.

[the shortest route to the sea]

do you believe our current understanding of physics is correct? in the past scientists have been entirely wrong because the system they followed was wrong. what makes now different from then? 500 years down the line, what are the chances that they won't be laughing at our attempts to understand the universe?
of course i read therefore i am

Newton did the best he could with the efforts and discoveries of those before him, and tried to figure out how the universe works. Einstein did the same thing, and so did the teams and teams and teams of scientists who fleshed out particle physics in the mid-20th century. Every effort matters because every scientist is working with a model that works, at least for everything that has been observed (or choose to observe). Even if relativity is entirely wrong, it will still inform and define the extent of the next model that comes out. All of that scientific effort is worthwhile steps.

[ikanaide]

What are we?

Capitalism?

I do not know a lot about any religion, but I am not 'Atheist' because I know I believe in something definately. Just do not know what religion.

Also, why snowy be so mean? 

[burzumfan420]

hi god here. the only people who are right atm are the mormans. thats all cya

[??????]

Completely unrelated maybe, but I met some Tibetan Buddhists last year and they were the funniest, warmest people I have ever met.

I have a friend that's a Buddhist, but I'm not sure to what branch--he has told me there's plenty of them.
He found me a branch that was suited for me, but the organization's miles from where I live. ;__;
He's also very good with providing insight and answers that fit in with my value system.

I'll put it in spoilers because it fuckhuge.

It reminds me of typical, preteen suburban youth.

[Classic]

I read the entire thread while listening to Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F major, BWV 1047: Allegro. I imagined you all with silly accents that you would hear on Monty Python.

Other than that I have nothing to offer to this discussion.

[ikanaide]

He got too pushy.

No you comment on his post, you intentionally say what you say to make him feel more horrible for your enjoy. That is very mean.  >_<'

[Mando Pandango]

The proper response would have been to not say anything at all, but you let it get out of hand. Nice going.

[me003]

about earth being inhabitable just because it's "just far enough away from the sun" is a stupid argument. venus and mars also fit in that zone as do many discovered extrasolar planets.

Ummm, no they don't. Did you not think about the horrible weather conditions on Venus, or maybe the composition of Earth like the gases it colided with may not be the same gases that formed venus or maybe the matter is not the same? And yes they are looking for other stars with planets that are around the same distance away from the star and based off the stars size, but the closest star, Alpha Centauri is like 15 lightyears away so it's really hard to tell if there are planets orbiting the binary star system. We can do it, but it's hard.

do you believe our current understanding of physics is correct? in the past scientists have been entirely wrong because the system they followed was wrong. what makes now different from then? 500 years down the line, what are the chances that they won't be laughing at our attempts to understand the universe?
of course i read therefore i am

yes I believe they are close to correct, because we've input information on how stars should move into a computer because actually waiting for stars to move would be impossible in a lifetime, and the data shows what happens to the stars, and if variables and physics were wrong then the charts would probably be way off, but we assume everything is correct because we got the most logical answer out of it.

Sorry if this doesn't really make sense, but here's another explaination that may be more articulate;
scientists theorized how the stars would move and how they would turn into giants or super giants and when they would die off and become dwarfs or brown stars or whatever, and when they did all the research and doppler effect stuff to find the direction it was moving, the computer results were what they were expecting. Leading me to believe they were correct and our physics are correct.   Again sorry I don't have hard facts, just pulling what I learned in astronomy class, which was very interesting and reinforced my belief in the big bang theory. Let me remind you that there are billions of stars in our fuck galaxy, and hundreds of galaxies are visible with telescopes. If you look at a space image, and a star looks more like a line than a dot, that is a galaxy.

[me003]

We also believe that if we can see far enough into space, we can see the birth of the universe. Because the stars that we see in the sky are just images of what they looked like years ago. Example, if Alpha-Centauri is 15 lightyears away, it takes 15 years for that light to reach us. We are seeing what it looks like 15 years ago.
It's a little hard to get your head around, but it is my current belief; I'm open to it being wrong, because it's just something I was told by some dude who's really into stars.

[??????]

We also believe that if we can see far enough into space, we can see the birth of the universe. Because the stars that we see in the sky are just images of what they looked like years ago. Example, if Alpha-Centauri is 15 lightyears away, it takes 15 years for that light to reach us. We are seeing what it looks like 15 years ago.
It's a little hard to get your head around, but it is my current belief; I'm open to it being wrong, because it's just something I was told by some dude who's really into stars.

if a giant mirror was placed far far away in space can people look into the past? 

[burzumfan420]

ya

like all the stars we see are 200000000000000000000 years old

[the shortest route to the sea]

Just because a theory models the results really well, even perfectly, doesn't make it true. It just means it fits the data; whether all the quark models actually reflect what's going on in nature has yet to be seen. Certain things have worked out fantastically, like modeling the weirdnesses in the orbit of Mercury, and in Doppler shift and the expansion of the universe, but often even more crazy and unverifiable things get theorized, and observational physics takes years to get up. So yeah, tldr trust the power of the model but don't assume it's cold hard truth (whatever that is).

[Socks]

The only truth is the one most likely. Science deals in probabilities, belief is all about conviction. It's why my badge weighs more, when it is lighter.

[crystalpepsi]

 You shouldn't have bothered. There is no point in even talking about religion anymore, it only causes people to get mad as to who is right and if you happen to be an atheist yo are automatically labeled an asshole. At the end of any argument it boils down to the fact that if there isn't any sort of proof, evidence, or even the smallest amount of science in it, then you should probably not revolve your life around it under false protection and hope. Honestly I could give less of a care about people's beliefs, but you gotta wonder what makes them pick and choose from their holy books what to follow and their blind "faith". Also, you did kind of come off as a dick, no need to incite an argument.

[Nyerp]

WHO GIVES A SHIT