Millaneous #fundie

Millaneous #fundie forums.worldofwarcraft.com

but all this information about isotopes lasting for half a billion years cant really be 100% accurate, when was it we figured all this lasted that long? 100 years ago or less? we have not experienced enough to be able to prove everything about science either, the only thing that is proven about science is what that person really wants to believe just like we Christians. we have what we believe and are always conflicting on the subjects of creationism vs. evolution

in the end when we die, we will see who is right and wrong, if you dont believe, we are upset for you, if you do, well, we believe we will see you in the afterlife

faith does not cause wars and such, its greed and power that is exploited through religions that do

any Muslim as any Christian will tell you, their beliefs are based on loving one another and following certain rules that help keep us tied in with our chosen faith, its when people choose to enforce their belief on others is when we have problems

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old comment by Illuminatalie

"but all this information about isotopes lasting for half a billion years cant really be 100% accurate, when was it we figured all this lasted that long? 100 years ago or less?"
If it takes an hour for a sandglass made to such-and-such specifications to empty, all things being equal it will take a million hours for it to empty a million times. I don't have to be present to believe this is so, just as my belief that 1=1 is not at all based on the fact that I haven't ever found things behaving otherwise.

"any Muslim as any Christian will tell you, their beliefs are based on loving one another"
O RLY? I don't think that is really true, but fortunately both groups are generally better than their 'beliefs'.

"in the end when we die, we will see who is right and wrong, if you dont believe, we are upset for you, if you do, well, we believe we will see you in the afterlife "
Believing that you belong to a special race or religion that God loves, to the exclusion of everyone else, who he will condemn to eternal suffering (which you consider JUSTICE?!?), kind of clashes with "loving one another". It's impossible to consider people more or less subhuman, and destined for eternal punishment, and not have a mean, patronizing attitude towards them in real life, which is certainly what I have observed lots of from religious fundamentalists (they think they're hiding their beliefs from me too, haha, they're not very good at it). And why would atheists who lived with great kindness and genuine desire to see good things done, be punished for not believing in Allah and his dictates?

old comment by Shano

Technically there is a subtle point which needs clarification. The statement that isotopes with halflife time of milions of years really have halflife time of milions of years is based on a very strong but yet unproven assumption called the ergodic theorem. It claims that averages over times are equal to averages over ensembles. In other words it means that if I toss a milion coins the number of heads I get (pun intended) will be very close to the number I get if I toss one coin a milion times.

It is a very strong assumption as in it has been proven under specific conditions but not all conditions. Thus its use in physics remains empirical as in it's a null hypothesis that has not been rejected.
Back to isotopes. We deduce the halflife time of an isotope by studying a large number of atoms of that isotope and looking at how many atoms remain unchanged after some reasonable amount of time. This unfortunately doesn't completely ensure that if we take one atom it will decay with a probabilty determined by the given halflife time.

I thought that needs clarification. Sorry for the boring lecture :)

old comment by Allegory for Jesus

"isotopes lasting for half a billion years cant really be 100% accurate, when was it we figured all this lasted that long?"

Learns urslef some mathimatics.

" if you dont believe, we are upset for you"

And I am upset for you in that you are so arrogant to assume that your perspective on the afterlife is true.

"any Muslim as any Christian will tell you, their beliefs are based on loving one another and following certain rules that help keep us tied in with our chosen faith, its when people choose to enforce their belief on others is when we have problems"

Truth. Damn shame we have a disproportionately large and powerful manifestation of the latter, and that those who are among the former would probably be loving and follow necessary guidelines for moral behavior regardless of their chosen faith.

old comment by Android R

but all this information about isotopes lasting for half a billion years cant really be 100% accurate, when was it we figured all this lasted that long? 100 years ago or less?

Mathematics says otherwise.

we have not experienced enough to be able to prove everything about science either,

True, we don't know everything, but we try.

the only thing that is proven about science is what that person really wants to believe just like we Christians.

I'm not following. Rephrase.

we have what we believe and are always conflicting on the subjects of creationism vs. evolution

True, at least you don't outright say we are wrong.

n the end when we die, we will see who is right and wrong, if you dont believe, we are upset for you, if you do, well, we believe we will see you in the afterlife

Ok, I'll see you there.

faith does not cause wars and such, its greed and power that is exploited through religions that do

While greed and power do play a part, faith is also involved

I now have *some* (read: a little more than none) respect for this man. At least he understands that other religions are not all 'evil' and out to get them.

old comment by Shano

@alcari and calilasseia,

Again I have to to point out that the problem is in mathematics (the proof of the ergodic theorem) and in physics (accepting the ergodic theorem as an empiric law). In no way I am claiming that there is anything wrong with the current way of evaluation (I personally can't imagine why would the ergodic theorem not be ever true). BUT! From a philosophical point of view this is a weak spot (as is any empirical i.e. unrejected null hypothesis). That is my only point. Scientifically in the case of decay there are strong workarounds like: we can easily show that the time average is equal to the ensemble average for short lived isotopes. Physics should work the same for all isotopes thus the ergodic theorem works for long lived isotopes.

old comment by John

but all this information about isotopes lasting for half a billion years cant really be 100% accurate, when was it we figured all this lasted that long?

Yeah, but we're not likely to mistake 6,000 years for 4.5 billion years. It may be off by a few percent, but we're pretty sure our half-life measurements of U-238 aren't off by a factor of 750,000.

the only thing that is proven about science is what that person really wants to believe

Physicists don't "want" to believe anything one way or the other about half-lives. The half-lives were determined long before anyone started using them for dating rocks. Does Millaneous imagine physicists said "let's fudge the half-life of U-238 so that maybe some day a geologist can use it to prove Genesis was wrong"? Believe it or not, the whole scientific world isn't in a grand conspiracy to find ways to disprove the Bible. They've got other things to do.

old comment by Swede

Almost nothing in science is 100% accurate, as it deals with evidence and probabilities, not proof and certainties. Which is why it talks about theories and not facts. It has nothing to do with belief or religion, however, which is all just myths and wishful thinking. The "conflict" between creationism and evolution is similar to the conflict between a flat and a spherical Earth.

False dichotomy, dearie. What if the Baha’i or the Aesir are right, and we're both wrong?

Loving one another? What about all the discrimination and hatred from religious people towards gay people, women and non-believers (including but not limited to lesbian non-believers)?

Millaneous #fundie forums.worldofwarcraft.com

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