Lion IRC wrote:Jireh, You just got called a tw@t and a troll by someone.

It's hard to argue with that level of sophisticated argument and "demonization".

And of course, you never bothered to read, for example, Rumraket's presentation of the best part of 20 scientific papers when arriving at this conclusion, did you?

How typically supernaturalist a selective reading of the thread you have engaged in.

I saw it and posted. Actually, I saw this on his facebook page a couple of weeks ago and had meant to post it here, but forgot. I mst be getting old, or something...

Or something, definitely.

Calilasseia wrote:

Watchman wrote:“This thread thanks to the theists involved has been reduced to the lowest form of shit I have ever read.”
Scot Dutchy .

I notice a trend here to “demonise” Jireh.

No, what you notice is exasperation at having to deal with discoursive duplicity on a grand scale, for which the individual concerned is well known, having indulged in this three years ago over at RDF, and no doubt having left a trail of similar instances on those other fora you yourself informed us about. Given all the past precedents in question that are well known to many here, are you surprised that his posts are treated with a certain studied scorn?

Watchman wrote:Now I know he’s an annoying little tw@t

Oh dear. You've just strayed into the very territory you're accusing the rest of us of. Congratulations.

Watchman wrote:and don’t get me wrong ,I've had the same thoughts myself after previous encounters, but he’s just doing only what you allow him to do.

That, I shall inform you, is one of the strengths of this place. It allows those who have no real arguments to demonstrate this fact on a globally public scale, so that this basic fact may be recognised by anyone exerting even a basic minimum of effort to scrutinise the relevant threads. It also allows those of us who do have valid arguments to present them, along with corollary refutations of apologetic fabrications. It's precisely because there is a policy of not interfering in an editorial manner with the posts of contributors, and allowing all contributors where possible to display their wares in as uninhibited a manner as the basic rules of proper discourse permit, that this forum stands head and shoulders above the various places on the Internet run by some of the opposition. As an example, if I were to open an account on the infamous Rapture Ready forum, and post rebuttals of creationist nonsense featuring two dozen relevant scientific papers, the administrator there (namely the infamous BuzzardHut) would not only delete all my posts, he would ban my account summarily without explanation.

Watchman wrote:I notified the forum back on page 3 what he is and what he does.

And we're grateful for that.

Watchman wrote:I also gave links to some of his previous trolling attempts.

The attitude prevalent here, is that such individuals ultimately inflict more damage upon the ideologies they purport to uphold, if they are allowed a certain degree of latitude, than if they are subject to Rapture Ready tactics. Whilst dealing with endless copy-paste creationist spam may be tedious, and at times a thankless task, ultimately, exposing it for what it is, namely vacuous robotic parroting of unquestioned mantras, eventually has a beneficial effect, in terms of informing the undecided just what they are being offered by the purveyors of such material, and the complete lack of value thereof.

Watchman wrote:However I note that many here ,even some of those knowing what he is about still try to engage and defeat his “logic” (and I use the word “logic” quite wrongly).

Well first of all, none of us here regard his copy-paste spam as containing any "logical" content, for one very simple reason. Said content is an exercise in apologetics, and a fairly low quality exercise at that. The understanding extant here, and which has been extant here for some time, is that apologetics is nothing more than the erection of convoluted semantic fabrications, for the purpose of providing the illusion of support for presuppositions and blind assertions, with which to dazzle the gullible and uneducated. Interspersing said low-grade apologetics with actual scientific fact, lucidly presented (as Rumraket has been doing tirelessly to his monumental credit), simply brings the enormous contrast between said scientific fact and apologetic fabrication into well-illuminated and sharp relief.

Watchman wrote:I suggest we need to look at our own responses to Jireh and his kind.
He thrives because we “feed” him.

I'm well aware of the "oxygen of publicity" argument. However, the simple fact is that such people have access to this without coming here, courtesy of the infrastructure that the Internet provides, and Jireh establishes this basic fact courtesy of the existence of his vanity forum. Likewise, professional liars for doctrine, making use of money and political connections, disseminate their assorted wares in a like manner on a global scale, and on their websites, opposition and dissent are all too frequently expunged, as these websites are basically an exercise in striving for hegemony for an orthodoxy. What makes places such as this valuable, is that pedlars of doctrinal assertions are forced to confront vigorous and educated opposition, and in the case of egregious, recidivist and wholly unrepentant ideological stormtroopers for doctrine, are exposed as such. Whilst the persistent robotic parroting of copy-paste spam might be tiresome, permitting it merely serves to expose the vacuity of a doctrinal position that relies upon this as its principal means of attempting to engage in discourse.

Watchman wrote:I know the urge to defeat the “stupid” is great but is it not also a kind of arrogance that each of us believes that we have the one great “God Busting” line of logic.

You make an elementary mistake here, one that is also frequently made by several supernaturalists. None of the critical thinkers here considers himself to possess all the answers, because they recognise that the subject matter addressed is simply too voluminous, for one human mind to encompass in one lifetime in detail. However, given that the tactics of ideological stormtroopers for doctrine are well-documented, it is possible to deal with those tactics without having to possess Nobel-level expertise in all scientific fields. Not least because the ideological stormtroopers for doctrine are, all too frequently, simply not interested in actually understanding the science that they attack. It's why quote mining is a popular creationist tactic - creationists aren't interested in understanding the science, they're simply interested ultimately in destroying it, and they're prepared to fight a dirty ideological war in order to achieve this end. One of the central methods of dealing with them consists of exposing their discoursive criminality for what it is.

Plus, one of the reasons creationists are not interested in understanding the science, is because, at bottom, they realise, however subconsciously, that any genuine understanding of the science will ultimately undermine their adherence to their doctrine. They cannot confront the science honestly for this reason, which is why they engage in the duplicitous practice of treating science as a branch of apologetics.

Watchman wrote:At least it is for you lot , because only I have the one great God Busting formula ,obviously.(joke)

Several here will inform you that an entity whose very definition, when supernaturalists bother to exercise any semblance of rigour in this matter, is itself replete with paradox and inconsistency, hardly needs 'busting'. What requires attention, more correctly, is the effective dissemination of the required education with respect to this basic fact.

Watchman wrote:We each want to try our hand but with Jireh and his ilk there can be no victory because it is not a debate.

Once again, you have committed an elementary error. We are not interested in him. The people we are interested in, are other individuals who might be lulled into thinking that his low-grade apologetics is something other than a complete fabrication, based upon wilful misrepresentation of valid science, and the erection of instances of discoursive malfeasance. We know that we are not going to have any effect upon him, because the large body of evidence he provides in his posts, points inexorably to the conclusion that he is nothing more than an ideological stormtrooper for doctrine. He manifestly displays in his posts, that he is not interested in actually learning about the valid science that, on the one hand, he attacks because it does not genuflect before his doctrine, and on the other, twists into service on behalf of that doctrine whenever he thinks this is apologetically possible. We know that he is simply attempting to conduct the same sort of monologue that can be obtained from any pulpit, and that he is only interested in presenting his assertions and presuppositions with the specific intent that they be accepted uncritically and unquestioningly, in the same manner in which he accepts them. Our purpose here is to demonstrate that first, said uncritical and unquestioning acceptance of blind assertions and presuppositions is simply not going to happen, and second, that said assertions and presuppositions are wholly unsupported by reality.

Watchman wrote:His only purpose is to deliver his monologue.

As I have just expounded above.

Watchman wrote:Look back at his posts elsewhere ,they even follow the same template.

This does not surprise us in the least. It's one of the reasons that his apologetics is low-grade - because it is robotically formulaic.

Watchman wrote:“When people like Jireh claim they have evidence for their god they want people to immediately go "You have evidence? I believe you!"
Patient Zero .

But isn’t that what we expect from the Jirehs of this world.

We have learned to expect nothing other than the usual manifestations common to adherents of doctrine of all species, all of whom exhibit the same aetiology.

Watchman wrote:We cant blame him for being what he is.

Well, there is an argument to the effect that those with a certain minimum education become stormtroopers for doctrine by choice. Those lacking that minimum education don't have much choice, because not only are they frequently not equipped to become adherents through choice, but are all too often manipulated by the enforcers of conformity to doctrine, to the effect of being deliberately kept ignorant. It's one of the strengths of this place, that its members strive assiduously to dispel that miasma of ignorance.

Watchman wrote:Is the scorpion to be blamed for being a scorpion.

An analogy that probably has less application than you think it does. See above.

Watchman wrote:A solution .. ?

Quarantine the mind virus through education. Which is what we strive to achieve.

Watchman wrote:Well ,truly it is written….DONT FEED THE TROLLS.

Actually, a 'troll' is defined as an individual whose sole intent is to inflame and provoke, because doing so provides that individual with entertainment. Jireh's discoursive tactics may bear the appearance of trolling, but his primary intention is different, namely, he seeks to establish hegemony for his beloved doctrine. Immature individuals who simply gain some sort of crude, semi-masturbatory satisfaction from annoying people, generally don't expend the effort required to set up an entire vanity forum for the dissemination of creationist apologetics, which he's using as a sort of reference database.

Fair enough Calilasseia ,
Its your "chip shop" you must run it your own way.
It seemed to me that several people were getting very frustrated.
I was only trying to calm things down a bit.

Oh by the way apropos of nothing in particular , he's running the "present the best argument for strong atheism" version over at Think Atheist ,posting as Angelo ,even as we speak ..
http://www.thinkatheist.com/forum/topic ... 9#comments

I think this is pretty solid:

TRANSCENDENTAL ARGUMENT
(1) If reason exists then God exists.
(2) Reason exists.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

Lion IRC wrote:

MrFungus420 wrote:

Jireh wrote:

Please explain, either that the universe does not need a cause, to get into existence, or that it possibly could be eternal in some form.

If God can exist without a cause, then it is the logical fallacy of special pleading to say that the universe cannot.

Its special pleading to insist that God and the universe are in the same category.
Created things - Universe.
Uncreated things - God.

You have it backwards. Merely asserting that your magic man possesses a privileged existential status that no other entity can possess is special pleading. And until you provide actual evidence that your magic man actually exists, then said special pleading is nothing more than speculation and fantasy on your part.

Lion IRC wrote:

MrFungus420 wrote:

Jireh wrote:

I don't loose my time with people, that do not have enough education, and brain, to make a reasonable argument, without adhom attacks.

And, again, you are wrong. An insult is not an ad hominem. An ad hominem is attempting to discredit an argument by pointing out something negative about the person making the argument.

"pointing out" ? Nope. Insults are mostly opinions.

When you have to resort to ad hominems before, after or during a discussion, it tells me you have run out of ammo.

You mean the way Jireh did, when he summarily dismissed people as purportedly not having the brain to address his vacuous apologetics? Despite, for example, Rumraket presenting, in detail, the contents of nearly 20 scientific papers that detonate a nuclear depth charge under some of Jireh's assertions?

Lion IRC wrote:

surreptitious57 wrote:

Lion IRC wrote:

Its special pleading to insist that God and the universe are in the same category

No you are completely wrong here Lion
because the Universe by definition is all
that there is and nothing more. If God does
exist then He must exist with in the Universe
since there is nothing outside. That includes the
meta physical as well as the physical too. The fact
that it is impossible to prove or to disprove the meta
physical is completely irrelevant here. If it exists it is by
definition part of the Universe too. But If not then it is not

Is multiverse out of favor now?

Not amongst numerous actual physicists it isn't. You might like to ask why this is.

Lion IRC wrote:Listen to yourself. So much black and white dogma.
God must...metaphysics cant...Lion IRC is completely wrong...

I've just explained why you are wrong above. I didn't resort to "dogma" to do this, I merely pointed out that all you have is blind assertions about your beloved magic entity. Indeed, this is all that supernaturalists have ever had.

Lion IRC wrote:

SafeAsMilk wrote:

Lion IRC wrote:

Its special pleading to insist that God and the universe are in the same category.
Created things - Universe.
Uncreated things - God.

Soooooo, thing you add in a thing for which you have no evidence and is not logically necessary, and that's not special pleading how?

All you need do is prove that all things are created including God or...nothing is created including God.

Once again, congratulations on completely missing the point. Namely, that YOU are asserting that your special magic entity exists, and that said entity possesses the privileged existential status you claim, therefore YOU are required to support both of these assertions. Shifting the goalposts by adopting a mere presupposition that your magic entity exists, then asking someone else to support a contrapositive on the basis of that presupposition, does not detract from this.

Plus, given that all the evidence available to date involves instances of so-called "creation" involving transformations of pre-existing matter and energy via testable natural processes, none of this evidence supports in any way, shape or form, supernatural conjuring tricks.

Lion IRC wrote:Otherwise your special pleading has no effect on me - even if you accuse me of special pleading too.

Except that he isn't engaging in special pleading, because he isn't introducing a fantastic magic entity into the mix and asserting that said entity possesses a privileged existential status. He's simply asking why does your merely asserted magic entity qualify for this privileged existential status, despite being a merely asserted entity, whilst an entity whose existence is supported by evidence cannot possess that same existential status. Your continued insistence that your merely asserted entity possesses this privileged existential status, and that an entity whose existence is evidentially supported cannot possess said status, without any substantive reasons for excluding the evidentially supported entity from possessing that status, constitutes the special pleading, and moreover, is yet more blind assertion on your part.

Lion IRC wrote:The eternal existence of an unintended, infinite, pointless, perpetual motion universe is an article of faith in the no-god hypothesis.

Oh dear, not this tiresome apologetic fabrication of yours again, despite it having been flushed down the toilet in the past.

First, over a million scientific papers demonstrate conclusively, that with respect to vast classes of real world observational phenomena, testable natural processes are sufficient to provide an explanatory account, and as a direct corollary, supernatural entities are superfluous to requirements and irrelevant. Second, physicists are turning their attention to the matter of what existed before the current observational universe in its current state, and I've presented two scientific papers covering one relevant hypothesis, one that not only doesn't require your magic man, but one that has testable consequences in this observable universe, and therefore, unlike the magic man assertion, is subject to empirical verification or refutation. But of course, despite having had all of this presented to you in the past, you continue parroting the same apologetic fabrications. Quelle surprise.

Lion IRC wrote:It's a practical necessity of belief if you wish to avoid the "Creator/created" elephant in the middle of the room.

Except that your merely asserted "elephant in the room" is more like a microbe. On the other hand, two rather more substantial epistemological pachyderms you keep avoiding are these:

[1] Why do over a million scientific papers demonstrate conclusively, that testable natural processes are sufficient to provide explanatory accounts for vast classes of real world observational phenomena, and as a direct corollary, render supernatural entities superfluous to requirements and irrelevant?

[2] Why was your merely asserted magic man, purportedly responsible for the origination of the mythology containing the assertions about the existence thereof, too incompetent to stop the Middle Eastern nomads who wrote that mythology, from inserting into said mythology, assertions about the operation of the real world and its contents that are plain, flat, wrong and manifestly so? In other words, why was your magic man too incompetent to ensure that mythology and reality were consilient?

Lion IRC wrote:I understand that. Thats atheology.

I understand that what you're doing here is making up more apologetic shit. "Atheology" being made up shit on a grand scale, for reasons I've already schooled you on.

Lion IRC wrote:But, like the multiverse theory which seems an extravagant amount of metaphysical effort to avoid the God conclusion assertion

Apart from fixing the above for you, your above attempt to portray cosmology as some sort of intentional pursuit of anti-theism is dishonest. As anyone who reads the actual scientific papers from the physicists readily understands. The mulitverse hypothesis was postulated for reasons arising from consideration of the relevant physics. Your magic man was a total irrelevance with respect to the matter. Technically, the issue that was of concern that ultimately gave rise to the modern cosmological multiverse idea, was the problem of AdS/CFT correspondence. In short, if you have a space (of however many dimensions), then any complete theory is required to produce a sensible description of gravity within that space, that is also consonant with the description of quantum field theories (which have been extremely successful to date). In order for the space in question to be well behaved and physically realistic, it has to possess the properties of a manifold (a well-defined mathematical entity that places the idea of dimension on a rigorous footing). However, this requirement leads to an interesting result: namely that the manner in which the gravity description is consonant with the quantum field theory takes a specific form.

In particular, what is required is that the space in question takes the form of combining, via a Cartesian product like operation, a special form of space known as an anti-deSitter space (this is a relativistic, Lorentzian generalisation of hyperbolic space), with another special form known as a closed manifold. If the resulting space has N dimensions, then what is required is that a sensible description of gravity in those N dimensions, is associated with a particular form of quantum field theory extant on the (N-1) dimensional boundary of that space, said quantum field theory excluding gravity.

The landmark scientific paper introducing these concepts is this one:

The Large N Limit Of Superconformal Field Theories And Supergravity by Juan Maldacena, Advances In Theoretical And Mathematical Physics, 2: 231-252 (1998) [Full paper downloadable from here]

Maldacena, 1998 wrote:Abstract

We show that the large N limit of certain conformal field theories in various dimensions include in their Hilbert space a sector describing supergravity on the product of Anti-deSitter spacetimes, spheres and other compact manifolds. This is shown by taking some branes in the full M/string theory and then taking a low energy limit where the field theory on the brane decouples from the bulk. We observe that, in this limit, we can still trust the near horizon geometry for large N. The enhanced supersymmetries of the near horizon geometry correspond to the extra supersymmetry generators present in the superconformal group (as opposed to just the super-Poincare group). The ’t Hooft limit of 3+1 N = 4 super-Yang-Mills at the conformal point is shown to contain strings: they are IIB strings. We conjecture that compactifications of M/string theory on various Anti-deSitter spacetimes is dual to various conformal field theories. This leads to a new proposal for a definition of M-theory which could be extended to include five non-compact dimensions.

The paper continues with:

Maldacena, 1998 wrote:1. General idea

In the last few years it has been extremely fruitful to derive quantum field theories by taking various limits of string or M-theory. In some cases this is done by considering the theory at geometric singularities and in others by considering a configuration containing branes and then taking a limit where the dynamics on the brane decouples from the bulk. In this paper we consider theories that are obtained by decoupling theories on branes from gravity. We focus on conformal invariant field theories but a similar analysis could be done for non-conformal field theories. The cases considered include N parallel D3 branes in IIB string theory and various others. We take the limit where the field theory on the brane decouples from the bulk. At the same time we look at the near horizon geometry and we argue that the supergravity solution can be trusted as long as N is large. N is kept fixed as we take the limit. The approach is similar to that used in [1] to study the NS fivebrane theory [2] at finite temperature. The supergravity solution typically reduces to p + 2 dimensional Anti-deSitter space (AdSp+2) times spheres (for D3 branes we have AdS5×S5). The curvature of the sphere and the AdS space in Planck units is a (positive) power of 1/N. Therefore the solutions can be trusted as long as N is large. Finite temperature configurations in the decoupled field theory correspond to black hole configurations in AdS spacetimes. These black holes will Hawking radiate into the AdS spacetime. We conclude that excitations of the AdS spacetime are included in the Hilbert space of the corresponding conformal field theories. A theory in AdS spacetime is not completely well defined since there is a horizon and it is also necessary to give some boundary conditions at infinity. However, local properties and local processes can be calculated in supergravity when N is large if the proper energies involved are much bigger than the energy scale set by the cosmological constant (and smaller than the Planck scale). We will conjecture that the full quantum M/string-theory on AdS space, plus suitable boundary conditions is dual to the corresponding brane theory. We are not going to specify the boundary conditions in AdS, we leave this interesting problem for the future. The AdS×(spheres) description will become useful for large N, where we can isolate some local processes from the question of boundary conditions. The supersymmetries of both theories agree, both are given by the superconformal group. The superconformal group has twice the amount of supersymmetries of the corresponding super-Poincare group[3,4]. This enhancement of supersymmetry near the horizon of extremal black holes was observed in [5,6] precisely by showing that the near throat geometry reduces to AdS×(spheres). AdS spaces (and branes in them) were extensively considered in the literature [7,8,9,10,11,12,13], including the connection with the superconformal group.

Your mythology and its magic man had nothing to do with this. So please, drop your specious and duplciitous apologetic misrepresentation of modern cosmology, as some sort of doctrinal exercise in "avoiding" your merely asserted magic man.

Finally, you are apparently ignorant of a basic concept here. Namely, that postulating the existence of multiple entities belonging to a class already known to contain one instance, is less extravagant than postulating the existence of an entirely new class of entity. Especially when that new class of entity is postulated to contain an instance possessing outlandish, paradoxical or in some cases impossible properties, or at least, properties that are impossible given the naive and non-rigorous definitions erected by supernaturalists.

To make matters even more interesting, from the standpoint of Kolmogorov complexity, a set containing a large number of members is frequently less complex than a set containing just one member. Recall that Kolmogorov complexity is defined in terms of the length (in characters) of the shortest computer program required to produce a given string of symbols. I shall provide an illustrative example. Let S1 be a set containing one element, the number:

843,679,376,385,480,550,377,723,388,537,711,906,362,052,778,699,727,162,111,890,685,724,985,251,411,151,994,148,668,577,761

A C program that would generate this would be:

main {

printf("%s","843,679,376,385,480,550,377,723,388,537,711,906,362,052,778,699,727,162,111,890,685,724,985,251,411,151,994,148,668,577,761");

return(0);
}

Now, let us define the set S2 as the set containing all values of x4 from x=1 to x=1024. From the standpoint of kolmogorov complexity, this set is simpler. Why? Because the program that generates it is shorter than the above program (assuming that the version of C can handle large enough integers natively of course). Viz:

main {

int i;

for(i=1; i<=10^24; i++)
printf("%ld", i^4);

return(0);
}

You'll find that the second program is shorter than the first. The first program requires 156 characters, the second just 66 (including spaces in each case). Now, I know what you're thinking at this point - is the large number I posted above a perfect fourth power? Yes it is. Specifically, it equals 170,429,338,461,796,551,853,2094.

So, an ensemble (namely a collection of lots of entities belonging to the same class) can be less complex in the Kolmogorov sense than a single entity from the collection.

Right, having dealt with that little lot, it's time to move on ...

Lion IRC wrote:the seemingly deliberate avoidance of Big Bang creationism

More duplicitous apologetic misrepresentation of the actual cosmological physics. It's precisely to address key issues arising from the standard Big Bang model, that the later developments in cosmology were erected, as you would have known if you had actually bothered to learn anything substantive about both the standard model and the later cosmological developments. Indeed, Steinhardt & Turok's work was performed deliberately to address the singularity problem arising from the standard Big bang model, among other issues, and their work replaces that singularity with a non-singular physical transition, thus allowing possible future empirical investigation of braneworld physics.

Lion IRC wrote:by contriving cyclical models of a universe

Once again, duplicitous apologetic misrepresentation of the cosmological physics. You portray the process of developing cosmological models, with the typical mendacity we have all come to expect from supernaturalists, as some purported exercise in "dogma" involving pulling fantasy fabrications out of the rectal passages of the physicists concerned, which is not only manifestly false, but defamatory, and a blatant instance of supernaturalist projection to boot. The physicists in question strive assiduously to ensure that their models produce physically realistic results, because at bottom, they know that reality will be the final arbiter with respect to whether or not they are right. They leave the business of making shit up to practitioners of apologetics.

Lion IRC wrote:strike me as "pot calling the kettle black."

Which is precisely what you're doing with your above thiny veiled mendacious slur against honest cosmological physicists.

Lion IRC wrote:

MrFungus420 wrote:

Jireh wrote:

Do you not want to convince me, your point of view has consistency ?

This thread is supposed to be about YOU supplying some of the "tons" of evidence that supports the existence of a god.

Something that you have completely failed to do thus far.

Dont worry Jireh, that is just an opinion about how persuasive the evidence you HAVE presented is. Its subjective.

Ahem, have you READ any of those scientific papers Rumraket presented earlier? No? Then you have no substantive knowledge upon which to base this assertion.

Lion IRC wrote:Saying, you havent presented ANY evidence is vastly different to saying...
...your evidence isnt persuasive.

He hasn't. All he's presented is copy-paste creationist spam from his own vanity forum, which itself contains nothing but the usual tired old creationist canards we've seen destroyed time and time again, when real science is brought to bear on the matter.

Lion IRC wrote:Law courts understand this distinction but it's quite common for atheists to simply ASSERT ..."thats not evidence".

Made up shit isn't evidence. Going to learn this elementary concept soon, are you?

Lion IRC wrote:The ad hom fallacy compounds into another logical fallacy - argumentum ad baculum.
An attempt to intimidate.
Agree with me or else I will insult you and call you a moron again.

Oh, learned a Latin phrase that tickles your fancy have you? Pity you don't understand what it actually means. Here's a clue for you: presenting nearly 20 scientific papers, whose hard empirical findings destroy Jireh's content-free assertions, and detonate a thermonuclear depth charge beneath them, isn't "intimidation".

Lion IRC wrote:Wanna argue about the instantaneous universal effect of gravity itself on every thing (mass) between here and the sun? I argue that the effect on gravity of the sun's (hypothetical) instant disappearence would instantaneous.

Einstein and every physicist since disagrees with you. Gravitational effects propagate at c. It's a central finding of general relativity. Not least because in general relativity, gravity is the result of space-time curvature generated by locally present mass, and the imposition of that curvature cannot travel outward from that mass at speeds greater than c. This upper limit upon the propagation of gravitational waves arises directly from the fact that they are coupled directly to a quantity known as the Ricci curvature tensor, which appears directly in Einstein's field equations. These equations describe how the energy-momentum tensor associated with any system (including gravity waves) propagates through space-time, and the upper speed limit for all currently physically realisable propagations (including gravity) is c with respect to the local reference frame.

Lion IRC wrote:The magnitude of that effect would vary from one mass to another depending on distance but the effect would be immediate.

Einstein says you are wrong.

Lion IRC wrote:If not, gravity, as a word, becomes meaningless if we start adding concepts such as "how long does it take" for the effect of gravity to get from A to B. Gravity is not a one-way journey from A to B. It is A and B attracted toward each other. The formula, if they ever get one, for gravitational attraction will be - if you like- irreducibly complex.

Strange how this didn't pose much of a problem for Einstein. Trouble is, you'll have to spend the next five years learning about tensor analysis and its application to physical systems in order to learn why.

Lion IRC wrote:And using the concept of a "wave" does not negate the continuous existence of the ocean on which it travels.

Except that waves on the ocean travel at finite speed. If they didn't, this would involve the water molecules travelling faster than light, which would be a violation of relativistic physics.

Lion IRC wrote:That ocean isnt just sitting there doing nothing in between wave peaks and troughs.

Did you actually attend a physics class at school? We know that wave motion in water is due to motion of water molecules. Indeed, some of us learned a couple of things about the Navier-Stokes Equations that have an impact upon water movement. Such as what happens when the flow is turbulent. Even from an elementary standpoint involving simple harmonic motion of said molecules, the simple fact is that it's possible to obtain various relationships between such quantities as wavelength and frequency, the classic result being V = fλ, where f is frequency, λ is wavelength, and V is the propagation velocity of the wave motion in question. In the case of light, this becomes c=fλ, and therefore allows us to determine a precise inverse relationship between frequency and wavelength for electromagnetic waves. That relationship alone would not exist for a wave travelling at infinite speed.

sturmgewehr wrote:I think this is pretty solid:

TRANSCENDENTAL ARGUMENT
(1) If reason exists then God exists.
(2) Reason exists.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

Can you explain what the existence of reason has got to do with the existence of god (which one?).

Calilasseia wrote:

Watchman wrote:“This thread thanks to the theists involved has been reduced to the lowest form of shit I have ever read.”
Scot Dutchy .

I notice a trend here to “demonise” Jireh.

No, what you notice is exasperation at having to deal with discoursive duplicity on a grand scale, for which the individual concerned is well known, having indulged in this three years ago over at RDF, and no doubt having left a trail of similar instances on those other fora you yourself informed us about. Given all the past precedents in question that are well known to many here, are you surprised that his posts are treated with a certain studied scorn?

Watchman wrote:Now I know he’s an annoying little tw@t

Oh dear. You've just strayed into the very territory you're accusing the rest of us of. Congratulations.

Watchman wrote:and don’t get me wrong ,I've had the same thoughts myself after previous encounters, but he’s just doing only what you allow him to do.

That, I shall inform you, is one of the strengths of this place. It allows those who have no real arguments to demonstrate this fact on a globally public scale, so that this basic fact may be recognised by anyone exerting even a basic minimum of effort to scrutinise the relevant threads. It also allows those of us who do have valid arguments to present them, along with corollary refutations of apologetic fabrications. It's precisely because there is a policy of not interfering in an editorial manner with the posts of contributors, and allowing all contributors where possible to display their wares in as uninhibited a manner as the basic rules of proper discourse permit, that this forum stands head and shoulders above the various places on the Internet run by some of the opposition. As an example, if I were to open an account on the infamous Rapture Ready forum, and post rebuttals of creationist nonsense featuring two dozen relevant scientific papers, the administrator there (namely the infamous BuzzardHut) would not only delete all my posts, he would ban my account summarily without explanation.

Watchman wrote:I notified the forum back on page 3 what he is and what he does.

And we're grateful for that.

Watchman wrote:I also gave links to some of his previous trolling attempts.

The attitude prevalent here, is that such individuals ultimately inflict more damage upon the ideologies they purport to uphold, if they are allowed a certain degree of latitude, than if they are subject to Rapture Ready tactics. Whilst dealing with endless copy-paste creationist spam may be tedious, and at times a thankless task, ultimately, exposing it for what it is, namely vacuous robotic parroting of unquestioned mantras, eventually has a beneficial effect, in terms of informing the undecided just what they are being offered by the purveyors of such material, and the complete lack of value thereof.

Watchman wrote:However I note that many here ,even some of those knowing what he is about still try to engage and defeat his “logic” (and I use the word “logic” quite wrongly).

Well first of all, none of us here regard his copy-paste spam as containing any "logical" content, for one very simple reason. Said content is an exercise in apologetics, and a fairly low quality exercise at that. The understanding extant here, and which has been extant here for some time, is that apologetics is nothing more than the erection of convoluted semantic fabrications, for the purpose of providing the illusion of support for presuppositions and blind assertions, with which to dazzle the gullible and uneducated. Interspersing said low-grade apologetics with actual scientific fact, lucidly presented (as Rumraket has been doing tirelessly to his monumental credit), simply brings the enormous contrast between said scientific fact and apologetic fabrication into well-illuminated and sharp relief.

Watchman wrote:I suggest we need to look at our own responses to Jireh and his kind.
He thrives because we “feed” him.

I'm well aware of the "oxygen of publicity" argument. However, the simple fact is that such people have access to this without coming here, courtesy of the infrastructure that the Internet provides, and Jireh establishes this basic fact courtesy of the existence of his vanity forum. Likewise, professional liars for doctrine, making use of money and political connections, disseminate their assorted wares in a like manner on a global scale, and on their websites, opposition and dissent are all too frequently expunged, as these websites are basically an exercise in striving for hegemony for an orthodoxy. What makes places such as this valuable, is that pedlars of doctrinal assertions are forced to confront vigorous and educated opposition, and in the case of egregious, recidivist and wholly unrepentant ideological stormtroopers for doctrine, are exposed as such. Whilst the persistent robotic parroting of copy-paste spam might be tiresome, permitting it merely serves to expose the vacuity of a doctrinal position that relies upon this as its principal means of attempting to engage in discourse.

Watchman wrote:I know the urge to defeat the “stupid” is great but is it not also a kind of arrogance that each of us believes that we have the one great “God Busting” line of logic.

You make an elementary mistake here, one that is also frequently made by several supernaturalists. None of the critical thinkers here considers himself to possess all the answers, because they recognise that the subject matter addressed is simply too voluminous, for one human mind to encompass in one lifetime in detail. However, given that the tactics of ideological stormtroopers for doctrine are well-documented, it is possible to deal with those tactics without having to possess Nobel-level expertise in all scientific fields. Not least because the ideological stormtroopers for doctrine are, all too frequently, simply not interested in actually understanding the science that they attack. It's why quote mining is a popular creationist tactic - creationists aren't interested in understanding the science, they're simply interested ultimately in destroying it, and they're prepared to fight a dirty ideological war in order to achieve this end. One of the central methods of dealing with them consists of exposing their discoursive criminality for what it is.

Plus, one of the reasons creationists are not interested in understanding the science, is because, at bottom, they realise, however subconsciously, that any genuine understanding of the science will ultimately undermine their adherence to their doctrine. They cannot confront the science honestly for this reason, which is why they engage in the duplicitous practice of treating science as a branch of apologetics.

Watchman wrote:At least it is for you lot , because only I have the one great God Busting formula ,obviously.(joke)

Several here will inform you that an entity whose very definition, when supernaturalists bother to exercise any semblance of rigour in this matter, is itself replete with paradox and inconsistency, hardly needs 'busting'. What requires attention, more correctly, is the effective dissemination of the required education with respect to this basic fact.

Watchman wrote:We each want to try our hand but with Jireh and his ilk there can be no victory because it is not a debate.

Once again, you have committed an elementary error. We are not interested in him. The people we are interested in, are other individuals who might be lulled into thinking that his low-grade apologetics is something other than a complete fabrication, based upon wilful misrepresentation of valid science, and the erection of instances of discoursive malfeasance. We know that we are not going to have any effect upon him, because the large body of evidence he provides in his posts, points inexorably to the conclusion that he is nothing more than an ideological stormtrooper for doctrine. He manifestly displays in his posts, that he is not interested in actually learning about the valid science that, on the one hand, he attacks because it does not genuflect before his doctrine, and on the other, twists into service on behalf of that doctrine whenever he thinks this is apologetically possible. We know that he is simply attempting to conduct the same sort of monologue that can be obtained from any pulpit, and that he is only interested in presenting his assertions and presuppositions with the specific intent that they be accepted uncritically and unquestioningly, in the same manner in which he accepts them. Our purpose here is to demonstrate that first, said uncritical and unquestioning acceptance of blind assertions and presuppositions is simply not going to happen, and second, that said assertions and presuppositions are wholly unsupported by reality.

Watchman wrote:His only purpose is to deliver his monologue.

As I have just expounded above.

Watchman wrote:Look back at his posts elsewhere ,they even follow the same template.

This does not surprise us in the least. It's one of the reasons that his apologetics is low-grade - because it is robotically formulaic.

Watchman wrote:“When people like Jireh claim they have evidence for their god they want people to immediately go "You have evidence? I believe you!"
Patient Zero .

But isn’t that what we expect from the Jirehs of this world.

We have learned to expect nothing other than the usual manifestations common to adherents of doctrine of all species, all of whom exhibit the same aetiology.

Watchman wrote:We cant blame him for being what he is.

Well, there is an argument to the effect that those with a certain minimum education become stormtroopers for doctrine by choice. Those lacking that minimum education don't have much choice, because not only are they frequently not equipped to become adherents through choice, but are all too often manipulated by the enforcers of conformity to doctrine, to the effect of being deliberately kept ignorant. It's one of the strengths of this place, that its members strive assiduously to dispel that miasma of ignorance.

Watchman wrote:Is the scorpion to be blamed for being a scorpion.

An analogy that probably has less application than you think it does. See above.

Watchman wrote:A solution .. ?

Quarantine the mind virus through education. Which is what we strive to achieve.

Watchman wrote:Well ,truly it is written….DONT FEED THE TROLLS.

Actually, a 'troll' is defined as an individual whose sole intent is to inflame and provoke, because doing so provides that individual with entertainment. Jireh's discoursive tactics may bear the appearance of trolling, but his primary intention is different, namely, he seeks to establish hegemony for his beloved doctrine. Immature individuals who simply gain some sort of crude, semi-masturbatory satisfaction from annoying people, generally don't expend the effort required to set up an entire vanity forum for the dissemination of creationist apologetics, which he's using as a sort of reference database.

Cali, you are wasting your precious time. If God does not exist, as you so much believe, why do you not enjoy your life better ?
Your efforts to indoctrinate others, that theism is vanity, is not living atheism consequently. A militant atheist as you, should live his world view. According to you, you do have only this life to live. Ones it ends, and you die, the game , the show is over. Finish. End of story. Whatever happyness you had, you will not experiment anymore. Forever. So if i would follow consequently your world view, i would live a extremely ego-centric life. I would not care about others, since that is a total waste of time. What matters, is YOUR satisfaction. Is YOUR happyness. Is YOUR fun. is YOU, your self. If i would be you, i would live and experience my inclinations in their full extent. I would not care about contemporary moral standards. I would create mine. And adapt them perfectly to my needs. I would not care about what society regards as virtues, as love, honesty, justice, rightness, selflessness etc. If i would love to rape and kill and torture little children, i would do it without hesitation. It would serve to please my own wishes at best. Ones i die, its over. I couldnt do afterwards anything anymore, that pleases me. So it would have to be now, today, right now. That is behaving intelligently, according to your world view. And i would not have to fear any "magicman", and neither think, i did something wrong. Since there would be no objective moral standard, and if i determine, that kill, rape , and torture little babies is actually a virtue, is good, there is no " magicman " to tell me its wrong, so it is actually good. I make the standard. I say what is good. There is nobody to tell me , something is not good, since nobody is above me. If i would be a lazy person, which hates to work, but love luxury, money,, and everything money can buy, i would never search a job in a company. I would probably find out the most refined way to steal money, in a way never to be catched, and spend it without think about tomorrow. Ones it ends, i would find out the easiest way to get money again. cheating, killing, stealing, hurting, whatever. I would not care. Actually, i would think, the more effective i were to reach my objectives, the better........

Spearthrower wrote:

UnderConstruction wrote:But what Lion does not seem to grasp is the distinction between very, very fast and simultaneous. Or very rigid and absolutely rigid.

The fast/very fast/simultaneous is just an artifact of human thinking. He could try going and hitting a fly to immediately concede that his ability to detect movement isn't exactly the pinnacle of all speed detection.

Rigidity is a red herring really, rigidity is just a material's capacity to resist stretching, twisting or other deformation under a load. The rigidity really has no bearing on this thought experiment - let us conceive in true apologetic fashion, of a rod of maximal rigidity (ooer)! That rod is still comprised of atoms. The force applied at one end propagates into the closest atoms, and then must propagate to the next atoms, and to the next, and so on and so on until the force reaches the other end of the pole and moves it. The rigidity only really affects how much force will be needed to make the other end move because a less than maximally rigid pole will lose some of the force in deformations that don't progress the force to the other end.

Rigidity is not a red herring.

If the rod flexes, then the flexing is the "effect". And the effect of flex commences simultaneously with the application of the force against which the end of the rod is opposed.

If I apply force against a brick wall (or a fly) the force takes effect and is opposed instantly and simultaneously by inertia.
(Equal and opposite directions.) If the force in one direction overcomes the force in the opposite direction, the "effect" becomes more noticeable - hairline cracks, etc. - but that is just the magnitude of the effect.

The inertia of force in the opposite direction is the "effect" and it is co-dependent for its simultaneous existence on the force being applied - the cause.

Whenever I think it can't get any worse, Jireh proves me wrong.
Oh, wait, maybe I'm reading it wrong...is this what you would do if your master let you, Jireh?

hackenslash wrote:

Animavore wrote:But wouldn't that mean the whole pole would have to shorten? Like if you pushed it 90mm it would be 3 light-years minus 90mm? And what happens if you push it at the speed of light for 3 years 'til you reach the other end?

No, it would still take three years, even with the contraction, because that's how long the compression/return would take to reach the other end. All other considerations are not relevant to the point at hand, AFAICT.

Edit: The best way to visualise this is as a wave, because that's precisely what we're talking about here.



You push at one end, and the wave travels the entire length at a maximum of c.

It doesnt take 3 years for the wall to exert inertia against the force being applied.
The wave is synonymous with my arm trembling as I push against the wall.

Note the waves dont trough out to zero - the bottom of the "ocean" on which they appear to "travel".
The bottom of the wave graphic is SOLID - continuous.

Regina wrote:

sturmgewehr wrote:I think this is pretty solid:

TRANSCENDENTAL ARGUMENT
(1) If reason exists then God exists.
(2) Reason exists.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

Can you explain what the existence of reason has got to do with the existence of god (which one?).

Well aren't Intelligent creatures like us supposed to be evidence for something intelligent which MIGHT have created the universe or whatever?

sturmgewehr wrote:

Regina wrote:

sturmgewehr wrote:I think this is pretty solid:

TRANSCENDENTAL ARGUMENT
(1) If reason exists then God exists.
(2) Reason exists.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

Can you explain what the existence of reason has got to do with the existence of god (which one?).

Well aren't Intelligent creatures like us supposed to be evidence for something intelligent which MIGHT have created the universe or whatever?

Why would intelligent creatures need a creator, intelligent or otherwise?

Animavore wrote:

sturmgewehr wrote:

Regina wrote:
Can you explain what the existence of reason has got to do with the existence of god (which one?).

Well aren't Intelligent creatures like us supposed to be evidence for something intelligent which MIGHT have created the universe or whatever?

But then you would have to say that that intelligence is evidence of something intelligent which may have created that intelligence and so on for infinity. At some stage there has to be a terminator but I think it more likey to be at this intelligence with physical brains that produce intelligence rather than a disembodied intelligence with no brain.

Interesting thought, I will take a note of this.

What did Immanuel Kant have to say about TRANSCENDENTAL ARGUMENT, I have 2 of His books but never got the chance to read them since I am pretty busy with other stuff.

Calilasseia wrote:
First, over a million scientific papers demonstrate conclusively, that with respect to vast classes of real world observational phenomena, testable natural processes are sufficient to provide an explanatory account, and as a direct corollary, supernatural entities are superfluous to requirements and irrelevant.

please show these testable processes, and how they prove conclusively, our universe is self existent, uncaused, or eternal.......

Second, physicists are turning their attention to the matter of what existed before the current observational universe in its current state

there is no before, if time began at the Big Bang. There is only " beyond " our universe......

and I've presented two scientific papers covering one relevant hypothesis, one that not only doesn't require your magic man, but one that has testable consequences in this observable universe, and therefore, unlike the magic man assertion, is subject to empirical verification or refutation.

As long as there is no refutation based on your empirical data, how can you assert " magicman " is not required ??!!

Code: Select all

But of course, despite having had all of this presented to you in the past, you continue parroting the same apologetic fabrications. [i]Quelle surprise[/i].

I have not seen it.. I am all ears.... please present your papers ones more.......

Except that your merely asserted "elephant in the room" is more like a microbe.

If its only a microbe, why do you waste your time, and so much efforts, to deny its existence ?

[1] Why do over a million scientific papers demonstrate conclusively, that testable natural processes are sufficient to provide explanatory accounts for vast classes of real world observational phenomena, and as a direct corollary, render supernatural entities superfluous to requirements and irrelevant?

They can just make empty assertions. How do you possibly know their assertions are true ?

[2] Why was your merely asserted magic man, purportedly responsible for the origination of the mythology containing the assertions about the existence thereof, too incompetent to stop the Middle Eastern nomads who wrote that mythology, from inserting into said mythology, assertions about the operation of the real world and its contents that are plain, flat, wrong and manifestly so? In other words, why was your magic man too incompetent to ensure that mythology and reality were consilient?

like the flat earth ?

Apart from fixing the above for you, your above attempt to portray cosmology as some sort of intentional pursuit of anti-theism is dishonest.

Multiverse theory is not cosmology, but made up wishful fantasy of some atheists, who have nothing better to do, than to try to avoid God at any price, even at the price of rationality. There is not a shred of evidence of this hypotheses.

As anyone who reads the actual scientific papers from the physicists readily understands. The mulitverse hypothesis was postulated for reasons arising from consideration of the relevant physics.

no kidding ??!! go ahead......

In particular, what is required is that the space in question takes the form of combining, via a Cartesian product like operation, a special form of space known as an anti-deSitter space (this is a relativistic, Lorentzian generalisation of hyperbolic space), with another special form known as a closed manifold. If the resulting space has N dimensions, then what is required is that a sensible description of gravity in those N dimensions, is associated with a particular form of quantum field theory extant on the (N-1) dimensional boundary of that space, said quantum field theory excluding gravity.

The landmark scientific paper introducing these concepts is this one:

The Large N Limit Of Superconformal Field Theories And Supergravity by Juan Maldacena, Advances In Theoretical And Mathematical Physics, 2: 231-252 (1998) [Full paper downloadable from here]

oh look :

This is shown by taking some branes in the full M/string theory and then taking a low energy limit where the field theory on the brane decouples from the bulk.

Please present empirical evidence , that MTheory is true.


Last December ('05), physicists held the 23rd Solvay Conference in Brussels, Belgium. Amongst the many topics covered in the conference was the subject matter of string theory. This theory combines the apparently irreconcilable domains of quantum physics and relativity. David Gross a Nobel Laureate made some startling statements about the state of physics including: "We don't know what we are talking about" whilst referring to string theory as well as "The state of physics today is like it was when we were mystified by radioactivity."

It seems Cali knows it better than David Gross, Nobel laureate.......

Your mythology and its magic man had nothing to do with this.

Neither does operational science. Neither empirical scientific evidence.

Especially when that new class of entity is postulated to contain an instance possessing outlandish, paradoxical or in some cases impossible properties, or at least, properties that are impossible given the naive and non-rigorous definitions erected by supernaturalists.

Please present evidence, that lifeless matter is able to create something essentially different, namely conscience, intelligence, and codified information.

More duplicitous apologetic misrepresentation of the actual cosmological physics. It's precisely to address key issues arising from the standard Big Bang model, that the later developments in cosmology were erected, as you would have known if you had actually bothered to learn anything substantive about both the standard model and the later cosmological developments. Indeed, Steinhardt & Turok's work was performed deliberately to address the singularity problem arising from the standard Big bang model, among other issues, and their work replaces that singularity with a non-singular physical transition, thus allowing possible future empirical investigation of braneworld physics.

Their proposal is far from being accepted by the mainstream scientific community..... The Big Bang theory rules, and consequently , a absolute beginning of the physical universe.

Ahem, have you READ any of those scientific papers Rumraket presented earlier? No? Then you have no substantive knowledge upon which to base this assertion.

rumraket had not even the guts to get until the end. he prefered to run away, rather facing the naked truth : the cell is irreducibly complex, and specified, codified, and complex information, as contained in DNA, can come only from a mind.

He hasn't. All he's presented is copy-paste creationist spam from his own vanity forum, which itself contains nothing but the usual tired old creationist canards we've seen destroyed time and time again

you cannot destroy a opinion , a interpretation. Since nobody has conclusive proofs of the facts. otherwise, we would not be here, debating god and the world......

that evidences your wishful thinking and empty vocabulary.

Oh, learned a Latin phrase that tickles your fancy have you? Pity you don't understand what it actually means. Here's a clue for you: presenting nearly 20 scientific papers, whose hard empirical findings destroy Jireh's content-free assertions, and detonate a thermonuclear depth charge beneath them, isn't "intimidation".

Oh sure. Thats why he run away... poor guy.....

Regina wrote:

sturmgewehr wrote:

Regina wrote:
Can you explain what the existence of reason has got to do with the existence of god (which one?).

Well aren't Intelligent creatures like us supposed to be evidence for something intelligent which MIGHT have created the universe or whatever?

Why would intelligent creatures need a creator, intelligent or otherwise?

I don't know, I ran into this argument with another discussion and this is exactly how I replied to him.

more like I told him What does this have to do with Anythig> how does this prove god, Intelligence is an evolved human trait.

Does that make sense ?