the act of jettisoning in this case, just that my spaceship was in a tug of war between a planet and centripetal force, and when I reduce my mass the centripetal force causes me to move away from the object I am orbiting.

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  66. I'm not saying that I'm right here... these are my ideas that I am attempting to verify or not.... I am likely misunderstanding something basic about spactime curvature here.

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  67. IF a path through spacetime is a straight path, and if that straight path is passing through bent space, the straight path is apparently but not actually bent, right? It bends with the space, it's not actually a bent path. So why doesn't it ACT like a straight path? That's my problem. I'm likely misunderstanding something.

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  68. Here's a more obvious way to put this I think:

    I'm in a spaceship orbiting a planet. It is a stable orbit. I am moving at X velocity and the orbit is stable.
    Am I moving along a straight path through curved spacetime, or am I moving along a curved path?
    If the path is straight, then if I increase my velocity to 2X, then I should remain in the stable orbit... but that's not what happens.

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  69. Thinking back on the idea of reducing mass causing a higher orbit, it is possible that the reduced mass of the spaceship will not produce a higher orbit because centripetal force also depends on mass so the reduction in mass may be perfectly compensated for by the lessening of the centripetal force because of the mass reduction. However the changes in velocity affecting the orbit DEFINITELY still hold.

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  70. Incidentally when I answered you so matter-of-factly 'Um, no' and so forth, I am not saying that I am right... I was saying that you are not on my page. You may be right about what you said. It's just that you weren't getting what I meant in my arguments. Which may be wrong. (Except of course the part about speed affecting the height of an orbit; this is well-known to be true)

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  71. Why does it matter if the object is rotating?
    ---------------
    Who said it does?

    I hadn't heard that it did.

    Most objects rotate in space just due to random chance and the momentum of their formation. But some moons are non-rotational or 'one-faced' and only present the same side to their planet at any time.... like our moon... it doesn't rotate, and still has the expected amount of gravity for it's mass.

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  72. I think I've read in science fiction scenarios where the crew of a spaceship in a decaying orbit jettisons mass to lessen the rate of decay by slightly increasing the height of their orbit. Maybe that was bad science?

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  73. Did some googling... it appears that the increase or decrease in mass of an orbiting object does NOT affect the height of the orbit or the orbital velocity. The effects cancel out as I belatedly thought they might.
    The velocity effect still stands though, and that still raises questions to me, about the accuracy of the idea that the orbiting object is describing a straight line vector through curved spacetime.

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  74. I should have realized that the mass doesn't affect the orbit... if I'm in a spaceship with an attached cargo on the belly, and I'm in a stable orbit, then so is my cargo, and so if I detach it, it will float nearby my craft and not proceed downward as I proceed upwards. I knew that... just not thinking.

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  75. IF a path through spacetime is a straight path, and if that straight path is passing through bent space, the straight path is apparently but not actually bent, right?

    No. All paths through space are curved (even the ones we call "straight"). So what you have is a curved path that is apparently (to our senses) straight.

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  76. Most objects rotate in space just due to random chance and the momentum of their formation. But some moons are non-rotational or 'one-faced' and only present the same side to their planet at any time.... like our moon... it doesn't rotate, and still has the expected amount of gravity for it's mass.

    Our moon does rotate--once per orbit. This situation is what's called "phase-locked".

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  77. Yes, I know that and considered noting it but it's not germane to pboy's point about rotating bodies... it's rotating very slowly. So if there was a difference in gravitation due to rotation we'd see some of that effect in our moon.

    As to all paths being curved, care to elaborate on that part?

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  78. If all path in space are curved, then why is it that if you're proceeding in an apparent straight line and you increase your velocity drastically you still do not deviate from that vector, whereas if you are on an apparently curved path, orbiting around a planet or a star say, such changes will affect your path?

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  79. As to all paths being curved, care to elaborate on that part?

    A "straight" path is just a special case of a curve. It depends on your perspective. Incidentally, one of the earliest experimental proofs of general relativity occurred in 1919 when it was shown empirically that a light ray follows a curved path in the presence of a gravitational field.

    The difficulty for you, as I see it is that you seem to consider a curved path to be a 'natural' thing. Inertia says "no". An object in motion stays in motion in a straight line unless acted upon by an outside force (Newton I). The "outside force" here is gravity, and "orbit" is a special case of 'falling', where the falling object is falling towards a gravity well, but due to its motion, it moves beyond the mass that it's falling toward, and never reaches it.

    This answers your 'curved path' question; acceleration in the (apparent) absence of a gravitational field only increases velcity in a "straight" line, but acceleration (increasing velocity) in an orbital situation kicks you into a higher orbit, or if sufficient velocity (escape velocity) is reached, your spaceship will leave the vicinity of the gravitational mass, i.e., you won't come back.

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  80. The difficulty for you, as I see it is that you seem to consider a curved path to be a 'natural' thing. Inertia says "no".
    ----------------
    What I'm not understanding then is the meaning of a more-or-less straight path through curved space. Is not the path also curved by the curvature of the space? If not, what meaning can 'curved space' have?
    How is gravity explained then, by the curvature of space? If gravity is spatial curvature... oh wait.... it's resisted by the momentum of the object. I get it now. And not completely resisted or the object's course would not have curved toward the gravity well in the first place...

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  81. Taking an hypothetical object that (impossibly) has the mass to be attracted by the gravity well but no inertia, then no matter how fast it was passing the well it would just immediately get sucked straight in and never achieve any sort of orbit.

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  82. And that latter path, would be indeed a straight path through curved space!

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  83. occurred in 1919 when it was shown empirically that a light ray follows a curved path in the presence of a gravitational field.
    ----------------
    Einstein rings!

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  84. Thank you Ed! I get it now. Appreciate it!

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  85. Ed, isn't that (a planetary gravity field) then more like a gradient than a curvature? The only thing preventing nearby objects from falling straight in, is their lateral momentum. So I'm not envisioning curves here; more like a cliff. Straight lines pointing toward the gravity source.

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  86. If that's true, then couldn't 'dark energy' (that pushes stars apart) just be the pressure of the expansion of the intervening space but modulated by the inertia and momentum of the stars it is pushing (attempting to push?) apart?
    (Likely not, but it occurred to me because I visualized it in our discussion)

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  87. In reality, since the Earth is rotating a lot faster than the Moon is orbiting, the gravity of the Earth is pulling the Moon around a bit faster all the time.

    Now I'm talking rotations/day, the Earth being 1, the Moon being roughly 1/month rotations/day.

    If gravity is 100% concerned only with the curvature of the space surrounding a massive object, then it seems to me that in the case of the Earth/Moon system, the Moon would follow it's straight line trajectory, which happens to be an orbit around the Earth!.

    Fair enough. But gravity isn't just creating a well for the spacetime to be curved enough for the Moon to settle into an orbit, no. Gravity seems to be 'spinning' once per day with the Earth!

    In Einstein-speak, this translates to, the spacetime gravity well of the Earth is spinning along with the Earth.

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  88. You and I speak of not having moved in relation to our local background, but we understand that it is not absolute. We know that we're standing on a rotating Earth which is dragging us with it, orbiting around the Sun, which is part of a larger system all being dragged around the centre of the Milky Way.

    But our angular momentum now, that seems to be more of an individual thing, your skater spinning faster or slower depending entirely on his/her conservation of angular momentum, arms out slower, arms in faster.

    But rotation is in relationship to oneself while linear motion is in a relationship with everything around!

    If your environment is spinning around you, you may feel dizzy looking at it, but you're only going to feel your arms being pulled outwards if it is YOU that's spinning.

    This is a completely different relationship to, supposing you are moving relatively slowly but most of the Universe is careening off from your right to your left, well that is all relative. You might as well say that the Universe is doing nothing but it is your local environment that is shooting, from the 'left to the right' at 'careening' velocity!

    When it comes to spin, to rotation, the relation, 'what we are comparing our rotation to' loses meaning, we're rotating in relation to space itself.

    Now if you can see what it is that I'm 'getting at', that is the total mindfuck, because linear(orbital) motion is 'connected' to rotational movement.

    Question. Does the Sun have 'spin' and if so, is the Sun's spin influencing our orbital speed in the same way that the Earth's spin is influencing the Moon's?

    Ponder on this while you're high on whatnot! Better still, construct a simple device which you can sit in/stand on, which spins you, and ponder it while high, and spinning.

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  89. Well, you can just sit and spin, too! Give it a shot!

    ;-)

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  90. I'm thinkin' that if I took some Salvia, I might just have a heart attack or something, spinning or no.

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  91. Hey Brian, In your opinion did Jesus practice what he preached ?
    I mean He instructed His disciples to turn the other check and then He said vengeance is mine I shall recompense. Do you think since Jesus is the creator of mankind he would have liberty to do with his as it pleases him?

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  92. Hey Ian how goes it? I did forget how to spell observant as a matter of fact... lol Thanks for bringing that to my attention. Christianity seems to have a dumbing down affect on those of us who walk in the footsteps of Jesus. he he he

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  93. Do you think since Jesus is the creator of mankind he would have liberty to do with his as it pleases him?
    ----------------
    I think that's taking the viewpoint of a child. No offense. If you create a race of beings who feel pain and worry and heartache and trauma and all the strong emotions we feel, all so intensely, and then you play games with their lives, it doesn't matter one whit if you created them, you're a sadist. Period. Plus, this adds in the new dimension of the fact that he created us, so he knew what he was creating, and to punish us for being as he created us, is insanity.
    Did I mention "PERIOD?"

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  94. Also, the 'do as I say, not as I do' god, is not a rational concept. It shows your god as more immature than, well, I am. Or even you are. God can be all-powerful, but even that is not a shield against HYPOCRISY, which is being inconsistent in your own rules. God can do anything, but be a hypocrite. And he is, over and over.

    And christians are all hypocrites too, when they judge the sins of others. That's supposed to be god's province and god's alone.

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  95. How would you FEEL if you somehow had the power to create one life, one being, from out of nothing, and you did it, and there's this little guy in your petri dish, and he's wailing because he's scared and hungry and doesn't know what's happening, and then you set him loose in your terrarium and he has a lot of problems coping with nature and such, and then for shits and giggles you decide to visit hardship upon him, just to see what he'll do? Would that make you feel GREAT like god is? Or would it make you feel like the utter asshole that you would have to be in order to do such a thing?

    If god loves us, he'd treat us better. If he doesn't love us, or if he doesn't even exist, that explains a lot.

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  96. If I have the compassion and love that Jesus had, then I would despise my father, God, for being the very opposite of that. Love cannot abide such hatred and indifference to suffering.

    Listen to the good words of your Jesus there, and ignore the rest of that book... it leads to psychosis to try to believe it all... it's full of contraries, of conflicting and even self-negating ideas. You simply cannot follow all of it, and remain sane. Not possible Look at Fred Phelps and his bag of mixed nuts he calls a church for your example of what happens when someone tries to believe in ALL of the bible. You're no Fred Phelps, but you're closer to him than I am... do you even realize that?

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  97. If I could get you to see one thing about your religion Mike, it would be the Pride that flows through it like it's lifeblood. Pride is everywhere I look when I look at the believers in your faith, and at your god as well. Pride is a human flaw, and your god reeks of it... any real god would not exhibit such a very human weakness. Even mere humans can conquer their Pride. But apparently your god cannot. Maybe he's not old enough? Not grown up yet? Because he looks an awful lot like the little boy with a magnifying glass burning ants.

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  98. Mike, I'll ask you a question now:

    If you ignored all the words in the bible that were not attributed to Jesus Christ, and ONLY followed the words of Jesus, would you be a better person, or a worse one?

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  99. Christianity seems to have a dumbing down affect on those of us who walk in the footsteps of Jesus. he he he
    -------------------
    Amen, brother, amen.

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  100. (although if you only followed the philosophy of Jesus there, it wouldn't dumb you down nearly as much, and might even have the effect of you wanting to learn more about the world, rather than less)

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  101. Brian, I'm not trying to make fun of your drug 'thing', I honestly think that the gravity/motion/rotation thing is important and I'm not sure it is fully explained by Einstein's 'bending of spacteime', since Newtonian gravity is invoked to explain the Moon picking up momentum due to the 'tugging around' effect of the force of gravity.

    Einstein's theories deny the 'tuggig effect' and all that I can see that would be left is Earth's mass spinning not only curving spacetime but also rotating spacetime TOO!

    This is a bit mind-boggling to me, I have trouble imagining a three dimensional 'curving'. Adding, oh, and by the by that curve is spinning and the Moon also rides that wave too! Well, it almost sounds as if I'm just fooling around when I add in your salvia use.

    "Sit and spin yerself!!!" LOL

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  102. Actually I wasn't offended in the least, and tried to show that with the ;-) emoticon... I think that it likely amuses you that I do druuuuuuuugs. But I also think you have no problem with it and don't think less of me for it.

    I see the difficulty in the spin plus curvature thingy, trying to visualize it and so forth... a lot of this stuff is like that, isn't it? Stretches the imagination.

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  103. IN three dimensions I see it as a spherical gradient, more strong curvature the closer to the earth and lessening as the distance becomes greater... like a ball in space that is say, tinted red, with the brightest red near the planet and fading to pink as it reaches the outer shell of the sphere. I think visualizing a curve isn't the best way to try to grasp it... like I was saying before, if an object didn't have any inertia and somehow still had mass, the instant it touched that outer limit of the earth's gravity it would be moving toward the earth at lightspeed. The only thing that makes an object's path a curve in this instance is it's momentum and inertia.

    Also if the earth were a point-source of gravity, a singularity, with identical mass as the earth, I doubt that it's spin would have a similar effect on the moon. I think it's the fact that all of the earth is participating in that gravity well and an object close enough will feel tidal effects from different parts of the earth, thus inducing a 'torque' effect. I'm guessing here, of course.

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  104. Wouldn't your hypothetical object plummetting towards the Earth also be affected by the spin of the Earth?

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  105. Imagine a container filled with a stretchy substance, like soft rubber. Imagine we can see though it somehow in order to observe it.

    Now let's suppose we teleport this ball of some substance right into the middle of it. Now imagine that, after we do that, that the ball starts somehow sucking in all surrounding rubber in all directions at the same time. So then before the ball, the rubber was all in a relaxed state, no stretching. After the ball is introduced, the rubber starts stretching TOWARD the ball from all directions surrounding it. Tension in the rubber is created, strongest near the ball, lessening as you move away from it.
    That's kinda where I'm at.

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  106. I'm not sure, I am not familiar with that effect... heard it first time from you.
    Do you have any links to anything I can read about it?

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  107. Although, if we go back to that previous example of the container full of rubber, I can imagine that sphere spinning and thus 'twisting' the rubber as it attracted it, producing curved lines of stress...

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  108. Trust me, the Earth's gravitational pull is the cause of the Moon's unstable orbit.

    Wiki.. "..some of the Earth's rotational momentum is gradually being transferred to the Moon's orbital momentum, and this causes the Moon to slowly recede from Earth ..."

    This transfer is easier visualized by Newtonian 'force of gravity' than Einsteinian 'curved spacetime'.

    This gradual receding of the Moon is actually a YEC talking point using the constant rate of recession(as if it were constant) as 'proof' that the planet and it's moon cannot be billions of years old.

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  109. Trust me, the Earth's gravitational pull is the cause of the Moon's unstable orbit.
    --------------
    No, I know that, I meant that I haven't heard that it was the earth's *rotation* that was the cause of it. Although it makes sense.
    So that's what you have trouble visualizing?
    I'd have to know more about it before even attempting to visualize it. So I was asking for a link (not for proof!) but so I could read about that effect, of rotation being the culprit. I wanted to know about it.

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  110. This transfer is easier visualized by Newtonian 'force of gravity' than Einsteinian 'curved spacetime'.
    -------------
    I agree. But lately I've been thinking that the so-called "curvature" of space is misleading, even tough that is what it is. Misleading in that we want to visualize it like curved lines. As far as I can see (Pliny?)(Ed?) the 'lines' are pretty straight. Lines of force are indistinguishable from this sort of 'curvature' which acts just like acceleration... acceleration isn't curved lines. Any object trapped or influenced by a gravitational field tends to describe a curved vector due to it's prior (highly likely) movement relative to that gravity source, but the 'force' is linear. Or rather perhaps, radiating in a spherical field from the source of the field. The space in that sphere is 'bent' but the practical effect to me seems to be like a gradient in that as you approach the source the apparent 'force' gets stronger.

    I need to learn more about this, because I'm really winging it here and I'm quite sure that I err in many parts of my assumptions.

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  111. Reading my last post, I am moved to ask you, did I just say anything? Because I'm not even really sure, looking back...

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  112. Well, I had thought that curvature of spacetime was replacing the gravitational field model. Your last comment seems to be 'utilizing' both.

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  113. That's what I mean, it's hard to get away from it. I have trouble understanding the idea of curved space in three dimensions. It doesn't seem to relate to the membrane and the ball deforming it.

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  114. Well, I suppose a way to try to visualize it would be to imagine, say an asteroid happily zooming along, only under the slight curvature of the Sun's gravity, practically a straight line, coming under the influence of the Earth's mass. It doesn't matter which angle it's at, we just tilt the whole picture 'til it looks like a pool table with a curving hole in the middle. Dropping down the hole is a hit, zipping around the 'dip' and off at another angle is just equivalent to but different from the force that Newton describes, with the same effect. The curvature of spacetime moves with the Earth so as the Earth moves through space it causes spacetime to buckle then straighten back out when it goes by.

    I'm sure that astrophysicists know exactly what they mean by this and can explain the spinning spacetime frame as the Earth twirls by, since they use this same effect to propel spacecraft out of the Solar System.

    But I don't know this and it's possible that they actually just revert back to Newtonian physics, regarding gravity as a field when it comes to this kind of thing.

    It can't be easy math, Einstein since had some giant problems with it.

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  115. LOL rearrange the words of the last sentence 'til they make more sense. LOL

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  116. If god loves us, he'd treat us better. If he doesn't love us, or if he doesn't even exist, that explains a lot.

    Hear hear!

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  117. As far as I can see (Pliny?)(Ed?) the 'lines' are pretty straight. Lines of force are indistinguishable from this sort of 'curvature' which acts just like acceleration... acceleration isn't curved lines. Any object trapped or influenced by a gravitational field tends to describe a curved vector due to it's prior (highly likely) movement relative to that gravity source, but the 'force' is linear.

    Your terminology is a bit muddled here. You're using the layman's version of the term 'vector' here. As understood by (Newtonian) physics, a vector is an instantaneous motion described by vector 'components'; in the case of an orbiting body, the two components of the instantaneous vector are the linear (not curved) momentum of the orbiting body (usually roughly parallel to the surface of the larger gravity source) and the 'downward' gravitational component.

    When I said "instantaneous" above, i mean that it has no time duration i.e., dx/dt, a differential (you'd need to know some calculus-based physics to see this clearly).

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  118. There's more:

    To find the individual vectors such as the position vector or the velocity vector in an orbital system requires some semi-advanced math techniques such as the cross product and the dot product.

    This isn't meant to intimidate the readers, it's just to emphasize that there's more going on than most non-scientific laymen realize. I had the relevant classes about 7 years ago, and I'd be hard-pressed to remember how to work a cross product again without some coaching.

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  119. An interesting comment from the orbital system link:

    Because even satellites in low earth orbit experience significant perturbations (primarily from the non-spherical shape of the earth), the Keplerian elements computed from the state vector at any moment are only valid at that time. Such element sets are known as osculating elements because they coincide with the actual orbit only at that moment.

    This has real-world consequences that I have to deal with pretty regularly (in a tangential way...), because I use high-precision GPS in my work (Incidentally, my company bought a new GPS rover the other day for survey work, a Leica Viva GS15 model rover, list price ~$25K. We got a deal because we traded in our old rig and bought a very gently used demo model).

    The way I am affected is that when processing raw data from the receivers, I have to wait a day before the people who are in charge of such things (NOAA? USAF? NGS? Who knows...) update the ephemeris with the corrections for orbital anomalies, otherwise, my solutions are less than optimal. One might think that quibbling over a centimeter or two wouldn't make a difference, but if I can, I will use the best data solutions I can get, and that means waiting the extra day or two before processing.

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  120. If anyone was interested:

    Here's a picture of the system we bought.

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  121. Ed , Brian, Ian , All

    Treat you better as in what way?
    If you look at the situation from a Biblical standpoint you would have to say God has gone over and above any logical view point to restore man.
    I mean God warned Adam/Eve of the dire consequence if they rejected His commandment to abstain from touching/eating the for bidden fruit.

    After MAN defiled himself by his own freewill God promised He would redeem man by way of the second Adam [Jesus].
    All a man must do to receive this mercy is to repent after a Godly sorrow and with the faith God grants a man to believe he can receive everlasting life. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

    But if man hardens his heart in unbelief then man by his own choice and rejection of Gods plan of mercy is cast into hell which was made for satan and his angels for his attempt to over throw Gods throne.
    Your eternal fate is in your own hands. Life is about choices, If one breaks the law he goes to jail, If you live with in the bounds of the law you live in peace and freedom. It’s the same scenario with Gods law.
    Man kind has already been found guilty as charged, we are commanded to repent to stay out of eternal prison

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  122. Mike, I missed you.

    You do realize that if it were anyone else my first thought on reading your above post would be 'hey dude, stop dicking with me...'

    I'm not trying to be mean... It's just such a far-out thing to say and really believe it... my friends would do such a thing as a prank...

    I'll just be friendly and not try to argue with you on any of it. I can't really see a point to it. Why bother? I'm not going to change your mind one iota, you've made it up for life.... frustrating, but I think I'm getting over it after all these years of knowing you.

    So, anything interesting in your life? How's things?

    (being serious, no bs)

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  123. Hi Brian,

    Well all things considered I’m holding my own, The economy is very slow and has had a devastating effect on my trade, but, I what can ya do?
    I wish the rebubs had a better candidate for President but that too is out of my hands, well I might as well say it I wish the Dems had a better candidate as well.
    I don’t think America can handle another four years of Obama.
    How about you, Hows that new baby doing? I am happy for you and your wife, Children are a joy to the heart

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  124. Um, HERE'S a picture of the system we bought...

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  125. Agreed Mike, and thank you. Of course we differ on how bad Obama is... I must admit that if I had chosen a president he'd have likely really appalled you a lot more. The new baby is fine, thanks. A lot of fun!

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  126. Holy shit Ed, that rig must give you a tech woodie.

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  127. Mike, do you realize how much worse Romney's lies are than any lie Obama ever told?

    Just curious. He's not even trying to hide them anymore..... boldly takes a sentence fragment out of context totally reversing the meaning, a bold-faced lie, and not even worthy of a decent liar... you're aware of it, right?

    (hopeful!)

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  128. I mean, Mike, the republicans are cheating all over the place.... voter disenfranchisement, re-drawing electoral districts, and lying and lying and lying more than I ever in my life thought it was possible to lie to the country and not be run out of it on a rail....

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  129. I guess I'm wondering, is it fooling the majority of the country? The lies, I mean. So, do you see them? Or do you believe the spin from the republicans, which is so very thin and weak and uncreative now that they just don't seem to really care if anyone notices?

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  130. It's the bottom-of-the-garden fairies that grant you the illusion of free will so that you may believe that they are there at the bottom of the garden!

    You don't need faith, just a lawn chair and a sack of suds! You'll see them. Just don't look too close 'cos they turn into dragonflies and butterflies since they are shy!

    Here's an explanation about Free Will and it was a commenter named 'The Theist' who brought up Adam using his Free Will.

    You don't really believe that there were trees with fruit that could give us Knowledge of Good and Evil and immortality, do you?

    With time and patience, modern botanists could go through every possible genetic variation of fruit bearing trees, you think they could come up with two with fruit with those properties?

    Anyways, the no free will comment:

    "I think Christians realise that this is a paradox. For people to always choose to do the good thing, the righteous thing, they need guidance from the Holy Spirit. With guidance from the Holy Spirit, they are no longer the ones choosing.

    Our friend 'The Theist' alluded to this when he explained that Adam chose to decide for himself what was good and what was bad. He's saying that Adam chose to reason things through by himself. But it's a Catch 22. If one doesn't choose for oneself, one has no free will, but if one does choose for oneself, one is simultaneously exercising the Gift of Free Will given to us by God and rejecting God's guidance.

    So, either you're screwed, or you're blued and tattooed. And now you need to go to an expert who will point you back to Jesus and his Saving Grace. An even bigger mind-fuck is, where's the free will in this Confusion Technique? More mind-fuck, the expert likely doesn't realise himself that he is using this hypnosis technique, he's just 'relieving brain-lock', he's giving the poor confused soul an out.

    Some other likely 'expert advice'? "Let go and let God!", "Feel the Holy Spirit's guidance!"
    Basically, "Don't think for yourself. It'll just drive you crazy.""

    Or are you saying that you always know what the Holy Spirit is guiding you to do but sometimes choose to ignore 'it'?

    I doubt that a believer would do that, since Divine Guidance would be so awesome, it'd literally force Christians to do the 'good' thing. Either that or they don't fear the Final Judgement then, do they?

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  131. Seems to me that the definition of Free Will is so vague that one could suggest any possible option and claim Free Will.

    Hey, you could always overdose on something, if you like!

    Hey, you could always jump off a cliff or a tall building if you choose!

    Hey, go to the zoo and get in with a polar bear or the tigers or whatnot!

    Get yourself some high power weapons and go shoot up a movie crowd!

    But these supposed options are insane!

    It's not insane to not believe that four anonymous guys, later named Matt, Mark, Luke and John didn't copy stories concocted by Rabbis about their Messiah and the prophecies even remotely suggested by the O.T. about said Messiah, and Hellenize that, coming up with a story that people finally want to believe actually happened.

    It's not insane to notice the similarities between religions that Christians reject as false, even those having the exact same roots.

    It's not insane to notice that Christians reject other Christians' doctrines as false, when it suits them.

    And so on, we've been through all that.

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  132. Yeah, imagine two Mikes arguing with each other over a difference in dogma or interpretation! It'd go on for eternity with no resolution, since religion like his doesn't compromise... much like republicans...
    Eventually one of them would just kill the other one... which hey, is what tends to happen!

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  133. Oh Mike...

    I didn't defile myself of my own free will, not at least like your bible suggests. You believe Adam and Eve did. But your god insists on blaming descendents for the sins of their fathers and mothers, right? Doesn't this strike you as illogical and even evil, or don't you think of it? CAN you think of it, or is it not allowed..... I lost track of all the things you're not supposed to think about, sorry.

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  134. Christianity as defined in the bible was created by assholes. It's a very ass-holey path in general, mostly. It leads to being an asshole. And an asshole that is totally clueless that he has become an asshole. He is an asshole that truly believes he's holy. A holy asshole. Ass-holy.
    Sad.

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  135. Asking rational logical questions of a believer about his faith will only have the result of him hating you. No illumination is possible... the mind is permanently closed.
    And yet, here I am. Stupid. Can't seem to help myself.

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  136. The movie, The Cube is a metaphor for life, those desperate to find a way out will happily sacrifice everyone else to accomplish their aim.

    Mike and Eric are not so much to be feared as pitied and loathed for their disingenuous attempt to survive indefinitely.

    With the promise of eternal life, everything is permitted, they simply protest too much that the opposite is true.

    They'll be 'there' for the next Christian conquerer hoping that that brings them closer to bliss.

    But they know that it won't do any good, they'll die and turn to dust like everyone does.

    Life is a complicated process, but it is not a magical process.

    Last I spoke to a Jehova Witness, he went straight to the spiritual war bewteen angels and demons. He hid from reality.

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  137. Mike and Eric are not so much to be feared as pitied and loathed for their disingenuous attempt to survive indefinitely.

    Pity the sheep, loath the apologist. So in Eric's case, both.

    Very well said Ian, I think there is a lot to that. They'll insist it's not about the fear of death, but I don't think there's any denying it.

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  138. Dinesh's argument against wish fulfillment was one of the weakest things he published.

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  139. Emma is driving me insane. I was throwing the dog individual 'bits' while we ate our pizza. I asked her if she wanted a second slice.

    So I give the dog his food on the dish and he's not hungry.

    I asked her if she fed the dog that second slice and she said that she'd only given it a little bit.

    But when I asked her, she said she only wanted a little slice.

    In her mind, a small slice of pizza is a 'little bit' for our 10 lb. dog!

    Fuck I am so mad at her, talking to me as if she is 4 years old and doesn't know a small slice for her 150 lb. isn't a fucking small slice for a little dog.

    I guess her possible 'agenda' is that I'll just have to exercise him more if he turns into a ball. Christ on a stick, it's not as if she wasn't right fuckin' there as I was throwing it bits instead of feeding it pizza.

    The more she does stuff, the more I realise that she is just a sociopathic cunt!

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  140. Um.... I feel your pain.

    Just out of curiosity, is Emma an atheist as well?

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  141. Mike and Eric are not so much to be feared as pitied and loathed for their disingenuous attempt to survive indefinitely.
    ---------------
    You know, it's been so long since I "believed" that I had forgotten the part about how afraid and sad I was at first that the afterlife wasn't real.
    Now, heck, looking back I was a total pansy about it... but you can't help but be, that's who they've conditioned you to be. They want you terrified of death. They make it worse than it really is, and then add in the fear of losing the heaven lottery and winding up in eternal torment. What a mindfuck. Thank you pboy, for I really had forgotten that part. They're totally terrified of death, and the religion has used that and caused them to focus on it to the point where they're not capable of entertaining any thoughts that even go slightly against it, for those thoughts are 'demonic' or 'evil' and they're fucking terrified that even thinking them might cause them to lose that lottery... they know how confusing and fickle their god is, and so they can never be sure that they've 'made the cut' as it were.... constant terror.... what a lousy deal. Forfeit your mental freedom, really your humanity, in this life, so that you can live forever. It never occurs to them what a strong motivation it must have been for the creators (and modifiers) of this religion to make them into terrified sheep. They can't ask that question, because those same people gave them a huge dose of fear that they will be damned for their temerity.
    I'd forgotten the 'terror' factor. Crap. It helps explain why for instance Mike once agreed with me on something and then later went back to his old view... he's not capable of holding it for fear of not living forever!
    The Cube analogy was accurate. And I used to know this, or at least, know my own fear of the process of learning to question my religion.
    It's all coming back to me.

    And I still have anger associated with it... I hate being lied to in general, but that was one FUCKING WHOPPER.

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  142. Oh my... I just realized something... the religion has successfully co-opted the human survival instinct itself! And moreover, even intensified it!
    No wonder they hold so much power over people!

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  143. Incidentally, sorry Mike about talking about you like that... it's just that you're fascinating. Hard to believe, for me. Foreign to my world.

    I have to tell you, I imagine you coming here and having these conversations, and then when you're back in your peer group, perhaps talking about them with others that believe as you do. Am I far off?
    I imagine them re-inforcing you for your next foray into the camp of the devil himself, Saint Brian the (GASP!) Godless. Fortifying you, strengthening you against our heathen assault.
    Perhaps you don't talk about us or what we discuss, but if you do, then that is what surely follows.
    It is part of the Big Lie, that you were all told, that you should come together like this and discuss things about Faith and not ever LOSING IT.

    Of course what I see from here is that FAITH is just another word for DON'T FUCKING ASK! Another word that makes it easier to tell yourself that you don't want to KNOW, you only need to BELIEVE.
    To me it's a lot worse than any swear word. It is a lie that affects this whole world, in usually very negative ways.

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  144. Where do christians go if they feel that they're losing their faith?

    Their clergyman. Their priest.

    Usually all he'll ever, ever do, is think you wrong, and reinforce it for you.

    Because that's his fucking job.

    So after that, whaddaya think, no need to think about it further, no need to ask other people, read about your religion and its history, no need to really try to KNOW it.

    And you feel better.

    Of course you do! Why, if it's all a lie, what a TERRIFYING thing that would be!

    How could I have forgotten that part?

    I understand you better now.

    Now here's the part where your conditioning absolutely DEMANDS that your next words be "You don't understand me AT ALL!!!"

    Sure I do.

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  145. The real beauty of god
    Is that he is impossible to disprove

    The perfect lie. The only time you can possibly find out that it's not true, is when you die, and you won't even have time to realize it then, because you'll be gone, out like a candle, well before you realize that Jesus isn't standing in front of you.

    I almost admire the perfection of this deception. Were it not totally evil, I would.

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  146. And boy, we rationalists can come within a *whisker* of disproving it, too... but that tiny whisker is where your religion is pitching it's tent. Because, it has to. Because while it used to be able to say that it's god did practically everything, now it's basically that he created some hydrogen atoms 13 billion years ago. While of course it's incredibly thin ground to be standing on, well, it's all the ground you have left. Every single time science has gone against religion, science turned out to be right. And it can't be comforting to you that on most of those occasions, the religion didn't admit that they were wrong for a long time, in some cases centuries.
    In fact, because I pay attention to such trends, they never admit they're wrong on anything, until the point where the people are realizing that they're wrong anyhow, and then and only then they shift. Only when they absolutely have to, or totally lose credibility, in other words.

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  147. Another cool thing about the Great Lie that is religion:
    When your leaders tell you that something is bad, or wrong, you people fucking HATE it instantly.

    Imagine how convenient that is for corrupt leaders who have the backing of the religion!
    Just look at what the republicans have been able to accomplish with it!

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  148. I like you Mike.

    But, other people, some long dead, pull all your strings.

    The person that is inside all of that, I think that I like.

    The outer you that is just a reflection of your absolute belief in the most elaborate tapestry of lies ever told, that guy is a pain in the ass. Of course, he was programmed to be, whenever he encounters someone like me.

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  149. (Now your programming needs you to tell me that I am in reality the one deceived by the Great Lie of atheism)

    (Except, I didn't become one because of belief in what others told me. I figured it out *on my own.*)

    And fuck, I am proud of that!

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  150. The most calming thought, the most relaxing thought is to realise that they cannot help themselves. The closest thing to free will we can ever know is to know that people cannot help themselves.

    Worst case scenario, some sadist has caught you and is brutalizing you. Having faith in God, well I dunno how much that would help, but realizing that it's not 'you', he really has no choice. I'm sure if you could somehow convey that to him, he'd lose the pleasure that it gives him, it might be the 'thing' that saves you.

    Likely not, bullies bully harder when pushed, but if you're caught between a rock and the ultimate bully, you're chances are slim to none anyways, right?

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  151. The real beauty of god
    Is that he is impossible to disprove
    -------
    I don't think that's true anymore. Most of the things that believers claim are falsifiable now days.
    then there is the insurmountable problem of a loving entity that so loves man that he would commend then to eternal torment for the crime of ignorance.

    Oh well, Hey B, I just posted a 'liberal agenda' Your thoughts would be welcomed.

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  152. The fact that much of it is falsifiable now, is different from explicit proof that there is no god. The believers can always find a way out of whatever science discovers, even if they have to retreat to the head of a pin.
    The hypocrisy of both god and christianity and christians is MY proof, MY reason for leaving the faith, more than anything else. However, most christians have had their hypocrisy bone removed. Can't fucking see it, even in their faces, if it relates to their religion.

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  153. Actually Brian the dying part didn’t bother me at all, it was the eternity in hell that caused me to fear and tremble. Not only that but God kept drawing me to Him…. I felt in my soul I needed to pray and seek God till I found Him… and guess what, I found Him just as the Bible said I would, It took a lot of searching but He was there for real.

    I don’t depend on the Holy Spirit to led me in every aspect of my life. But I do depend on Him to help me preach the Gospel, and at time’s the Spirit moves [leads] me to pray about certain things like lost people or church members. I often ask God to increase my faith because looking through a dark glass [faith] is hard at times.

    Ian, I don’t think you have quite captured the freewill thingy. You have lots of options and roads to venture down the choice is yours, the freedom to choose for yourself regardless of the outcome… that is what freewill is all about ,the freedom to choose regardless of consequence. Now you may not like the choice you make in the end but it was still your freewill that helped you make the decision.

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  154. You’re not understanding the God and sin problem here Pliny.
    The fact that God is Holy and the creator of man gives Him the right to command mankind to meet His condition in order to obtain eternal life… He is after all the one who is offering this eternal bliss.
    Sin is the root cause of mans dilemma and if man could live in heaven with sin then what need would there be for any law against sin to start with. God is Holy and in him is no darkness or uncleanness at all ,nor can sin dwell in His presence… Since man is unclean through sin then there is the need for this sin to be removed in order for man to live with God.
    Man is not ignorant of his sin problem and God provided a away for man to escape the eternal torments of hell… The real question here is will mankind choose to repent or perish?

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  155. Mike I understand perfectly. I simply don't accept it as just.

    "The fact that God is Holy and the creator of man gives Him the right to command mankind to meet His condition in order to obtain eternal life" -

    No it doesn't. The definitions applied to the rights and powers of god and the dogmas that insist that we are all unworthy are exactly the same behaviors used by all manner of psychological abusers. These behaviors are all included in the definitions of the diagnoses of abuse. Theologians telling us we are all sinners is just like a wife beater telling his spouse that she is worthless and ugly - that she is nothing without the man.

    Second there cannot be a human who is more perfect than god - yet there are many humans who would never ever consider tormenting anyone eternally, particularly for the 'crimes' that rate such treatment according to your faith. As a parent, I can't imagine abandoning my children because they screwed up or didn't do everything I told them. That's the real sin problem.

    The Golden Rule is derived from empathy, perhaps our finest attribute as a species. Empathy prohibits one from exacting the kinds of punishments that await the sinner. How can man be more loving than its creator? If you are right, we are created in his image and therefore derive our 'moral imperatives' from universal truths that he created. The Golden Rule is one such truth or it requires and answer as to how could imperfect man create a loving truth greater than the truth of his creator? That is the central flaw in Christian dogma - cruel rules from a perfect being that are inferior to the best rules of imperfect man.

    There can be no argument that eternal punishment for acts of ignorance accrued during a human lifetime is in any way just. Not by any measure. Such punishment is the embodiment of evil not punishment for it. It is not love by any stretch and only a religion could celebrate it as such.

    Sin and eternal damnation are the constructs of those (humans) who aim to control with fear, not the creations of a just and loving god.

    That's the sin problem that refuses to go away.

    Oh well, I don't suspect we'll ever agree on that.

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  156. Mike, it is you that is wrong. You have been severely misled in your life, about just about everything. Only thing is, something prevents you from seeing it. And convinces you that you cannot, simply cannot be wrong. (Therefore we must be)
    You have had 'experiences.' I have had more profound ones on salvia, let me assure you. The human psyche produces such things and you don't even have to be crazy, just really convinced and hopeful and yes, fearful does it too. You are convinced and correct us as if we knew nothing about you or the faith, but I do know, I truly do. It is you that is massively under-informed about your own faith, and you don't want to know. So you can quit telling us how wrong we are. How would YOU know when you can't see reality? You have what is called a 'schism' with consensual reality. A separation from it. An induced psychosis. Which by definition, you are unaware of and refuse to see as real or even possible.... To us it's like you're painted blue, it's so obvious.

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  157. Pliny explains it very well... you should listen rather than REACT.

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  158. Your whole religion is incredibly immature. That's another problem. Like it was written by petulant boys, the kind that like to pull the wings off flies. Your god is immature, and hateful and nasty as well, and his son is mostly the opposite of that, and you can't see any problem with holding both ideas in your head at the same time... the very definition of insanity!

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  159. What was your personal experience with the holy spirit, Mike? How did that go? You didn't hear voices, did you? So just a 'knowing?' Direct knowledge? Or more of a feeling? Or things started to go better in your life maybe and you attribute it to the holy spirit?

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  160. "Ian, I don’t think you have quite captured the freewill thingy. You have lots of options..."

    Come on Mike, you know this, you know that part of being you is choosing the stuff you choose. Sure you can 'say' you can choose anything, everything is up for grabs, but you're not going to suddenly decide to wear a dress tomorrow, you're not going to suddenly decide to become a heroin addict tomorrow, you're not going to suddenly decide to become a Muslim tomorrow.

    Sure you can imagine a giant grey area, we can all imagine a giant grey area, but it's left blank since we choose what we each, individually choose since we're each, individually us.

    You know this. You know that when you turn on the T.V. you're not going to hear Obama tell us that giving extremely good earners, people earning more than a 1/4 of a million dollars every single year, zero taxes is a great idea since they're 'job creators'.

    You're not going to hear Romney explain that making giant wads of cash every year isn't 'job creation' at all.

    You're not going to hear the Godly one's promoting health and welfare for the old, the sick and the poor, no. What you're going to hear is that the promoter of health and welfare of the poor, old and sick is secretly a Muslim!(as if being a Muslim automatically makes you a terrorist!)

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  161. When I was a kid, every year I prayed for a bike. Then I realised that that wasn't how God worked, so I stole a bike and prayed for forgiveness. - Emo.

    It's funny 'cos it's true.

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  162. If "God's Law" was a reality, then men would have never needed to compile a body of mundane laws. The fact is, there's NO ONE enforcing "God's Laws"; we can see this clearly when we look at injustice in the world, i.e., bad things happening to good people and vice versa.

    If God has Laws, He should either enforce them or STFU.

    ...OR...

    God doesn't exist, and it all makes sense that way.

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  163. If a christian CAN imagine abandoning their child or torturing it forever, because of their Father role model God, this UNDOUBTEDLY affects how THEY parent THEIR children. And looking around, gee, it does. Harsh punishments, verbal and physical abuses, even killing them, as in, "I brought you into this world and I can take you out of it!" I even heard that one as a kid.
    The christian god makes christians into bad parents... with a distinct lack of EMPATHY, which is the one thing necessary to defeat one's own PRIDE.

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  164. I think a lot of child abuse can be traced to a firm belief in Yahweh and Jesus. Our Father in Heaven, is one fucking maniac when it comes to His children. Doesn't give one shit. All lip-service... God is Love? Where? Where do you SEE that? He SAYS it, but where does he DEMONSTRATE IT?
    Abusive parents always say they love their kids... but god's love isn't just tough love, it's murderous, torturous "love" that isn't anything deeper than a kids "love" for a toy.

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  165. The whole point of christians talking about 'Free Will' is so that they don't have to explain just what you said there, Ed.
    See god gave us the 'free will' to sin, and then just let us go into the world, and lets us sin if we feel like it.... but he reserves a place in hell for us if we do! You and pboy and others seem to try to make the 'free will' thing into something more complex than that... but that's the only part the christians care about. They don't believe it's the 'free will' to do something we wouldn't ordinarily do. Or the 'free will' to do ANYTHING. To them, it's merely the 'free will' to sin without GOD immediately stomping on your head... (He does that AFTER you die of course, hence it's not really 'free will' but hey, he let you DO it... and now he's frying you FOR it.

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  166. IF all sins are equal in the eyes of god...

    AND christians, sinners the lot, as are we all, feel it incumbent upon themselves to hate gays and atheists and people of other faiths and try to outlaw them in various ways...

    Then those christians are going to HELL.

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  167. Would it be a sin to be a doctor and have a patient that has a mental ailment that can easily be regulated by medication, and just decide to not do it because the doctor doesn't like the sick persons sick behavior? When he knows that he can cure it easily?

    That's God. God, who can do ANYTHING, is that doctor, with the full capability to HEAL any soul that has sinned in life, and make it worthy of heaven. NO need for hell at all.

    But, he doesn't do that. Instead for some reason he would rather torture that person's soul FOREVER.

    God, is going to HELL! (He'd better shape up soon and repent his sinning ways!)

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  168. Pboy said:
    Sure you can 'say' you can choose anything, everything is up for grabs, but you're not going to suddenly decide to wear a dress tomorrow, you're not going to suddenly decide to become a heroin addict tomorrow, you're not going to suddenly decide to become a Muslim tomorrow.
    ----------------------
    It's not that he won't do it. We all know he won't do those things.
    It's that, if he for some bizarre reason decided to do any of those things, god will let him and not stomp on his head before he does. Instead god, being stealthier than that, waits in ambush for your soul after you die, and THEN stomps on your head!
    See? Simple!

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  169. I can see that the possibilities of Mike doing some of those things exists. The dress, for instance. If Mike lost his faith and decided he was a gay cross-dresser.... hey, it happens.
    But god will be waiting patiently for him to die. Then after he does, he's totally fucked forever.
    Nice guy, that god.

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  170. I have a problem with the whole idea of god 'testing us.'
    Which is what all this must necessarily be, all the free will to sin and the consequences afterwards....
    God is omniscient. Do christians not understand the meaning of 'omniscient?' I think not.

    An 'omniscient' being already knows what we will do! So, no need to allow us to do it to see what will happen. PERIOD. This begs the question, 'Why did god create some of our souls in such a way that we would eventually sin in our lives and then die and get punished for it?'

    It's ultimately his fault, is the point.

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  171. Evil man created god
    Evil man created many laws that evil man lied about and said came from god.
    Evil man knows that god is not real.
    Evil man knows that god will not appear to someone in the process of breaking said laws and stop them or punish them at that time because evil man knows god isn't real.
    So then, evil man must create a lie that says god will note your transgression and punish you after you die.
    No way to disprove that one.
    Evil man, wins big!

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  172. Mike: Did it upset you at all when you found out that santa was a lie, and your parents, the most trusted people in your young world, are the ones that told it to you?

    Or hey, do you still believe in santa too? :-)

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  173. Mike, when I tell you that it would be IMPOSSIBLE for god to create Lucifer and NOT know at the time that someday Lucifer would turn on him and create a rebellion in heaven, do you see the inescapable logic in that? And also that god would have known all Lucifer's plans, and would never have let the rebellion take place? And that Lucifer, being fucking smart as smart can be, already KNEW all of this and so would never have started the rebellion in the first place?

    (I already know the answer of course; if you did, you'd already be an atheist)

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  174. These are among the plethora of things that atheists CANNOT UNDERSTAND about christian believers.
    So we ask you.

    The problem is, all of your answers are illogical. They do not help us to understand it in the way that you'd like us to. Instead, they are blatantly symptomatic of a psychotic break with reality.

    But they're fine by you. You can't understand why we can't accept them.

    Logic is something that your religion has managed to de-value.

    NOW, THAT'S A FUCKING SIN!

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  175. One other thing:

    Hypocrisy and anger and pride and destruction of whole races and wholesale slaughter, and punishing people FOREVER for minor sins, are NOT MYSTERIES, even when god does them! To say that you are the Ultimate Good and then to do evil and then say basically 'it's not evil when god does it' it purest refined bullshit, every goddamn time. Even god doesn't get to be a hypocrite, Mike. A hypocrite is a hypocrite, period.

    However, the motivation for leaders to want the masses to believe that they are 'mysteries' and are somehow a part of god's loving plan for us, is very easily explained. No mystery there!

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  176. By that measure, Richard Nixon was very close to god. Same philosophy.

    "When the president does it, it's not illegal!"

    Same bullshit your religion pulls on you. Only with you guys, it worked!

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  177. Back to what Pliny said.

    Your religion Mike, it's description of god and what god tells us...

    Is identical with what abusive parents tell their children, or to what abusive husbands tell their wives. In order to CONDITION them. To enslave their minds. So that they can continue to abuse them forever and the children or spouses will never think that it's not their own fault!

    Read an abnormal psych textbook, lay it beside the bible, and other than the Elizabethan English, they're identical in that regard!

    Even if your god exists, the words that you believe in, must invariably convince you of your own inferiority, and thus keep you bonded to the idea of god.

    Healthy religion you got there, Mike. It's a psychosis FACTORY!

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  178. If Mitt Romney becomes president and says 'when the president does it, it's not illegal' about twenty percent of the people will BELIEVE HIM.

    Which twenty percent you ask?

    Why, your twenty percent! You've been pre-conditioned to believe it!

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  179. Let's face it, Mitt does move in 'mysterious ways.'

    Impossible to understand unless you decide that he's an idiotic tool of a sociopathic upper class.

    However your religion has conditioned you to accept hypocrisy and evil from your leaders (and parents for that matter) and think it's actually goodness in disguise!

    So at least you believe you understand why you can't understand it, so it becomes good in your eyes. You accept his lies about his reasons even though you don't think them through... hey, you aren't allowed to question your authority figures at all.

    The lie of god is the key to mass mind control. It's too valuable to evil people for them to not perpetuate it forever.

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  180. Why, thinking about this, I doubt that you're capable of even reading all of what I just wrote here in these many posts. If I'm right about your conditioning, you will turn away from it before you can finish. Your mind has been trained to hate words like mine and so your religion 'protects' your mind from even listening to it!

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  181. Kneel to god, abase yourself to god, respect god's authority no matter what god does, no matter how irrational god appears.

    Do this faithfully all your life, and your ability to even question any authority that you've already accepted, from your parents to your king or president, becomes IMPOSSIBLE.

    Now, that's a handy trick!

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  182. Logic is something that your religion has managed to de-value.

    NOW, THAT'S A FUCKING SIN!


    Teh Christians devalue logic because it's obvious (if you look at it) that God (their version) OBEYS logic ("Can God make a rock that's too heavy for Him to lift?" The ever-ready Christian answer to this is that God can do anything that is logically consistent). So there's something superior to God. And they want to minimize it, hide it so that we atheists and agnostics don't notice...

    ...but we see. Your slip is showing.

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  183. I'm not sure what is suppose to be logical about answering the question, "Why is there something instead of nothing?", with, God did it!

    That's saying that out of nothing, God made something, or starting with nothing, God went ahead and created the something. But that seems to be a very different nothing than the one the simple version seems to be implying.

    I suppose the question really ought to be, "Why is there something and God, rather than nothing and God?", since nothing doesn't seem to exclude God.

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  184. God must obey logic, or god becomes an invalid concept.

    And yet, they must devalue logic because it's apparent that god does not always obey it.

    They're in a corner.

    Ironically, I am willing to bet good money that some if not many christians would answer the question 'If god is all-powerful, can he make a rock so big that he himself can't lift it?' with 'yes.'

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  185. I never had a problem with that question, the 'why is there something instead of nothing?'

    I mean, isn't it apparent that if there were nothing we wouldn't be here to ask?

    This in no way prohibits the idea of there being a zillion universes, and in only one is there 'something.'

    For all we know, this universe is a fluke among zillions of other universes with different properties.

    And if there are infinite universes, than all possibilities that can be realized, including us, are realized *somewhere.*

    What, is this too hard for believers to understand?

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  186. You can posit an eternal inanimate 'thing.'

    You can posit an eternal 'process.'

    And you can posit an eternal 'being.'

    Of the three, the third one is so much less likely due to the fact that organized intelligences do not just arise out of nothing nor can one have just existed forever....

    So of course that's the only 'logical' choice for a believer.

    It has always absolutely killed me that a believer will argue that the universe cannot be eternal, or at least an eternal changing process, but then they will say that a completed vast intellect with unlimited knowledge and power, can be, must be, IS!

    "Why do you believe in god?"

    "Because something had to create the universe. Things don't just come from nothing!"

    "So what created god, then?"

    "Oh, that guy didn't need a creator!"

    INSANITY!!! GAAAAHHH!

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  187. You know what an unchanging, omniscient, omnipotent god cannot do?

    Learn something new.

    And he is reflected so well in his believers.

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  188. The fact that Gods laws are hardwired into the moral fiber of mankind is in itself evidence that God exist.
    The laws of God were given unto man so we would have a knowledge of transgression committed against the law giver. Lets examine the ten commandments … What reason would one have to write thou shalt not have no other Gods before me. The only one it would matter to would be the one who was offended because man worshiped a false God. If a person or persons as you claim wrote the bible as to play on the masses then what purpose would there to be condemn those who Idol worship.

    Thou shalt not make any graven image. Again the only one who would care would be he who was offended because man worshiped a graven image as Israel started to do with the Brazen serpent .
    There is no logic at all for a man or men to write such things for no reason .
    Also God said He would visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the third and fourth generation….Reason being children often mimic their fathers and He also said THOSE WHO HATE HIM.
    Notice who He shows mercy to… them that love Him and keep His commandments.

    Remember God created Adam/Eve, Mankind as a whole are not Gods children, so when you use the relationship between a parent and a child you are already out of context.

    Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain…. Who would care? Except God…. Again no logic in a statement as this, except it was written as a warning to man showing God displeasure in those that take His name in vain.
    And another one, the Sabbath day… what would be the reasoning behind don’t work on the Sabbath I mean lets face it where man is concerned the Sabbath is no different then any other day and The church would benefit even more because moms would have more to donate while dad is out working.

    I could go on and on with the rest of the commandments that only matter to God. Which one of you would offer your only son to be a sacrifice for sin so that we who are estranged to God could be reconciled…
    Now that is true Love The innocent for the guilty and condemned . Imagine a God who’s love for the transgressors is so powerful He would subject His Son to such ridicule and spite.

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  189. Brian said.

    "Because something had to create the universe. Things don't just come from nothing!"

    "So what created god, then?"

    "Oh, that guy didn't need a creator!"
    --------------------------------------------------------------

    If one can only believe in what his eyes can reveal to him then he walks in darkness.
    The fact that God is a Spirit and He is life…. I’m Making a point here do you get it …He is the very essence of life no begging no end…. Man is alive because of Him and Man must die because man severed the life line … the wages of sin is death.

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  190. I'd say that it's possible that 'the very essence of life' can be eternal, HOWEVER, it would have to be an innate property of all matter and energy that causes it to trend (or tend) toward life. It would be a property of matter and energy though, and with no self-consciousness and not a 'being' at all. So that's as close as I can some, Mike, sorry.
    In fact I've even had that thought before, and the thought that some people might confuse such a thing, with god.

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  191. What that would in essence mean, is that all the matter and energy in the universe, is consciousness. So we're back to the 'Big Brain.'
    It wouldn't write books or dictate them, and it wouldn't be a 'being' or a 'god,' and it wouldn't have a 'son' that it sent to be sacrificed.
    (Only not really since Jesus didn't die forever like we do and god knew that)

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  192. I think that you've been tremendously misled in life, Mike. Seriously misled.

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  193. NEW POST IS UP

    More of just more blank pages to type on, but there you have it...

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