You were a member of the PTL Club, weren't you?
You were a member of the PTL Club, weren't you?
Religion is the opiate for poor design.
Religion was born out of the fear of death. Death is the one insoluble human problem. It strikes fear into the hearts of all people. We would do anything to make it go away, including inventing supernatural beings who promise everlasting life in some distant and invisible kingdom. And, seeking solace, we would fiercely cling to that belief. In the act of worshiping gods you and your family might survive a little bit longer and live a bit better. The world was full of dangerous and inexplicable things like storms, floods, droughts, volcanoes etc. It was attractive to suppose that there were individual human-like beings causing them, particularly if you could influence them in some way (e.g. by sacrificing an animal, or by just telling them how wonderful they are very often).
In the whole animal kingdom, we humans are the only creatures aware of death. “The fear of death is worse than death,” wrote Robert Burton, in The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621). Long before this, Aristotle had argued that we should learn to accept death as a part of life. The simple view held by most atheists and humanists, and myself, is that once dead we are dead, despite the fact that more than half of the public in the UK and US believe in life after death, for which there is zero reliable evidence. Reports of near-death experiences, which are quite common, are essentially mystical, and tell us nothing about death itself. Fear of death occurs in some children as young as three years old. But very young children think of death as being like going to sleep, not as something final.
From: https://ksj.mit.edu/tracker-archive/incomplete-big-bang-explanations-lead-pe/
The Big Bang — a rapid expansion of all the universe's matter from a single point about 13.8 billion years ago — is predicted by theoretical physics, a field that uses math to create consistent theories that explain the physical world we see around us.
The amounts of different elements in the universe matches what's predicted by the theory. Because the theory specifies what sorts of elements were created — and in what proportions — moments after the Big Bang, it makes predictions about what elements we'll see in the universe around us.
When we've measured the amount of these elements (hydrogen, helium, and lithium), they match the predictions nicely.
There are two equations which describe the evolution of the Universe as a whole, and they are called the Friedmann equations: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedmann_equations
Solving the equations gives the size of the Universe as a function of time. At time=0 the Universe was at zero size!
Did you graduate from high school?
Einstein's prediction that gravity bends light is an established scientific fact. Formulated in his General Theory of Relativity, it was famously verified during the 1919 solar eclipse by Arthur Eddington, and is now routinely observed through modern phenomena like gravitational lensing.
To think it took humans billions of years to learn how to read, write and communicate just doesn’t make sense.
Modern humans (Homo sapiens) have been on Earth for about 300,000 years. However, the broader human family tree—including early human ancestors who walked upright—stretches back roughly 6 million years.
In a July 26, 1920, essay for the Baltimore Evening Sun, American journalist and critic H.L. Mencken famously predicted that as democracy grows more perfect, the presidency will increasingly reflect the character of the general public, writing: "On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron." Trump proved him right.
I'm guessing that you don't have any gay friends?
Do you ever watch The Big Bang Theory on TV? The actor who plays Sheldon Cooper is my brother. Well, my fraternity brother.
See: https://ksj.mit.edu/tracker-archive/incomplete-big-bang-explanations-lead-pe/
FYI, I have a degree from MIT in Nuclear Engineering Science.
Did you know that historians emphasize that 80% to 90% of indigenous population loss over the colonial period was caused by epidemic diseases (like smallpox, measles, and influenza) to which Native Americans had no natural immunity? It's too bad that Native Americans didn't have a Trump.
The concept of “God” is one of staggering human conceit, beginning with “created in His image”, and using that conceit to rationalize horrific crimes against nature and fellow humans who simply believe differently. Man’s inhumanity to Man begins and is defined throughout history by religion, and has resulted in countless cultures being eradicated by self righteous greed and imagined superiority, and the perfect excuse for racism and imperialism. Meanwhile, we take nature for granted as a gift from an imagined “god”, and have exploited it mercilessly, to the extinction of a multitude of species, and eventually, our own. Since the dawn of humanity, Nature is the creative entity that determines all life on this planet, but religion is a useful invention that allows humans to exploit nature to its destruction, while giving us a useful imaginary tool to control or kill off whatever we choose in the name of “god”.
"Allahu Akbar"
You know that Stephen Hawking was from England, don't you?
A Higgs Boson walks into a church.
"But what are you doing here?" asks the priest
"Well, I know you can't have mass without me"
Philosophers and scientists argue that rational or justified beliefs require empirical evidence or logical support to be deemed valid.
Wasn't it illegal for Melania to come here on an Einstein visa?
Ok, let's start with this. What college degrees do you have?
Using red-shift to estimate cosmic distance is a core part of modern astronomy rooted in the Hubble-Lemaître Law, where the stretching of light wavelengths correlates with the expansion of space. While it is a valid and tested scientific method, converting red-shift into an exact distance involves complex cosmological models rather than a simple, direct ruler.
Hmmmm, the President of the United States cannot make laws, declare war, or spend money without congressional approval.
Hmmmm, light from the sun, setting horizons, or ground-based spotlights can hit the smooth curves or flat bottoms of cloud bases, creating glowing, metallic-looking or sharply defined circular spots. I saw them when I was a kid and I thought they were flying saucers.
Proof of no Afterlife. Demographers estimate that approximately 117 billion people have been born over the course of human history.
Hmmm, who should we believe, Kermos or Stephen Hawking?
Yes, Stephen Hawking strongly believed in the Big Bang and spent his career studying the origin of the universe. However, he worked to explain how it could happen through natural physical laws rather than a divine creator.
All of the facts of the story of the resurrection of Jesus can be explained naturally without appealing to the supernatural.
Two facts support this theory. Pilate said that he was surprised how quickly Jesus died (Mark 15:44). And Josephus tells a story about a man he knew personally that survived after being taken down from a cross.
So Jesus could have also survived. He may have passed out from exhaustion on the cross, and when he didn't respond to being pierced by the spear, they wrongly assumed he was dead and removed him. They placed his body in a tomb instead of a grave, so he later regained consciousness and removed the rock and walked out. So when the women went to see him, the rock was moved and the tomb was empty.
Because he was wounded and wanted by both Roman and Jewish authorities, he fled Jerusalem. He later visited his disciples to let them know he was alive, which explains the eyewitness accounts. He never stayed because it would have endangered the disciples.
Eventually rumors got out that he was still alive and the authorities went after the disciples to locate him. They refused to disclose his whereabouts, or simply didn't know where he was, so they were murdered/martyred.
The story was later changed by writers in Greece to deify Jesus and compete with other superstitions and religions based on resurrection stories. The resurrection was also written as a literary device to parallel spring solstice, while his birth was written to parallel winter solstice.
Jesus said, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
You are a devout man of great faith.
Praise the Lord. Did you know that I look like Rev. Jim Bakker? OMG, do you think Debby looks like Tammy Faye?
He's actually be around for 8 decades.
The same reason science allowed Trump to continue.
Einstein's light deflection prediction was conclusively verified by modern radio and space-based astronomy, achieving a precision far exceeding the historical 1919 solar eclipse measurements.
Radio Astronomy and VLBI
Space-Based Astrometry
Despite the initial 1919 data being nearly inconclusive by strict modern standards, Einstein's light deflection prediction was conclusively verified by later, highly accurate radio and space-based astronomy. Very stupid people cannot review a lot of data.
It's not faith, it's science. Science is the systematic study of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment, coming from the Latin word scientia, which means knowledge.