Life after Death? The mechanics of it?

[Blaster72]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

Troubleatmill said:

The amazing thing is that every atom in your body came from a star that exploded.
And, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand.

It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics: You are all stardust.
You couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded, because the elements - the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution - weren’t created at the beginning of time.
They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way they could get into your body is if those stars were kind enough to explode.

So, forget Jesus. The stars died so that you could be here today.”
? Lawrence M. Krauss, A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing

Frightening.
Frightening that this ^^^^^ is actually based on facts and such, and is mind-blowing. Never heard it before but wow.
Yet - the twaddle peddled from the various 'faiths' takes more credence or is at least far wider 'acknowledged' by the ongoing centuries of propaganda and bullying.



Now. These Virgins......

I love how all religions are put down to crackpots believing in "twaddle" yet the above from Mr Krauss is taken as gospel despite the fact none of us normal folk can ever prove it for ourselves.

Truth is no-one really know what the hell is going on so all bets are off. A universe that started with a big bang from nothing - total horsest

[stuckmojo]

this is what I hope for!

[Scousefella]

Great thread.

Sky Pilot/Fairy combined with Pandas and multiple Virgins - EPIC!

[TwigtheWonderkid]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Indeed. Reminds me of this unusual funeral poem:

"What does Reincarnation mean?"
A guy once asked his friend.
His pal replied, "It happens when
Your life has reached its end.
They comb you hair, and wash you neck,
And clean your fingernails,
And lay you in a padded box
Away from life's travails."
"The box and you goes in a hole,
That's been dug into the ground.
Reincarnation then starts when
You’re planted beneath a mound.
Those clods melt down, just like your box,
And you who is inside.
And then you’re just beginning on
Your transformation ride."
"In a while, the grass'll grow
Upon your rendered mound.
Till some day on your worn out grave
A lonely flower’s found.
And say a horse should wander by
And graze upon this flower
That once was you, but now's become
Your vegetative power."
"The flower that the horse did eat
And with his other feed,
Makes bone, and fat, and muscle
Essential to the steed,
But some is left that he can't use
And so it passes through,
And finally lays upon the ground
This thing, that once was you."
"Then say, by chance, I wander by
And see this upon the ground,
And I ponder, and I wonder at,
This object that I found.
I think of reincarnation,
Of life and death, and such,
And come away concluding: mate,
You ain't changed all that much

[TwigtheWonderkid]

Blaster72 said:

I love how all religions are put down to crackpots believing in "twaddle" yet the above from Mr Krauss is taken as gospel despite the fact none of us normal folk can ever prove it for ourselves.

Truth is no-one really know what the hell is going on so all bets are off. A universe that started with a big bang from nothing - total horsest

There are millions of things that I wouldn't have a clue on how to prove it for myself, but I accept them as fact because people cleverer than me have found the evidence and done the work for me. And their conclusions have been peer reviewed and accepted.

I wouldn't know how to go about proving that the sun is 93m miles from the Earth, but I'm happy to accept that it is.

I can learn more from listening to Krauss for 30 minutes than from listening to a religious leader for my whole life.

[supertouring]

Blaster72 said:

I love how all religions are put down to crackpots believing in "twaddle" yet the above from Mr Krauss is taken as gospel despite the fact none of us normal folk can ever prove it for ourselves.

Truth is no-one really know what the hell is going on so all bets are off. A universe that started with a big bang from nothing - total horsest

So which would you back, one with no evidence at all or one with some evidence based upon the observable universe?

And we can prove for ourselves, he has published his findings so if you want to pick holes in it then you can.

[Chimune]

Blaster72 said:

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

Troubleatmill said:

The amazing thing is that every atom in your body came from a star that exploded.
And, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand.

It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics: You are all stardust.
You couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded, because the elements - the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution - weren’t created at the beginning of time.
They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way they could get into your body is if those stars were kind enough to explode.

So, forget Jesus. The stars died so that you could be here today.”
? Lawrence M. Krauss, A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing

Frightening.
Frightening that this ^^^^^ is actually based on facts and such, and is mind-blowing. Never heard it before but wow.
Yet - the twaddle peddled from the various 'faiths' takes more credence or is at least far wider 'acknowledged' by the ongoing centuries of propaganda and bullying.



Now. These Virgins......

I love how all religions are put down to crackpots believing in "twaddle" yet the above from Mr Krauss is taken as gospel despite the fact none of us normal folk can ever prove it for ourselves.

Truth is no-one really know what the hell is going on so all bets are off. A universe that started with a big bang from nothing - total horsest

Incorrect. I can 'prove' the speed & frequency of light using my microwave and an egg.
Please name one crucial bit of data from the bible that you can prove.

If its not as impressive and the speed of light, then all bets that the bible is "total horsest " and science is where the facts are, are back on.

[RobM77]

Blaster72 said:

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

Troubleatmill said:

The amazing thing is that every atom in your body came from a star that exploded.
And, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand.

It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics: You are all stardust.
You couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded, because the elements - the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution - weren’t created at the beginning of time.
They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way they could get into your body is if those stars were kind enough to explode.

So, forget Jesus. The stars died so that you could be here today.”
? Lawrence M. Krauss, A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing

Frightening.
Frightening that this ^^^^^ is actually based on facts and such, and is mind-blowing. Never heard it before but wow.
Yet - the twaddle peddled from the various 'faiths' takes more credence or is at least far wider 'acknowledged' by the ongoing centuries of propaganda and bullying.



Now. These Virgins......

I love how all religions are put down to crackpots believing in "twaddle" yet the above from Mr Krauss is taken as gospel despite the fact none of us normal folk can ever prove it for ourselves.

Truth is no-one really know what the hell is going on so all bets are off. A universe that started with a big bang from nothing - total horsest

There's a huge difference between the two. The two theories in question on the science side of things here are stellar nucleosynthesis (the making of elements in stars: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_nucleosynthes... and the expansion of the Universe from a very small beginning, dubbed 'The Big Bang' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang). These ideas were put forward with solid logic behind them and then, as usual, scientists across the world descended on the ideas to try and rip them apart (most famously in the latter theory by Fred Hoyle for example), by logical and mathematical argument and by observation of stars and galaxies to see if they fit the theory. Us 'normal' folk can actually demonstrate these ideas quite simply; for example you can show that the Universe is expanding in agreement with established theories by fitting a telescope with a diffraction grating and taking spectra of galaxies - an amateur astronomer with a few hundreds of pounds of equipment could do this on a clear night with no problems. You can show stellar nucleosynthesis by turning the same equipment on stars in our own galaxy. I've done both. None of these are 'proofs' like in maths where for example in five minutes you can prove that Pythagoras' theorem is universally true for all triangles on a flat plane, they simply add more evidence to established ideas and test them and that process steamrollers and ideas get cross correlate with other ideas until you gradually start building and strengthening a web of understanding.

Religions are a whole different ballpark - they too have ideas, which at best are based on poorly verifiable ancient historical texts. Even if you can verify them though (and there is such a thing as a biblical scholar of course), you can't add solid evidence to the ideas to prove their weight - they remain a matter of faith. There have been prayer experiments in the past and they've all failed. I've no problem with people having faith in things and believing in religions and gods etc, but I don't like it when someone tries to say that scientific theories and ideas like the expanding universe require faith in the same way as religion - that's not true at all. Science is built from millions of testable ideas that cross correlate with each other - religion is based from single untestable ideas. They're fundamentally different.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

RobM77 said:

There's a huge difference between the two. The two theories in question on the science side of things here are stellar nucleosynthesis (the making of elements in stars: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_nucleosynthes... and the expansion of the Universe from a very small beginning, dubbed 'The Big Bang' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang). These ideas were put forward with solid logic behind them and then, as usual, scientists across the world descended on the ideas to try and rip them apart (most famously in the latter theory by Fred Hoyle for example), by logical and mathematical argument and by observation of stars and galaxies to see if they fit the theory. Us 'normal' folk can actually demonstrate these ideas quite simply; for example you can show that the Universe is expanding in agreement with established theories by fitting a telescope with a diffraction grating and taking spectra of galaxies - an amateur astronomer with a few hundreds of pounds of equipment could do this on a clear night with no problems. You can show stellar nucleosynthesis by turning the same equipment on stars in our own galaxy. I've done both. None of these are 'proofs' like in maths where for example in five minutes you can prove that Pythagoras' theorem is universally true for all triangles on a flat plane, they simply add more evidence to established ideas and test them and that process steamrollers and ideas get cross correlate with other ideas until you gradually start building and strengthening a web of understanding.

Religions are a whole different ballpark - they too have ideas, which at best are based on poorly verifiable ancient historical texts. Even if you can verify them though (and there is such a thing as a biblical scholar of course), you can't add solid evidence to the ideas to prove their weight - they remain a matter of faith. There have been prayer experiments in the past and they've all failed. I've no problem with people having faith in things and believing in religions and gods etc, but I don't like it when someone tries to say that scientific theories and ideas like the expanding universe require faith in the same way as religion - that's not true at all. Science is built from millions of testable ideas that cross correlate with each other - religion is based from single untestable ideas. They're fundamentally different.

As a religious person once said to me..."don't cloud the issue with facts."

[kiseca]

supertouring said:

Blaster72 said:

I love how all religions are put down to crackpots believing in "twaddle" yet the above from Mr Krauss is taken as gospel despite the fact none of us normal folk can ever prove it for ourselves.

Truth is no-one really know what the hell is going on so all bets are off. A universe that started with a big bang from nothing - total horsest

So which would you back, one with no evidence at all or one with some evidence based upon the observable universe?

And we can prove for ourselves, he has published his findings so if you want to pick holes in it then you can.

Neither unless one is proven. On the subject of us being stardust, however, I think that's a pretty sure thing. I think Blaster72 picked a bad example to make the (correct IMO) observation that sheep blindly follow scientific speculation just as much as other sheep might blindly follow religeon, because, like the saying goes, same sheep, different day.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

kiseca said:

Neither unless one is proven. On the subject of us being stardust, however, I think that's a pretty sure thing. I think Blaster72 picked a bad example to make the (correct IMO) observation that sheep blindly follow scientific speculation just as much as other sheep might blindly follow religeon, because, like the saying goes, same sheep, different day.

People don't follow scientific speculation. They debate it, try to find flaws in it, etc. That's not the same as accepting peer reviewed scientific theory.

And if anyone says "but it's only theory", then I will have to kill them!

[kiseca]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

People don't follow scientific speculation. They debate it, try to find flaws in it, etc. That's not the same as accepting peer reviewed scientific theory.

And if anyone says "but it's only theory", then I will have to kill them!

Yes, they do. Professional scientists might debate it (and even they aren't Vulcans, much like many on here like to make out) but people are people and just do what they always did. Even Hawking is happy to put wagers on things he believes but doesn't know. Nothing wrong with that, at least he doesn't think he's Spock.

[RobM77]

kiseca said:

TwigtheWonderkid said:

People don't follow scientific speculation. They debate it, try to find flaws in it, etc. That's not the same as accepting peer reviewed scientific theory.

And if anyone says "but it's only theory", then I will have to kill them!

Yes, they do. Professional scientists might debate it (and even they aren't Vulcans, much like many on here like to make out) but people are people and just do what they always did. Even Hawking is happy to put wagers on things he believes but doesn't know. Nothing wrong with that, at least he doesn't think he's Spock.

Everyone, including Stephen Hawking, has hunches, that's the beginning of an idea. Yes, people are people and people like to believe speculation and chitter chatter rather than facts, but the whole point of the scientific method is that it provides a rigorous structure that tries to avoid that and provide a method to get closer to the truth. Eventually, one of Hawkings ideas will be tested, which is why he placed a bet on it

The problem these days is that people love to hear what's going on at the cutting edge. Most pop science (New Scientist, Horizon etc) talks about way out theories that are reasonably niche. It's all very exciting, but the problem is that people then tend to forget how well supported by evidence theories like Darwin's Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection are, or Stellar Nucleosynthesis as mentioned above. Such things are ridiculously well supported with a very high degree of certainty. Scientists hesitate to call them facts, because that's not how science works and they're being true to their subject, but recently some scientists in the public eye have had to start using the word 'fact' just to prove the point, which is a shame, but sadly necessary if people don't understand things well enough.

[Blaster72]

Wow, that drew out the fanatics. As suggested above, I probably chose a bad example but just as the origins of the Universe are merely speculative as no one actually witnessed it or can prove their theory without doubt - religious types cannot prove what they believe.

Someone above suggested they could learn more in half an hour from an author of a scientific paper that they could in a lifetime from a religious scholar. I'd suggest they have an extremely closed mind to other possibilities.

The exact same traits people on this thread seem to think religious types have when regarding all things scientifically proven.

For what its worth, I'm an Atheist despite being brought up as a Christian. I don't mock people who choose to believe because when it comes to it no one actually knows for sure.

Oh and apologies for drifting off topic slight but this is the sort of thing I'm talking about

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/large-hadr...

Edited by Blaster72 on Wednesday 6th May 16:16

[Blaster72]

supertouring said:

Blaster72 said:

I love how all religions are put down to crackpots believing in "twaddle" yet the above from Mr Krauss is taken as gospel despite the fact none of us normal folk can ever prove it for ourselves.

Truth is no-one really know what the hell is going on so all bets are off. A universe that started with a big bang from nothing - total horsest

So which would you back, one with no evidence at all or one with some evidence based upon the observable universe?

And we can prove for ourselves, he has published his findings so if you want to pick holes in it then you can.

Simple answer is I don't back either, there's a possibility Krauss is correct but there's also a possibility he's got it totally and utterly wrong.

Same goes for religious types.

I'd like to believe there is something more but can't imagine how there could be - that's me being small minded as well!

Edited by Blaster72 on Wednesday 6th May 16:18

[RobM77]

Blaster72 said:

Wow, that drew out the fanatics. As suggested above, I probably chose a bad example but just as the origins of the Universe are merely speculative as no one actually witnessed it or can prove their theory without doubt - religious types cannot prove what they believe.

Firstly, nobody will ever prove a scientific theory "without doubt", science is not maths, so the concept of 'proof' strictly speaking doesn't exist. However, the degree of certainty can be very high and 'prove' something 'beyond all reasonable doubt'. Secondly, what you say about cosmological theories of origins being merely speculative is not true - what cosmologists do is make predictions based on their theory and then look for signatures that match their predictions (then of course everyone tries to disprove it - we test things by trying to pul them apart). For example, the Big Bang theory received a huge dollop of evidence in the form of the discovery of microwave background radiation in the 1960s - that was something theorised and then found in the manner expected and it still stands today. On the other hand, more recently of course we had all the excitement about the BICEP2 experiment finding polarisation in the CMB of the sort predicted by inflationary theory. That latter example was showed to be false by results published by another team concerning the dust the signal had travelled through, and that shows nicely what I've said about science advancing through the scientific method and critique etc - it's the way we move knowledge forward.

Blaster72 said:

Someone above suggested they could learn more in half an hour from an author of a scientific paper that they could in a lifetime from a religious scholar. I'd suggest they have an extremely closed mind to other possibilities.

The exact same traits people on this thread seem to think religious types have when regarding all things scientifically proven.

For what its worth, I'm an Atheist despite being brought up as a Christian. I don't mock people who choose to believe because when it comes to it no one actually knows for sure.

Oh and apologies for drifting off topic slight but this is the sort of thing I'm talking about

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/large-hadr...

I suggest that you read my post above, specifically the second paragraph about pop science reporting niche theories, and my previous post about probabilities instead of beliefs. That Telegraph article is sensationalist and merely trying to get people to read the article. If you actually read it, she's picked that idea as a headline and then reports on the startup of the LHC instead. It's highly unlikely that we'll disprove the big bang theory, but yes, it's possible, and that's what's so exciting about science - it advances knowledge.

[Blaster72]

RobM77 said:

Blaster72 said:

Wow, that drew out the fanatics. As suggested above, I probably chose a bad example but just as the origins of the Universe are merely speculative as no one actually witnessed it or can prove their theory without doubt - religious types cannot prove what they believe.

Firstly, nobody will ever prove a scientific theory "without doubt", science is not maths, so the concept of 'proof' strictly speaking doesn't exist. However, the degree of certainty can be very high and 'prove' something 'beyond all reasonable doubt'. Secondly, what you say about cosmological theories of origins being merely speculative is not true - what cosmologists do is make predictions based on their theory and then look for signatures that match their predictions (then of course everyone tries to disprove it - we test things by trying to pul them apart). For example, the Big Bang theory received a huge dollop of evidence in the form of the discovery of microwave background radiation in the 1960s - that was something theorised and then found in the manner expected and it still stands today. On the other hand, more recently of course we had all the excitement about the BICEP2 experiment finding polarisation in the CMB of the sort predicted by inflationary theory. That latter example was showed to be false by results published by another team concerning the dust the signal had travelled through, and that shows nicely what I've said about science advancing through the scientific method and critique etc - it's the way we move knowledge forward.

Blaster72 said:

Someone above suggested they could learn more in half an hour from an author of a scientific paper that they could in a lifetime from a religious scholar. I'd suggest they have an extremely closed mind to other possibilities.

The exact same traits people on this thread seem to think religious types have when regarding all things scientifically proven.

For what its worth, I'm an Atheist despite being brought up as a Christian. I don't mock people who choose to believe because when it comes to it no one actually knows for sure.

Oh and apologies for drifting off topic slight but this is the sort of thing I'm talking about

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/large-hadr...

I suggest that you read my post above, specifically the second paragraph about pop science reporting niche theories, and my previous post about probabilities instead of beliefs. That Telegraph article is sensationalist and merely trying to get people to read the article. If you actually read it, she's picked that idea as a headline and then reports on the startup of the LHC instead. It's highly unlikely that we'll disprove the big bang theory, but yes, it's possible, and that's what's so exciting about science - it advances knowledge.

Ergo, it could be total horsest and disproven in some future scientific paper. Thats the original point I was trying to make.

[daemon]

HTP99 said:

Timmy40 said:

HTP99 said:

Yes but doesn't the Christian God always forgive; so it doesn't really matter what you get up to in your life as you will be forgiven and will go to Heaven anyway, so long as Christianity is "the" religion!

Not so, that's why there's a Hell. With purgatory in the middle for the yet to be classified.

I was brought up a Christian within the CofE; have been Baptised and Confirmed, shows how much I remember.

However I now remember my father in law suggesting to us that our daughters would be stuck in purgatory because we wouldn't have them baptised. Fortunately he is no longer in our lives after buggering off and getting involved with some extreme Methodists.

The whole notion of purgatory was never based on anything actually written in the bible was it?

Was it not originally a handy way for Catholicism to keep their "flock" in line by telling them their loved ones were not yet in heaven or hell and they could influence that with their behaviour / "contributions" to the church?

I thought the catholic church had distanced itself from the notion of purgatory?

[daemon]

Would you not have thought that if god was going to tell people all about himself through dreams, visions, appearing in burning bushes he would at some point have said "by the way lads, the worlds actually round, not flat"?

[standards]

HTP99 said:

However I now remember my father in law suggesting to us that our daughters would be stuck in purgatory because we wouldn't have them baptised. Fortunately he is no longer in our lives after buggering off and getting involved with some extreme Methodists.

I think he'll find it's Limbo that the unbaptised go to, although it's not very fashionable any more.

Extreme Methodists. Now that I would like to see!