h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

toxx
Ok give me another word. that means what I mean.
although perfection is quite good it isn't good enough.

please name something within the universe that is not in a state of change. what thing has been constant since we could realise that history began and will remain so.
you say;
"the features can't be unchanging for a while. "
How long is a while

nothing happens without cause and effect
Your example provides me with an example of cause and effect
cushion- depression -cannonball causes effect as you say
Remove it and the effect of that is to un-depress the cushion.
either of these is cause and effect, yes?
Never move the cannon ball and the effect is a continual depression
i cannot think of anything that is not motivated by cause and effect.
Even if the cause takes a million years and the effect may be only measured in seconds.
the laws of the Universe are based on cause and effect, It's what it's built on and with

Bod
"If God is omnipotent, then presumably it is within her powers to have created a world in which there was both free will and yet no evil."
Of course it is...
but we live in a place to experience each other and that counts evil too.
We take the sweet with the sour, because it makes the sweetness that much more delicious.
We know what goodness is by our comparisons with perceived evil.
like we know what hot is in comparison with cold, up with down. positive with negative
We then choose which we are. Good or evil.

Oh ps Bod
There is no free will of choice if the choices are limited.
If we have no otion but to chose good, because that is all there is, we have no free will.

PS Toxx
If a cannon ball is never placed on a cushion, it becomes static compared with all other cannon ball depressed cushions.
but other things, in time, will have an effect upon it. It will not 'last' for ever.
Change will occur, because it is not an infinite universe.

Rosi
Charles Darwin, Francis Crick, Richard Dawkins, John Maddox,
don't know about John Maddox ans Francis Crick but i believe the other two believed in God.
Even the father' of the tehory of evolution saw it as evidence of a creator not a denial.

Freedom of choice - Religion... to believe or not to believe...
to worship as you wish.....Don't tell me and I won't tell you....
I do not wish to 'convert' anyone.

Evolution - obvious.

The Universe - what does it have to do with GOD? It's just out there....all of it...neverending?.....I doubt if we'll ever find out that answer...

Adam & Eve - a clueless couple thrown into the fire.....(Why did God do that?) What choices.....temptations....they were set up if you ask me. (p.s. I don't buy that whole theory....I like the evolution theory...it gives me something to chew on....

Heaven & Hell - Frightening concept....but I don't believe it...

the Bible - still a book, written by humans....not God.

Jesus - was a good man.

Prophets - just people with a vision. Revelations....

Armageddon????? End of the World???? Whatever you call it....possible not probable....we can go through another ice age and survive....What would it take to end the world..nuclear war.....the roaches would survive...and probably evolve into....nasty little creatures growing to be nasty little people....not unlike now.....it's all the same....over and over again......what did we start out as? Fish?

Any comments?

Barb

Dagnammit, Moth. You're asking me to improve on perfection!

The presence of the cannonball is causing a changeless depression. That's my argument against your assertion that cause and effect entail change.

Hasn't the electron always been unchanging since the beginning of electrons? Maybe you would prefer the mu meson or the Higgs boson. How about the gravitational constant?

Does God function by cause and effect? If you want to talk about 'personal causstion' then, sort of, OK. It's rather more traditional to talk about 'will' though or even 'said'.

is from the Pope's instructions to the Crusaders before the Albigensian Crusade.

Rosi I've said something similar myself, but that was better put.


In a general sense I would call these types of things the spiritual dimension of religions, and they are at least partly independent of various other metaphysical and theological aspects. In any worldview different elements get cooked together in ways that often violate artificial analytic boundaries. This is why people of various religious persuasions often agree about certain things, while people who are nominally of the same religion *disagree* about some aspects of their religion.



I'm with Badger on this one; you're confusing evolution of the species with the personal evolution (ontogeny) of the individual. The way we think etc does not affect the genetic material.

Ho, ho, ho; the great free will debate rears its head again. <Smiley>

You *cannot* observe this sort of metaphysical free will, or its absence, in action. It's a rationalisation of the outward results of "whatever is going on." Free will talk is talk about the limits we assign to responsibility/irresposibility. It is NOT NOT NOT about any sort of cause and effect-free volition.

Noggin

Bookmark. Booky damned mark. Tum ta dum dum dum.
Toxx, if your read this, and have a chance to reply, perhaps on a private thread to save everyone's time - what exactly have you and az got against eachother? She unsubscribed because of it. Well, not just because of you...

Me, I believe everyone's system of beliefs is completely individual, determined by experience, family, background- pretty much the same way as everyone in this world is different from everyone else, so I reckon no religion is wrong or right, merely different.
I also reckon there has to be a god - not in a typical sense, we may or may not have started with 'the word' or whatever, but even if we didn't, the sheer concept that, take christianity for an example, 2000 years of belief in something gives a sort of realism to it, regardless of how daft it is (not implying christianity is daft) - I think it was Voltaire (correct me if i'm wrong) who said if there were no God, it would be neccesary for man to create one.

Right, I've rambled too much, so I'm gonna stop.

Daggnambit Toxx
the cushion is CHANGED,from what it was, it doesn't matter for how long, cause and effect is in operation.
there is no depression without the effect of the cannonball.
~, thus the cannon ball has an effect, is the cause of the effect.
Both cannonball and cushion will change, the depression may become more pronounced as the cushion deteriorates with age. the cannonball may crack with rusting.
change can be slow but it's there.

The gravitational constant will be come changed with the polarity of the earths magnetic field, it's done it before and it'll do it again.
the poles have been 'untrue' since about 1890 or thereabouts too.

Electrons move and can be affected by outside influences and I haven't a clue about other two until I look up what they are
God created cause and effect in the physical universe and it is not a law outside the Universe.
Yes god 'caused'the universe with will, and thus cause and effect where established the whole of the Universe is an event cascade formed by cause and effect.
Cause and effect is the basic principle of the evolution of the Universe. This happens so that happens. Today is connected to the deepest past because of these causal connections.
god 'foresees the 'future ' and knows it just as I know what will happen when I add say bicarb to water.

Oh no, keep on talking. I should suspect that you won't actually read this in time or bother to, but still. I also suspect that you speak for at least a few on this thread with your views, which seem to be the views of a small but fast increasing minority. Man=God.

Hey you guys!

What's all the talk about the universe, electrons, gravitation, and the cannonball????......where did GOD go....maybe He took a nap...Yawn.....

you guys are straying....come home...please......Barb

I didn't know there *was* a home... I thought that that was the whole point...

Man = God.
Yes. And, of course, no.

The cushion and the cannonball are not in stasis. They are in dynamic equilibrium. Just as you are when you stand on a firm surface.

The gravitational constant does NOT change with the polarity of the earth's magnetic field. But the gravitational constant is not a *thing*. It's a statistical description.


Anybody care to tell me what an electron actually *is*?



SPOT ON

I'm still waiting for a metaphysics of will, though. Perhaps my post on "free" will above might stimulate some thought.

Noggin

Perhaps I meant that as in a double bond. God made the universe, and now sees it - we see the universe, and thus make it.

Perhaps I meant that as in a double bond. God made the universe, and now sees it - we see the universe, and thus make it.

Toxx, the gravitational constant has been found not to be constant!!!

<quote from http://www.npl.washington.edu/eotwash/gconst.html >
>the value of G has been called into question by new measurements from respected research teams in Germany, New Zealand, and Russia. The new values disagree wildly. For example, a team from the German Institute of Standards led by W. Michaelis obtained a value for G that is 0.6% larger than the accepted value; a group from the University of Wuppertal in Germany led by Hinrich Meyer found a value that is 0.06% lower, and Mark Fitzgerald and collaborators at Measurement Standards Laboratory of New Zealand measured a value that is 0.1% lower. The Russian group found a curious space and time variation of G of up to 0.7% The collection of these new results suggests that the uncertainty in G could be much larger than originally thought. <

Alji

-Alji
It tells us that it did take effort to win. No one forced people to fight, there was always free room and board in Fort Levenworh.

-Moth
Please prove finite universe.
Infinite-Having no boundaries or limits; extending without end
Infinite has nothing to do with change. Please tell me your definition of infinite without useing the physical laws of time and space.
If you so desire replace all uses of the word thought with consciousnes.

Darwinian theory, survival of the best adapted and therefore propogation of the best adapted. The neanderthal's were not the best adapted aparently. Evolution is only as random as the change in habitat.

I never said there was not purpose or compared anything to a volcano, or said anything about genetics read the name bar above posts.

Things in the universe with out cause: mass, time (not the speed thereof but the presence of), subatomic particles (them being there not their position), etc. Unless of course you'd like to believe that with a magical wave of god's omnipotent hand the created all of the above, then my only example: god; otherwise I use the rest.

Moth. I wasn't talking about the ball being placed on the cushion, but of it's being on the cushion. While the ball is there, the cushion has a dent. No change, but the one is causing the other. To put it differently: the ball is maintaining the depression in a causal way.

Causation, but no change. No use introducing other physical causes to mess it all up. That's moving the goalposts!