Wheatley

You've asserted that you can, however based on the clear empirical differences between the two, it's not really a matter of interpretation, rather one of logic. If my argument is flawed, I wish you'd elaborate as to how.

No. I'm saying that by this definition of knowledge, it's impossible for anyone to know under these circumstances. Essentially, the concept of knowledge implies a lack of doubt; not personal doubt, but potential doubt. If there is a way for you to be wrong, then doubt exists. True "knowledge" may not actually exist, so knowledge is more a matter of degrees, falling between blind faith and certainty (though as I said, certainty doesn't really exist, we can only get relatively close to it.) Now, this is certainly a semantic argument, but a rather important one, because the word "know" has a strong implication. Of course, you're free to not use this definition of knowledge and say you "know" god exists, however my point is that you cannot "know" god exists the same way you can know, say, gravity exists.

Neither of us know because there's no way either of us could know. That's generally the reason most people say believing in god requires faith; there's not any way to actually know. If you claim to know a god exists, then I would ask how you know. Based on what you've presented so far, and what I've heard others answer, there isn't sufficient information for anyone to know if god exists. The subject of defining knowledge has spawned an entire field of philosophy called epistemology. There are different definitions of what constitutes knowledge, but I have based mine on principles of empiricism. That definition encompasses everything most people would consider knowledge while separating simple beliefs. Essentially, knowledge isn't just a very strong belief or even a correct one; it's the ability to demonstrate the case of something. Here is an example from the article I linked to above: "For example, a person believes that a particular bridge is safe enough to support him, and attempts to cross it; unfortunately, the bridge collapses under his weight. It could be said that he believed that the bridge was safe, but that this belief was mistaken. It would not be accurate to say that he knew that the bridge was safe, because plainly it was not. By contrast, if the bridge actually supported his weight then he might say he "thought" that the bridge was safe, and now after proving it to himself, he knows." This can be considered knowledge because the evidence is available at any time. There are certain things in science for which the evidence isn't repeatable per se, but for which the evidence is still accessible. For example, if investigating a murder, there's no way to actually repeat the event; however, if we obtain DNA evidence of the murderer, that evidence can be repeatably examined. We can reasonably know certain things about the past with the proper evidence, but if that evidence can't be repeatably seen, it's value is greatly diminished. This is one reason why eyewitness accounts aren't a good form of evidence for extraordinary phenomena.

Allow me to give a sort of hypothetical. Let's say I walk out my door one morning to find a Brachiosaurus in my front yard. I can walk over to it, see it clearly, touch it, hear it, even smell it. I pinch myself, check my pulse, look at my watch; do everything to make sure it's not a dream. After I collect my wits I run back into my house to grab my iPod and take a video of it, but when I come back outside I find no trace of it. I tell the police and my family what I have seen, as I clearly remember everything with a sober and rational mind, but the police can't find any footprints, any other sightings except for one man who claims to have seen a dinosaur, but it was in a different area and the wrong type of dinosaur. Soon it seems that the dinosaur left no evidence at all. It doesn't matter to me, I know I experienced something, but with the facts in mind it becomes very difficult to explain how a dinosaur could have appeared and vanished in a neighborhood without leaving a trace, and much easier to explain why only two people with conflicting stories witnessed this. Admittedly, I had direct experience of a dinosaur, however given the severity of the claim and complete lack of external evidence, at some point I would have to admit that I don't really know a dinosaur was actually there. This is an example I've borrowed from a series of videos on a slightly different subject, but it illustrates the idea I'm trying to communicate. I don't know whether you hallucinated, experienced a weird but natural phenomena, or straight up met god in heaven, but I don't think it's possible for either of us to know for sure.

I hadn't read this, must have missed it; bloody hell, I finished Black Mesa before heading off on a trip at the beginning of fall. He most definitely needs a week vacation or something.

I'm not sure if you intended your post to read this way, but it strikes me as rather... Impolite. I don't think I really care... Nope, don't care. Either side of this argument can contribute rather hostile rhetoric, I was hoping to avoid it altogether here as there's enough of it on the rest of the internet to go around. Knowledge has to be reasonably separated from belief to be meaningfully defined. To demonstrate: I believe that my neighbor's door is solid. I believe this very strongly, I have seen them walk through the door before, and interact with it in a way to indicate it has substance. The technology or phenomena required to make the door unsubstantial are so unlikely that my belief is quite supported by the evidence; however, until I walk over and feel the door for myself, I do not truly know that it is solid. Now, this argument can be taken much deeper, to the point where only repeatable evidence will constitute knowledge, but the key here is demonstrability. If I can demonstrate something, then I know it. This is a question about the solidity of a door, where a degree of uncertainty exists until direct demonstration is achieved. For the matter of the existence of deities, I have never seen any empirical evidence and many people who are religious will agree with this assessment and admit that it requires faith. Many people have asked for such demonstrations of divine knowledge and I haven't seen any such request fulfilled. Until such evidence can be provided and demonstrated, I can safely say that knowledge isn't present, because even if these people were correct, they had no way of "knowing" it.

I found this recently myself. I'm quite impressed by the integration of modern physics in a game; it seems half the time I'm begging space sims to include classical mechanics. I'm also intrigued by their OpenRelativity project that is still in progress.

Okay, that answers my main inquiry. Thanks. Indeed, it's entirely possible that relativity and quantum theory just aren't complete or accurate enough to properly explain the big bang. Simply speaking from what we do have at the moment, it seems possible that the universe having been created might not even be a valid concept; of course, there are a lot of hypotheses that would predict potential events before the big bang, so there's no way to make a solid statement about such things. Hopefully we'll dig far enough in physics to get some more information soon. (I mean to address the three posts after this one as well, but in order to save space, I'm just going to quote this one) But how do we even know if there is a god that he/she/they/it wants anything. Want is a very biological concept, if there was an actual creator god, why would it display the traits of animals and, most peculiarly, humans above all others? If something did predate the big bang and existed in another universe to create ours, it would likely be so different that concepts such as love, hate, punishment, reward, etc. would be meaningless in attempting to describe it. It's one thing to imagine a "universal first mover"; while there is no evidence for such a being it's entirely within the realm of possibility. However, the omnipotent, malevolent/all loving (depends on your interpretation of the bible), anthropomorphic Yaweh seems discordant with what we know of the world. I'm not sure if you intended your post to read this way, but it strikes me as rather... Impolite. But we're talking about a being we have no knowledge of; a being we're not even sure exists. If people have faith in god, that's fine, but I don't think anyone can claim to have a better understanding of a god than anyone else. Understanding requires knowledge, but we don't have any here.

You seriously need a break from the sound of it. Take some time off, Freeman's Mind can wait.

To me it's pretty simple - any candidate God must have a reasonable claim on having created this Universe and having existed in some shape and form before the Big Bang. Anyone or anything that came into being after the Big Bang, no matter how powerful he is, cannot be God. Regards (I'm back, after quite an absence due to school-related things and other madness) Two nitpicks: There have been many suggested beings which were thought of as gods or deities that didn't create the universe or claim to. You have given a definition, but what makes this definition better than any other? And would creating a universe necessarily give a being or thing an automatic "godhood"? Secondly, a bit of a physics nitpick, but the whole idea of something existing before the big bang and causing it seems rather odd considering that time seems to have started with the big bang. There wouldn't have been any "before" the big bang. This concept is a little tricky, but it's presented with the breakdown of relativity that a singularity would imply. If this is the case, would you say that it's impossible for a god to exist? Also, just curious, you mentioned that this potential god must have a reasonable claim on having created the universe and existing before the big bang. Considering that there is no known way to even potentially get information about what happened before the big bang (assuming such a concept is meaningful), how would this potential god make a reasonable claim?

Not that I disagree with your message that what's strictly "natural" is pretty much irrelevant, but this seems like a far-fetched claim. Psychology has a history of labeling anything outside of the social norm as a "disorder" (homosexuality used to be a disorder until it became more accepted), I don't think we can really establish with any degree of certainty that fetishes are based on "existing mental issues". I've never seen a convincing neurological study to support this, and most of the psychological material on such things reads like pseudoscience. Not consciously, but generally signs of genetic compatibility tends to be what we find attractive, with some exceptions, not necessarily our knowledge of whether reproduction is possible. Otherwise, we'd only be attracted to people with whom we didn't use condoms. My main point was that every form of life on Earth evolved here on this planet, and is in some way related to us, usually genetically. Alien life would have evolved on a different planet, under different circumstances, and would have no biological relation to us at all. Something like the Mass Effect Asari is incredibly unlikely compared to, say, the aliens of District Nine. I'm not saying there wouldn't be a single person attracted to aliens, but I think it would a rather uncommon attraction, compared to the attraction to other humans and even terrestrial animals.

"YEAH, IT'S THE SURFACE! Aww are these b- *gunshots* Damnit, it's the fun police! I'M ON YOUR SIDE YOU FUCKIN' IDIOT! HOW MANY OF YOU DO I HAVE TO KILL BEFORE YOU UNDERSTAND THAT?"

I'd appreciate if you would refrain from using straw-man arguments. I did not say that it was okay to hit women, I said that in a situation where hitting anyone is considered acceptable, gender is irrelevant. I never called you a sexist pig, I never said you had no respect for women; I said that refusing to hit a woman in a situation where you would hit a man, based on nothing more than the person's gender, is sexist. Uh... I fail to see how we're enticing violent behavior. You've just given what I would consider some GOOD social progression; women aren't considered property anymore in most western culture. ... No. You just pointed out that those values were not held to protect humans, they were used to oppress women. How exactly did I manipulate your views? Factual definitions are used because they're not subjective. I think that discriminating based on someone's sex is ethically wrong, that's the measure I am using here. I cannot address the nobility of your views because the concept of nobility is subjective. Finally, I did not call you a coward, in fact I specifically said that I don't find your views cowardly, I found your basis unwise.

I'm afraid that under the most basic definition of sexism (discrimination based on sex), it is sexist. Nature is not equivalent to how you were raised, that is simply a cultural attitude, sociology isn't necessarily reflective of biology. Certainly there are biological attributes to this idea, however they are not nearly as strong or important as the social aspect. Cowardly, no, but it isn't wise to stand up for beliefs without question or critical examination. Why people take the positions they do is more important than which positions they take.

I don't have any intention of trying to make an argument to convince people of anything, but I'd to address a couple of points. Not trying to be snarky, but I'm genuinely curious how people figure out the details of the specific god they put their faith in. How did you come to the conclusion that god is as you describe here? I'm not sure I know what you mean by coincidence, what did life coincide with? In terms of how life originated, from what we know it's rather likely that life exists elsewhere in the universe, probably a lot of it. When it comes to how life diversifies, that's most certainly not a coincidence, whether or not one is a theist.

That's essentially an appeal to nature, though. Just because something was created by biology doesn't mean it hasn't been affected by sociology at all, and it doesn't mean it's something that should be included in our social values or ethical considerations.

If meant by talking about what's ethical and legal, no, I've spent a lot of time in ethics club and I tend to immediately think of ethics in that context when issues like this come up. Admittedly I tend to use less colloquial language (See, as I write this I realize I'm doing it again ), but usually it's when I want to be very precise. Sorry if that comes across as condescending, but I promise it's just how I tend to write when it comes to serious matters. Okay, now I get you. The way I read it the first time it sounded as though you were saying "That guy pushed me, I'm going to break his nose and gut punch him." But it seems apparent now that you're talking about the same type of reasonable response that I would expect anyone to make. Apologies for the misunderstanding.

The first "real" game I ever played was Age of Empires II, back in the day... I miss the AoE series, AoE III was decent in my eyes, but it lost some kind of charm that AoE II had. After that, the first FPS I played was Medal of Honor: Allied Assault. That was a pretty good multiplayer game, it still has a couple hundred people online today.

And I'm saying that there is no ethical or legal right for anyone to defend their "honor" or "self-respect" with violence. What you're describing sounds like a bar brawl or general scuffle, and this is about as far from an intellectual battle as you can get. I will protect the bodily health of myself and of others, but my self-respect isn't contingent on disproportionate response. Simply put, I find no "honor" in beating someone up just because they challenged you.

In all likelihood, yes, but this doesn't excuse (physically) unprovoked violence. I'm the first one to speak in favor of defending yourself, but you've lost me with the "challenge to your strength". I don't expect people to behave rationally when suddenly attacked, but deciding beforehand to deliberately follow an irrational course is simply a very bad idea.

In terms of getting slapped once, honestly, I don't think hitting back is necessary in most cases, even if a male did it to me. If I could, I would make some attempt to avoid being hit, and I'd essentially make it known that it's not acceptable. Be it a spouse or anyone else, if you expect to be associated with me, slapping me in a hostile manner (not just some joke or anything of the sort, something done with real malice) is not going to be tolerated. Very few women would consider it acceptable to be hit whenever someone else got mad, and I do not either. I'd tell them that once, and if it happened again, I'd be done with the situation.

I really don't understand this. how can there be a situation where it's okay for a woman to hit someone without repercussion but if a man did it they would be in the wrong? I'm not saying there should ever be a disproportional response, you don't punch someone in the gut for slapping you and you don't generally stab someone for punching you, however I cannot see a rational reason why there would ever be a situation where it's okay for a certain gender to hit someone where it wouldn't be okay for another gender to do it.

Common sense in this case is highly subjective and based on cultural upbringing. I've never been in a real fight in my life, I think that people who go around looking for fights are being extremely unintelligent, but if someone hits me, I'm going to defend myself in any manner I feel is proportionally appropriate. The gender of another person really has no relevance.

If anyone wants to try it out, I just finished the product of about a weeks development, a maze-based map I don't know if the concept is a good idea or not, but who knows. Let me know what you think if you play it.

A good simplistic explanation of the Higgs was made by MinutePhysics here: ASRpIym_jFM I'm not quite knowledgeable enough on the subject to say exactly how accurate the video is in terms of what's actually going on in the Standard Model, but you probably won't find a better explanation for a layman.