Interesting Conversation I had Today...religion related

[Jetfire]

so out of curiosity how do we know hos old dino's are?

Me Grimlock must know.

Most famous people are full of ****. Actuallu so are most people, including me most probably. Everyone talks crap at some point. Its more a question of intent and sincerity i think.

basically with out human interfearence soil and rock will cover land at a vaguely consistent rate. basically by seeing how many levels of rock and what type, and you can see at what point it was burried and how llong it must have taken the rocks to cover it. As most Dinosaurs bones consistently tell us the same period for each species we can get their time scales for when they lived.

As for carbon dating, which most people mistakenly believe tells us how old Dinosaurs here's how it works and why it can't be used for determining how old Dino's and the earth is, for the heck of it :

In my teachery way. Sorry if this seams over simplified as I'm so used to explaining this to children I can't seem to do it any other way :
Basically atoms are made of protons, neutrons and electrons. There are 108+ different types of atoms (referred to the different elements).
the defining characteristic of the properties of the atom is the Proton. If an atom has 1 proton it is hydrogen, if it has 2 it's helium etc. Carbon has 6 protons etc and as long as any atom has 6 protons it is Carbon.

However, the number of neutrons in an atom, other than making the atom lighter (If 1 is missing) or heavier (if more neutrons are present) doesn't appear to change what the element is. Carbon normally has 6 neutrons.
However in all living things there are a set of new carbon atoms with 2 extra neutrons.
These ones are often referred to carbon 14 (normal carbon is carbon 12 - 6 protons + 6 neutrons). C14 is generally made by cosmic energy Turing a proton in Nitrogen into a neutron (Nitrogen has 7 protons as 1 is turned to a neutron it has 1 less proton and becomes carbon).
Carbon 14 like all radioactive materials decays over time. By measuring the amount of carbon 14 in organic or Rocky material you can measure how long it has been in existence.

Over time the Carbon 14 gets less and less (The atomic decay will change the structure of the element into nitrogen and the decay is always consistent and not affected by any other factors.
Hence by measuring the half life (how long it takes for Carbon 14 to half in number) you can work out how old a carbon based material is by working out how long it took to get from the original proportion of Carbon 14 elements (because it is alwasy the same at the point of death) to the level it is at now.

The most common mistake of radioactive dating is that it is only accurate to thousands of years. It can't tell us how old the earth is and I not believe it can be used for Dinosaurs because they died over a millions years ago and the Carbon 14 decayed a looong time ago.


Hope all that interested somebody.....

[Impactor returns 2.0]

Btw, Prof, do religious people often try to convert you, or why is this outburst against them? Just being curious, take no offense.

well yes actually - they turn up at my door, they build churchs, they are on TV for killing ppl.

they are in my face. I dont want to know about it.

[Metal Vendetta]

Yes it was mean and yes it's a low blow and whatever, but every time I say what I think of religion or God, someone gets righteously offended, taking it as a personal attack. I just thought I'd get in there first before this thread turned into a roll-call of people throwing up the stock "I'm insulted by what you say" response.

Those of us who don't blow up buildings, marry unwilling minors, or believe you are going to hell because you don't believe, are insulted.

Whoops, too late.

Look, this isn't about your personal beliefs. I like you (and your wife) very much, if you are ever in the UK again I'll give you drinks, food, somewhere to stay and everything that goes with that.

Here's the rub.

Next week I have a friend from school staying over at my place. He's a racist who votes BNP. I think that almost everything he believes in is a pile of steaming horse****. Yet I am still going to accomodate him and his fiance because I like them as people. I don''t judge them by their beliefs. Just like I don't judge you by yours. I try to judge people as people rather than as labels.

In fact don't Christians say something like "love the sinner, hate the sin", usually while trying to justify their homophobic stance? Surely I can disagree with every single principle of an institution while still liking members of that institution?

I have friends who are Tory. I make no secret of my utter contempt for the Conservative party, its values and pretty much everything it stands for. I have friends who are Christian. They know that I think that Christianity is all a huge steaming pile of horse****, just like racism, horse-riding, dogs, Coldplay, Jamiroquai and all that.

The bottom line is, I'm sorry if you're insulted by the way I talk, but I'm not going to change my opinions and I'm not going to stop expressing them. I'm not making personal attacks on people's beliefs here. Don't get so emotional about it. God will forgive me

Jets: Savage? I've been worse

You'll notice Smooth said:

If you believe in God, you're a fool.

Impy said:

I belive in what smooth said

You'll notice I said:

I think people need something to believe in.
I don't think most people can cope with the uncertainty of admitting that there's a lot of stuff we just don't know.
Honestly, I think in most cases religion does little to no harm to people...unfortunately far too often a minority of religious people spoil it for everyone else

...which is pretty much what most other people have posted in this thread. So don't give me **** over this topic.

To answer a particular question:

So why the hell do you want us to prove it to you? I've never tried to prove it to any of you! I've never pushed it, either!

I don't want you to prove it to me, I want the Pope to prove it. And the Ayatollah. And every person who is in a position of power through religion. Because these people hold their followers in great sway and there are millions of them out there and I am very ****ing scared of the whole lot of them. Every religion throughout time has done a bit of ethnic cleansing here and there and I don't want to die because some god decrees it. I just want to see some proof that these people are not just apes with funny hats on but actually in touch with God because until I see that I'm never going to respect any of these people who believe they are better than me because their god decrees it.

I have no problem with the ordinary people of religion. It's further up that my beef lies.

[Kaylee]

"Because the half-life of carbon-14 is 5,700 years, it is only reliable for dating objects up to about 60,000 years old. However, the principle of carbon-14 dating applies to other isotopes as well. Potassium-40 is another radioactive element naturally found in your body and has a half-life of 1.3 billion years. Other useful radioisotopes for radioactive dating include Uranium -235 (half-life = 704 million years), Uranium -238 (half-life = 4.5 billion years), Thorium-232 (half-life = 14 billion years) and Rubidium-87 (half-life = 49 billion years).

The use of various radioisotopes allows the dating of biological and geological samples with a high degree of accuracy. However, radioisotope dating may not work so well in the future. Anything that dies after the 1940s, when Nuclear bombs, nuclear reactors and open-air nuclear tests started changing things, will be harder to date precisely."

From howstuffworks.com

Jetsy learned a lesson! jetsy learned a lesson!

{does the linux dance}

[Jetfire]

I knew all that

Seriously I've had that site booked marked on the school computer forever as it's a brilliant resource for kids to use. The diagram showing how C14 is created is now an OHT for my year 11's.

[BB Shockwave]

I heard the same can be done with fossilised Flouride which goes back alonger period of time. But you're right, Dinosaurs lived so long ago carbon cannot be used onthem. People use the earth and stone the fossils are found in to tell their age.

[BB Shockwave]

Btw, Prof, do religious people often try to convert you, or why is this outburst against them? Just being curious, take no offense.

well yes actually - they turn up at my door, they build churchs, they are on TV for killing ppl.

they are in my face. I dont want to know about it.

-So, this disturbs you... Politicians turn up on TV more often, why is it a problem the church sometimes does turn up on it? And in what way does building a church disturb you? They don't force you to go in there...

You should come here to HUngary... with the ultra-liberals holding 90% of the TVs and radios in their hands, you harldy hear about religion at all... and that's not really 'equal measures'.

[BB Shockwave]

I don't want you to prove it to me, I want the Pope to prove it. And the Ayatollah. And every person who is in a position of power through religion. Because these people hold their followers in great sway and there are millions of them out there and I am very ****ing scared of the whole lot of them. Every religion throughout time has done a bit of ethnic cleansing here and there and I don't want to die because some god decrees it. I just want to see some proof that these people are not just apes with funny hats on but actually in touch with God because until I see that I'm never going to respect any of these people who believe they are better than me because their god decrees it.

I have no problem with the ordinary people of religion. It's further up that my beef lies.

-Yes,that's true, religion is responsible for lots of deaths and genocide. The 'conversion' of the indians by the spanish church. The Crusades (with both sides waging a religious war).The timely jihads of the Osman empire (what we Hungarians suffered greatly at the time). or just look at India and Pakistan...

-But compare the deaths with the deaths in these wars:

-The fascist/nazi regime in Germany,Italy, Hungary, and what they did as genocide (jews/gypsies)
-The 40 year long reign of terror of kommunism in Asia and Europe. Do you know how many people starved in hunger in Ukraine because of Stalin? Or how many died in the so-called gulag which was essentialy the same as the nazi labour camps?
-The 'cultural revolution' in china which essentially wiped out the educated people of China.
-The Red Khmer and their genocide in (drat, was it Laos?)

What I'm saying is that beliefs are far more dangerous then religions. Other then the muslim, no religion says that you must force that religion upon others.
But communism, facism, and all those 'high ideals' which nicely ruined this 20. century, they don't care *** about your free will.

Essentially: religion won't take over the world. If you fear that, you better fear the ideals mentioned above and their many, many followers in the world. Oh yes, and don't forget Pinky and the Brain.

[Professor Smooth]

tis true. smooth wanted reasons why we should have religion tho so I thought i'd bring up a few advances which wouldn't have occurred in as timely a manner without it. they would obviously still have happened.

Smooth said nothing of the sort. I wanted reasons why people believe in an invisible space man. The messages of Christianity, Islam, etc still stand up without the all-powerful(?) God, angels, devils, etc in them. In fact, I think they become MORE powerful without them....

This is about God. Not Religion.

Person 1: I have an invisible friend!
Person 2: You're nuts!
Person 1: Jesus is my invisible friend.
Person 2: Oh, I thought you were crazy.

Uh...still crazy.

Person 1: Jesus was a man who preached peace, love, and understanding to his followers and encouraged them to do the same.
Person 2: Wow, that sounds like a great man. But a lot of people do that...
Person 1: But...this one was the son of the all powerful man in the sky! His mother was impregnated without sex by an Angel, one of God's helpers on earth!
Person 2: Oh, well, that makes it much better then, doesn't it?

Nope.

Btw, Prof, do religious people often try to convert you, or why is this outburst against them? Just being curious, take no offense.

People don't often try to convert me, they just very often tell me that I should alter my behavior to conform to what their God wants. And it's always stuff like "You shouldn't swear." "You shouldn't drink," or "You shouldn't use words like 'hate'."

I could see if they wanted to convert me, but they simply say "don't convert, just be more like what our God wants you to be." But again, this isn't what it's about.

[Kaylee]

I knew all that

Seriously I've had that site booked marked on the school computer forever as it's a brilliant resource for kids to use. The diagram showing how C14 is created is now an OHT for my year 11's.

no ya didn't cos you said radioactive dating doesn't work for anything more than thousands of years and it does, it just depends on the radioactive isotope

you learned a lesson! ner ner!

{continues doing the linux dance}

the rest of the discussion is heading down it's well-trodden path... I've given my opinements on all of these issues before so I think I'll sit and watch.

EDIT -

PS, as you've clarified you're purpose why then did you start a topic asking for proof of something that you know full well has no proof? It's not going to lead to any sort of interesting debate that I can see as it's just going to consist of-

"Well I think it does"
"Well I think it doesn't"

Sounds like a random excuse for religion/church/God bashing when there really are better issues re religion which could be discussed with reference to the modern climate imo.

[Professor Smooth]

Sounds like a random excuse for religion/church/God bashing when there really are better issues re religion which could be discussed with reference to the modern climate imo.

I don't want proof. Well, I do, but I know better than to ask for it. I just want to hear a REASON. Proof that a God exists and a reason for believing a God exists are worlds apart, are they not?

[Metal Vendetta]

Essentially: religion won't take over the world. If you fear that, you better fear the ideals mentioned above and their many, many followers in the world.

...So what you're saying is I should be fearful of religion and all the other hate-filled ideologies in the world? Thank you for pointing that out.

[Impactor returns 2.0]

-So, this disturbs you... Politicians turn up on TV more often, why is it a problem the church sometimes does turn up on it? And in what way does building a church disturb you? They don't force you to go in there...

Politics deals with real word situations - things that actually effect my life, like a bomb in london, I want to know what our politcians are going to do about it.

sure we know they bend the truth, but on subjects that can be truly understood, they are man made situations.

On the other hand, a guy preaching about how i will go to hell because I dont belive in god, homo-sexuality is wrong, and i should die because I dont belive in religon X ****s me off. - because I have a write to not belive, I dont have to belive in anything. so im pissed off when i have a man come to my door because I havent seen the light, and im anoyed to see a priest because he represents anti-homosexulaity etc.. and to top it off, the building of a church is like a giant statue that reprsents all that is wrong in this world.

No i dont need to go in... its plain for me to see.

[Kaylee]

Sounds like a random excuse for religion/church/God bashing when there really are better issues re religion which could be discussed with reference to the modern climate imo.

I don't want proof. Well, I do, but I know better than to ask for it. I just want to hear a REASON. Proof that a God exists and a reason for believing a God exists are worlds apart, are they not?

I'm not sure, I'd reason something like-

i. Entity is proposed which does not exist
ii. Proposed entity therefore has no proof for its existence
iii. Reasons for believing in entity therefore would be entirely a matter of "Because I like the idea" or similar.

Wouldn't that make asking for the reason just as redundant as asking for proof? I mean it's just going to come down to "Because".

Or let me put it another way, I don't think you're going to get a dissertation on the benefits of including the supernatural in your religion/personal belief system. Mainly because it's almost certainly unquantifiable.

I'm generally baffled o.O

[angloconvoy]

Some people just like Coldplay better.

Yeah, but those people are actually wrong.

[Jetfire]

I knew all that

Seriously I've had that site booked marked on the school computer forever as it's a brilliant resource for kids to use. The diagram showing how C14 is created is now an OHT for my year 11's.

no ya didn't cos you said radioactive dating doesn't work for anything more than thousands of years and it does, it just depends on the radioactive isotope

Considering those radioactive isotobes are extreamly rare and as examples aren't present in virually everything, unlike Carbon -14 they are practically useless for finding out the age of anything significant.
Dinosaur's, most rocks etc are not made out of Uranium and Rubidium it's pretty useless to claim they could be used to fate anything

EDIT -

PS, as you've clarified you're purpose why then did you start a topic asking for proof of something that you know full well has no proof? It's not going to lead to any sort of interesting debate that I can see as it's just going to consist of-

"Well I think it does"
"Well I think it doesn't"

Sounds like a random excuse for religion/church/God bashing when there really are better issues re religion which could be discussed with reference to the modern climate imo.

I agree. There seems to be a constant string of, mostly Smooth topics, which is just there to state once again clique " I see no proof and there for you are wrong/stupid/ignorant" arguements though Karly has explained it better.

[Jetfire]

Politics deals with real word situations - things that actually effect my life, like a bomb in london, I want to know what our politcians are going to do about it.

sure we know they bend the truth, but on subjects that can be truly understood, they are man made situations.

On the other hand, a guy preaching about how i will go to hell because I dont belive in god, homo-sexuality is wrong, and i should die because I dont belive in religon X ****s me off. - because I have a write to not belive, I dont have to belive in anything. so im pissed off when i have a man come to my door because I havent seen the light, and im anoyed to see a priest because he represents anti-homosexulaity etc.. and to top it off, the building of a church is like a giant statue that reprsents all that is wrong in this world.

No i dont need to go in... its plain for me to see.

I think you are viewing all religion through narrow minded thinking. The Church of England accept homosexual's and has been blessing relationships for years and accepting gay priests for far longer. Several other church's have also been doing this. You can't group all religion into one convenient ball to label.

In fact the biggest news on England's church in several decades, bar the fact it got a new leader, is it's increasing acceptance of homosexualoity and how it's fallen out with right-wing churches elsewhere.

Because one rightwing fruit stands of a street corner and shouts "Don't be a sinner..." doesn't mean it's fair to group all people with a religious conviction. Like wise because of a war that maniliputed border disputes into a religious war a thousand years ago it doesn't mean you can say that's the same people as today.

[Guest]

I don't believe in God, gods or even vampires.

I just believe in cold, hard facts.

And since the quantum nature of the universe is such that nothing is cold or hard, I guess I don't believe in anything.

I thank you.


[edit] Oh, and I base the approximate age of the Earth on the presumed age of the Sun, based on measurements that assume Hydrogen to Helium spectra ratios and supposed planetissimal theory.

Oh, and the Big Bang theory as most people understand it is a virtual impossibility, while a Big Bang theory incorporating virtual pair creation theory makes a lot more sense. To me, anyway.

[spiderfrommars]

Along with his "Imagine no possessions" after he had just brought several mansions and penthouse flats makes it rank as one of the worst timed hypocrisy's in pop culture history.

Really? He only had the one house at the time AFAIK. Sure Lennon was a man of contradictions but the hypocrite tag seems unfair. He has to live in a mud hut to be allowed to sing the song then? A lot of the time he just said/sang it how it was.

[Impactor returns 2.0]

I think you are viewing all religion through narrow minded thinking

No,
cleary I was listing examples from various religons, hence, religon X

[Kaylee]

Don't mind Jetsy, he's trying to dig himself out of saying radioactive dating over millions of years wasn't possible

[Professor Smooth]

Don't mind Jetsy, he's trying to dig himself out of saying radioactive dating over millions of years wasn't possible

Man! **** that! Who're you to say who I can or can't radioactively date? Love makes ALL THINGS possible.

I'd like to clarify my position on proof vs reason.

A person may feel that homosexuality is wrong because it doesn't help to create any new human life. That's a reason. However, it's not PROOF that it's wrong.

[Shanti418]

I believe that we are in a constant state of entropy and that God is a physical/mental/emotional being of Anti-Chaos. Order. Karma. But not a guy w/ a beard, just a force like gravity, except not limited to the physical. God is not a moral being, IMO. I try and live the best I can and treat other people well, and that's the best I can offer. Morality is a COMPLETELY subjective thing, IMHO. And that's why religion gets such a bad rap.

The thing about disproving religion is that religion is based on faith, and the whole point of faith is to believe something that you can't prove. If you could prove God was there and one time, his/her son Jesus had this huge party at the house while God was out on another astral plane, and so God grounded him on Earth for a while, then we'd all be Christians and it would be easy because we'd know. But that's missing the whole point of religion, some would say.

[jboyler]

drat, was it Laos?

Cambodia.

-J

[Best First]

i'm not sure i buy this concept of not judging people by their beliefs. Not judging people entirely by their beliefs sure, but ignoring their beliefs entirely seems to me to ignore an aspect of personality.

voting BNP, for example = c*** in my book.

[Metal Vendetta]

voting BNP, for example = c*** in my book.

To quote Trainspotting, "He's a mate, what can ye dee?"
Besides he's well aware of my feelings on the matter. Our last conversation ended with my telling him "You're a complete evil ****ing bastard!" and him agreeing. That wasn't BNP-related though, that was when I found out his new job is head of a call centre that rings you up and asks if you would like to change your electricity provider.

Then again, is it really any different from a religion? He's been brought up in a family where all his relatives vote BNP, where the whole area is as racist as it's possible to be in this day and age. It's not nice and it's not pretty but I don't ffeel that I can blame him for that. And now he's moved away and he's living in Brighton I'm hoping that his views will change over time. Much like the way that some of my Christian friends, removed from the cloying environment of their families and churches, have started to question the beliefs that made so much sense when they were 8 years old. Some have even jacked it in altogether, save for a token "Well I still believe in God, but it's not the same God s the Christian God, it's just a sort of benign force up there somewhere".

People are people, despite what environment they have been brought up in. Ever hear that Phillip Larkin poem They **** you up, your mum and dad? That's exactly what I'm talking about. One of my friends, his father told me that the most important thing in his life was Jesus. This was a man with a wife, a house, a job and two children. And he told me that in front of his two children. Imagine how that's going to make them feel. Is it any wonder his oldest son is now thoroughly disillusioned with the church? That though he has his private faith he now openly admists that he bleieves most of Christianity to be bollocks? And this was someone who spent most of the sixth form trying to convince me that God is real.

Point is, if I like someone, no matter if they're a muslim, hindu, jew, pagan, satanist or whatever, that's not an issue for me. It may become an issue for them when I make it clear that I think what they believe is tosh but that's their own business. I'm tolerant enough to let them believe what they like and they should be tolerant enough to let me believe the opposite. Most people know I hate religion, I hate churches, evangelists, priests and preachers. It's not like I make a big secret of it.

[Scraplet]

I don't discount the possibility of a creative intellegence in the universe, because it is a rational possibility. But so are extra-terrestrials and the end of the earth tommorow in a meteor storm. I don't think that a possibility of something is a reason to focus your life around it.

If there is a god then it is unlikely to be reflected in any religion. To me, this makes religion meaningless.......

I believe in religion because I believe it helps me to be a better person.

No offence Sprunkner, but I just don't get that. Are you saying that you couldn't / didn't develop a moral code of your own as you grew up based on your life-experiences?

I feel a have a strong sense of justice and condsider myself a good person.....I dislike the implication that there is some morality that people lack if they are not religious.

And I think people like George W. B. are a great example of why this is a dangerous path. People like him justify their actions with a religious contex, and make out that because they know the scripture they are morally superior.

A moral code based on religion can always head back to the 'because god said so' dead-end that has been previously mentioned.

[BB Shockwave]

Btw, Prof, do religious people often try to convert you, or why is this outburst against them? Just being curious, take no offense.

People don't often try to convert me, they just very often tell me that I should alter my behavior to conform to what their God wants. And it's always stuff like "You shouldn't swear." "You shouldn't drink," or "You shouldn't use words like 'hate'."

I could see if they wanted to convert me, but they simply say "don't convert, just be more like what our God wants you to be." But again, this isn't what it's about.[/quote]

Well I agree with you on that. If I have problems with someone who swears, I don't tell him to shut it 'cause it offends god,I just tell him to stop it for me. If he's a real friend he will do it... No need to drag religion into this, and I"m sorry you experience this often.

And I think people like George W. B. are a great example of why this is a dangerous path. People like him justify their actions with a religious contex, and make out that because they know the scripture they are morally superior.

Uhm, he is a fanatist, but do you really think Bush isin control of the USA?He's just a puppet. And a muppet... So there's nothing to fear from him as long as his masters won't let him loose.

[sprunkner]

Sorry about the outburst, everyone.

Here I thought I was above such gut emotional responses... please forgive me.

[Best First]

don't worry about it dood.

this interested me:

the whole point of faith is to believe something that you can't prove

but... what is the point of that?