251. Large Hadron Collider readies for world's biggest experiment

Comment #243226 by Oystein Elgaroy on September 5, 2008 at 10:00 am

Q: Does mini-black hole means a there would be a mini-event horizon?

Yes!

252. Large Hadron Collider readies for world's biggest experiment

Comment #243220 by Oystein Elgaroy on September 5, 2008 at 9:54 am

Comment #243201 by Dhamma

Could this have any impact at all on believers to question their faith?

Depending on what's found, of course.

I doubt it. No holy text mentions the Higgs particle or supersymmetry, as far as I know.

I am willing to bet two bottles of fine Norwegian aquavit that the Higgs will be found, and one bottle that they will discover supersymmetry. Any takers?

253. Pakistan investigates 'honor killings' of 5 women

Comment #241407 by Oystein Elgaroy on September 2, 2008 at 7:33 am

Comment #241394 by decius

It's just out of respect for your present conditions that I don't unleash Oystein and set him on you.

Bad choice of hitman, I couldn't punch my way out of a paper bag.

254. Cosmic crash unmasks dark matter

Comment #241166 by Oystein Elgaroy on September 1, 2008 at 10:53 pm

Comment #241014 by Apathy personified

Does this come down to Einstein being wrong about the cosmological constant (when he said it didn't exist), or there being a small error in GR, that is only noticable on very large distances?

We don't know. As I said in an earlier post, all observations are consistent with a cosmological constant. The traditional wisdom in the field has been that you would expect GR to be modified at small distances (because of quantum gravity) but not at large distances. Still, some have attempted to modify the large-distance behaviour of GR to explain the observations, but the theories you end up with are ugly. In addition they do not explain why the cosmological constant should be set to zero, they just assume it.

255. Cosmic crash unmasks dark matter

Comment #241163 by Oystein Elgaroy on September 1, 2008 at 10:45 pm

Comment #241045 by debacles

You are right, the dark matter interacts. Since it emits no detectable electromagnetic radiation (that's why it is dark) it must be some kind of neutral particle with no electromagnetic interactions. If it is a WIMP (Weakly Interacting Massive Particle) it couples to other particles with the strength of the weak nuclear force (the one responsible for e.g. beta decay of nuclei). "Massive" here means a few hundred times the mass of the proton. One can show that a particle with these properties will be produced in the early universe and end up giving a contribution to the mass density of the universe of just about the right magnitude to make up the dark matter.

The dark matter interacts through gravitation as well, of course, just like any other particle. Otherwise it would, as you rightly remark, have been pretty useless.

256. Cosmic crash unmasks dark matter

Comment #240990 by Oystein Elgaroy on September 1, 2008 at 11:38 am

Apathy,

The cosmological constant can, sadly, not be derived. There was for some time a hope that it could be derived in string theory, but what we seem to be left with is the string landscape and the anthropic principle.

We cannot discount a long-range fifth force if it couples weakly to matter on small scales (solar system and below). But then you would have a new fine-tuning problem: why should this scalar field couple so weakly to matter? The chameleon mechanism solves this problem by making the coupling depend on the local matter density.

257. Cosmic crash unmasks dark matter

Comment #240974 by Oystein Elgaroy on September 1, 2008 at 11:09 am

Comment #240971 by Naturalist1

I agree...that which, at the time Einstien called his greatest blunder may in fact have been his greatest genius insight...LHC may let us know.

As Rocky Kolb (famous Fermilab cosmologist) remarked in a lecture: "If Einstein had stuck to his idea, he would have been famous!"

258. Cosmic crash unmasks dark matter

Comment #240933 by Oystein Elgaroy on September 1, 2008 at 10:08 am

Sorry for the Joe Morreale-length of this post.

Comment #240865 by Ian Bamlett

Thanks! I consider it part of my job. It is the only way I can excuse all the time I spend on this site

Comment #240879 by Apathy personified

What are the leading theories on dark energy? I haven't actually heard or read about any (although that is probably more a reflection on my own ignorance)

All observations we have are consistent with the dark energy being Einstein's good old cosmological constant (quantum vacuum energy). Before the first observations indicating cosmic acceleration appeared in 1998, it was common to assume that the cosmological constant was vanishingly small. However, there never were any good theoretical arguments for this. So in this sense the cosmological constant is the best solution of the dark energy problem. It is simple, it is already there, and it is consistent with all observations. So why all the fuss about dark energy?

As you probably know already there are a couple of problems with the cosmological constant as dark energy. The most dramatic one is its smallness. The quantum vacuum energy receives contributions from zero-point fluctuations of all quantum fields in the Standard Model, and the "natural" value is either set by the Planck energy or by the energy scale where supersymmetry is broken, depending on your convictions. In either case the value of the vacuum energy required to explain the observations is at least sixty orders of magnitude larger than the natural value. This is a bit of a puzzle, to say the least.


Faced with this problem one can go in two fundamentally different directions. The first is to invoke the anthropic principle and say that the cosmological constant has to have a value consistent with our existence. If it is more than roughly a hundred times the observed value, it would have started dominating the expansion of the universe before galaxies had formed, and we would never have been here. Of course for such an explanation to really work you need to assume the existence of a multiverse and that the quantum vacuum energy is a random variable that varies between the different island universes.

Another possibility is to hope that we one day will find some mechanism or symmetry principle that will make the cosmological constant vanish exactly. No one knows what this could be, but let us suppose that this turns out to be the case. In this case we will need another explanation for dark energy. There is no known field in the Standard Model that can do the job, so we will have to invent something. Two main approaches are common: introduce a new scalar field or modify general relativity.

A scalar field is similar to a cosmological constant expect that it varies with time. Extensions of the Standard Model typically contain several new scalar fields so the hope is that one of them can serve as dark energy. The problem with this approach is that the wavelength of the field has to be of the order of the observable universe, which implies that the field must be very light. If it couples to matter this would give rise to a new "fifth force", and this is more or less ruled out by experiments. These problems can be avoided by a so-called chameleon field that couples to matter according to the density of its surroundings. This mechanism actually gives rise to effects that should be observable in table-top experiments with lasers and vacuum chambers, so these models could be ruled out or confirmed within a couple of years.

General relativity can be modified in several ways. The most obvious way is to tinker with Einstein's field equations and make them more complicated. To my mind this is not a very attractive approach. You end up with horrendous equations, and in many of these models you have embarrassing problems like not getting special relativity as a special solution in the limit of vanishing density.

Another way general relativity can be modified is by extra dimensions. For this to be relevant for dark energy the extra dimensions have to be large. The idea is that the universe started to expand differently once it's characteristic size (set by the Hubble parameter) became comparable to the size of the extra dimensions. Some of these models are quite cute, but they are not without their problems. They may not make sense as quantum theories and some of them have problems with explaining all the observations.

One final possibility I should mention is to abolish dark energy completely. In a universe with large-scale homogeneity the distance-redshift relationship derived from distant supernovae imply that the expansion rate is increasing. But if the universe is inhomogeneous this interpretation is no longer valid. It is possible to explain the supernova observations in a model where we live near the centre of a large bubble where the density is lower than in the surrounding space. However, this model suffers from the obvious problem that it places us at the center of the observable universe.

My personal opinion is that all the evidence points in the direction of a cosmological constant. No observation suggests that something more complicated is involved, and it is already there in our models. My favourite alternative is the chamelon field since it is actually possible to test in table-top experiments. However, I wouldn't be surprised if I am wrong.

259. Cosmic crash unmasks dark matter

Comment #240823 by Oystein Elgaroy on September 1, 2008 at 5:30 am

Comment #240820 by Ian Bamlett

There is no necessary connection between dark matter and extra dimensions. All we need is a new, weakly interacting particle. There are some more inventive models where the effects we ascribe to dark matter are caused by our universe interacting with another "dark universe" via a fifth dimension. They are fun, but my money is on the dark matter being one of the WIMPs found in supersymmetric extensions of the Standard Model.

What is really exciting about dark matter is that it is a clear signature of new physics. To explain the observations we must either introduce a new particle, or we must modify general relativity.

260. Cosmic crash unmasks dark matter

Comment #240790 by Oystein Elgaroy on September 1, 2008 at 3:43 am

Comment #240780 by decius

They can't, this is part of the assumption they are testing here. The observable matter in galaxy clusters is dominated by hot gas emitting X-rays, but most of the matter is expected to be dark matter. Picture the two galaxy clusters as two spherical blobs of matter. When the collide, the gas components will interact with each other and there will be a concentration of it in the collision region. The dark matter in the two blobs will just pass freely past each other. After quite some time what you will be left with is two intersection blobs of matter where the hot gas is concentrated in a small region of overlap whereas most of the dark matter will be found outside of this region. X-ray observations can tell you where the gas is, and observations of how the two clusters distort the images of background galaxies allow you to map out the gravitational field of the cluster and hence where most of the mass is. The fact that the observations agree with the simple picture above suggests that the dark matter indeed is some kind of weakly interaction particle.

261. Cosmic crash unmasks dark matter

Comment #240766 by Oystein Elgaroy on September 1, 2008 at 2:52 am

Regarding WIMPS vs MACHOS the odds are in favour of WIMPS. As mentioned in the article, MACHOS are built from ordinary baryonic matter. Models and observations of the synthesis of light elements in the early universe , and the temperature variations in the cosmic microwave background tell us that the contribution of baryons to the total energy density is only about four percent. At the same time both the microwave background and studies of how structure formed in the universe show that the total contribution from matter to the energy budget is about 25 percent. So most of the dark matter has to be non-baryonic, and the favourite candidate is one of the heavy, weakly interacting particles predicted to exist in extensions of the Standard Model of particle physics.

262. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #240355 by Oystein Elgaroy on August 31, 2008 at 11:39 am

Comment #240350 by Quine

You may already have read it, but "C.S. Lewis and the search for rational religion" by John Beversluis is a very good book-length refutation of Lewis.

263. A flea we missed?

Comment #239842 by Oystein Elgaroy on August 30, 2008 at 12:22 pm

David R,

I am still waiting for your comments on Acts 5.

are you saying that Penzias was unfamiliar with physics (perhaps he won the Nobel prize for gardening?!) or the Bible?

Arno Penzias shared the Nobel prize with Robert Wilson for the serendipitous discovery of the cosmic microwave background. They had no idea what the noise in their antenna was. I am sure he has learned more about cosmology since then, but if he thinks Genesis 1 is an accurate description of the Big Bang he still has some way to go.

264. Ayaan Hirsi Ali & The Big Ideas Forum

Comment #239680 by Oystein Elgaroy on August 30, 2008 at 7:40 am

Comment #239677 by SilentMike

I am not sure. At least she seems to think that one should "teach the controversy".

265. Ayaan Hirsi Ali & The Big Ideas Forum

Comment #239675 by Oystein Elgaroy on August 30, 2008 at 7:13 am

Comment #239668 by Bonzai

Who is that? Sorry, haven't been following the American election dramas lately.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin

266. Genesis and the origin of the Origin of the species

Comment #239586 by Oystein Elgaroy on August 30, 2008 at 1:04 am

This argument figures nowhere in the Hebrew Bible.

I am not aware of any argument for God's existence in the Bible. No wonder since it was written when most people took the existence of gods for granted. But the Bible does make claims about God's nature and his plans for his creation. Unlike this deluded rabbi I am not able to see how these claims can be compatible with evolution by natural selection. I wish "advanced theologians" would stop writing drivel like the piece above.

267. Atheism could be science's contribution to religion

Comment #239425 by Oystein Elgaroy on August 29, 2008 at 2:37 pm

From personal experience I would say that the TF has very little influence within the scientific community. I would bet most of my colleagues have never even heard of it. And the Templeton prize has as far as I know never been awarded for the kind of work that is considered serious science. The battleground is really the public perception of the relationship between science and religion, and I am sure the TF has done some damage in that respect. I don't think it is a coincidence that many of the winners of the Templeton prize are well-known writers of popular science books like, e.g., Paul Davies and John Barrow.

268. Why Dawkins is right and his critics are wrong

Comment #235970 by Oystein Elgaroy on August 24, 2008 at 1:19 am

Comment #235907 by thewhitepearl

- Sound barriors/waves, the left over existence of what cosmology explains as the big bang, something about proof of how EVERYTHING in the universe is spoken into existence.

This guy must be nuts. He may have been talking about the temperature variations in the cosmic microwave background. They contain a contribution from periodic density variations (often referred to as sound waves or acoustic modes) present in the universe when it was 400 000 years old. The wavelengths of these modes were far from the audible range. If you want to listen to the voice of God, John G. Cramer has scaled these waves down to the appropriate range. Visit

http://faculty.washington.edu/jcramer/BBSound.html

for a message from your maker.

269. Black holes 'dodge middle ground'

Comment #235191 by Oystein Elgaroy on August 22, 2008 at 2:17 pm

Comment #235177 by ridelo

I forgot to mention that black holes usually spin. The star can gain energy by tapping the rotational energy of the black hole.

270. A flea we missed?

Comment #235180 by Oystein Elgaroy on August 22, 2008 at 2:02 pm

Comment #235173 by David A Robertson

Anyway time to go for another week....I suspect this thread has run its course - going by the degeneration of the last couple of pages but if there is anything interesting, in the words of Arnold 'I'll be back'.

You might find more interesting things if you took the time to read the posts.

Meanwhile I leave you with my most delightful moment on RD net for weeks - the Milliband thread and the pathetic attempts to square the following circle.

What is pathetic is your inability and/or unwillingness to comprehend the arguments presented to you on that thread.

271. Black holes 'dodge middle ground'

Comment #235172 by Oystein Elgaroy on August 22, 2008 at 1:50 pm

The way I understand it, the only difference between a small and large one is that the big one has more matter to suck at its inception(is that a word?).

This is not my area of expertise, but as I understand it this is one of the things we don't know yet. The situation could be like you describe it, or the really massive black holes may have started out with masses of the order of a hundred thousand solar masses or more.

272. A flea we missed?

Comment #235170 by Oystein Elgaroy on August 22, 2008 at 1:45 pm

Comment #235158 by David A Robertson

The basic principles are that you read the Bible according to context, genre and literary type. There is poetry, history, apocalyptic, law and prophecy.

What about my question about Acts 5? Acts would be history in your classification, I presume. So what does that story tell us about the early Church, and what can we learn from it?

273. Black holes 'dodge middle ground'

Comment #235143 by Oystein Elgaroy on August 22, 2008 at 1:24 pm

Comment #235137 by debacles

All black holes are stable (except for Hawking radiation which is negligible except for microscopic black holes). They are basically saying that we don't understand the details of how star clusters form and evolve.

But black holes can start off large. Huge density perturbations in the young universe could collapse and form black holes with masses between a few hundred thousand and a few million solar masses.

274. Black holes 'dodge middle ground'

Comment #235130 by Oystein Elgaroy on August 22, 2008 at 1:03 pm

Comment #235104 by debacles

"Small" and "large" refer to the black hole's mass. But the radius (Scharwzschild radius) of a black hole is proportional to the mass, so it is also says something about geometrical size. The strength of the gravitational field is, of course, also related to the mass. However, should you be so unlucky as to fall into a black hole, a large one is much to prefer as it is the tidal forces that kill you in the end, and these are weaker around a large black hole. You die in the end no matter what, but at least you have time to have a look at the interior if the black hole is really huge. The supermassive black holes that lie in the center of most galaxies have grown larger over billions of years by swallowing nearby stars and gas.

Comment #235113 by NewEnglandBob

If a small black hole (or any kind of object) passes near a large black hole, but not near enough to be pulled in, it will be accelerated in the gravitational field and this may give them enough speed to escape from the cluster. The same effect is used on a less dramatic scale to give satellites that are sent to the outer part of the solar system an extra boost by letting them pass by, e.g., Jupiter.

Medium-sized black holes are expected to exist. That is why the results referred to in the article are puzzling.

275. Black holes 'dodge middle ground'

Comment #234953 by Oystein Elgaroy on August 22, 2008 at 9:53 am

The paper is available at

http://arxiv.org/abs/0805.2952

276. The rise of Miliband brings at last the prospect of an atheist prime minister

Comment #234740 by Oystein Elgaroy on August 22, 2008 at 1:03 am

Like everybody here I am getting tired of the "Stalin was an atheist" argument. Yes, he was an atheist, but he also believed in a marxist utopia waiting at the end of history and that any means were justified in order to help history along to that goal. This belief was not based on any evidence and I am tempted to classify it as religious.

277. A flea we missed?

Comment #234237 by Oystein Elgaroy on August 21, 2008 at 3:11 am

Comment #234229 by Quetzalcoatl

By this logic, it is good that Swinburne exists since it gives people something to laugh and point at.

Indeed. I think RD put it well in his review of Swinburne's "Is there a God?":

http://www.royalinstitutephilosophy.org/think/article.php?num=17

He comments favorably on Swinburne`s lucidity but ends by saying "If this is theology, perhaps Professor Swinburne's colleagues are wise to be less lucid."

278. A flea we missed?

Comment #234228 by Oystein Elgaroy on August 21, 2008 at 2:46 am

Comment #234201 by Quetzalcoatl

Funny how theology's attempts to explain away problems with God always end up raising fresh issues.

I particularly like Swinburne's attempt at explaining why God would not want there to be strong evidence for his existence: First of all, if we were sure that he existed we would not be completely free when making choices. Second, it is good that atheists exist because it gives believers the opportunity to do good deeds by converting them!

279. A flea we missed?

Comment #234178 by Oystein Elgaroy on August 21, 2008 at 12:02 am

Comment #233911 by NMcC

Any thoughts on an omniscient being who's spectacularly bad at predicting the results of His own actions?

According to Richard Swinburne God's omniscience does not mean that he can foresee the course of history, because he and human beings have free will. His omniscience at any given time consists in knowing everything that it is logically possible to know about the past and the present, and all logically necessary truths about the future. Not exactly what we intuitively think of as omniscience, but I think Swinburne's definition is an attempt to avoid the objections you point out.

280. A flea we missed?

Comment #233778 by Oystein Elgaroy on August 20, 2008 at 11:58 am

Comment #233774 by decius

I wanted to bring that episode up because it illustrates quite clearly that the moral princples inherent in the New Testament are just as questionable as those in the Old Testament.

281. A flea we missed?

Comment #233756 by Oystein Elgaroy on August 20, 2008 at 11:33 am

This thread certainly provides a lot of reading material. I would be very interested in a more detailed explanation of how DR thinks scripture should be interpreted. Are there any firm principles that can tell you what is to be taken literally?

Another, and slightly related, matter: Among Christians the early Jerusalem church is often considered an ideal for how society should be organized. One of the few insights, if accepted as historical, into how things work is found in Acts 5. Is the punishment meted out to Ananias and Sapphira proportioned to their crime? Is this a good example to modern Christians?

282. No credit for creationism

Comment #233454 by Oystein Elgaroy on August 20, 2008 at 12:29 am

Comment #233412 by Greyman

PS: Big Bang Theory also predicts things like: distant object will appear brighter than they would if space were not curved. This is not observed, causing cosmologists to rexamine the theory, and some to propose alternative models.

I think you may be confusing this with the evidence for dark energy. Big Bang models without dark energy predict that distant objects should appear brighter than they are observed to be.

By the way, there is no such thing as THE Big Bang theory. Big Bang models form a class of solutions of general relativity (which I would call a theory) in the case where space is homogeneous and isotropic. When combined with our knowledge of particle physics they make general predictions like the relative abundances of light elements and the existence of the cosmic microwave background which have been confirmed. Exactly which Big Bang model best describes our universe has to be found out by observation.

283. A flea we missed?

Comment #233084 by Oystein Elgaroy on August 19, 2008 at 5:30 am

Comment #233075 by Steve Zara

Judging by his earlier books like, e.g., "The Mind of God", Davies has some sympathy for mysticism, but he is not a theist.

284. A flea we missed?

Comment #232513 by Oystein Elgaroy on August 18, 2008 at 8:41 am

Comment #232510 by Steve Zara

I have read "The Goldilocks Enigma". It is a bit , shall we say, imaginative at times, but I was never under the impression that Davies was arguing for theism. If Robertson says so he a) hasn't read the book or b) hasn't understood a word of it or c) lies in the hope that his readers haven't read Davies' book.

285. A flea we missed?

Comment #232477 by Oystein Elgaroy on August 18, 2008 at 7:32 am

Comment #232472 by irate_atheist

This is closer to home. With a student I am working out the cosmological implications of Adams' paper.
He didn't bother to check whether stars could form at all in his universes, so that is what we are trying to work out.

286. A flea we missed?

Comment #232470 by Oystein Elgaroy on August 18, 2008 at 7:13 am

Comment #232462 by Vaal

EDIT: Haven't heard him bringing up Oystein's credentials yet.

I guess that's because I haven't been engaging with him. As long as he doesn't stray into cosmology and physics I will stay away. You guys handle him so well.

287. Do subatomic particles have free will?

Comment #232002 by Oystein Elgaroy on August 17, 2008 at 12:07 pm

Steve, Sargeist,

I stand corrected.

288. Do subatomic particles have free will?

Comment #231980 by Oystein Elgaroy on August 17, 2008 at 11:40 am

Really, I find this interesting as it was my (admittedly naive) perception that locality was still a "requirement" in the minds of most physicists.

The Aspect experiment was the nail in the coffin of local hidden-variables alternatives to quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics is local and satisfies the Bell inequalities.

289. Do subatomic particles have free will?

Comment #231972 by Oystein Elgaroy on August 17, 2008 at 11:31 am

Comment #231964 by Sargeist

Thanks for digging out the papers!

290. Petrol pump pilgrims keep faith

Comment #231895 by Oystein Elgaroy on August 17, 2008 at 9:29 am

If I were the owner of a gas station I think I would be willing to drop the price by 5 percent to get rid of a bunch of nutcases who might very well scare other customers away.

291. A flea we missed?

Comment #231863 by Oystein Elgaroy on August 17, 2008 at 8:16 am

Comment #231857 by Vaal

Here is a quote from Rocky Kolb's "Blind watchers of the sky":

"As an astronomer king Tycho had a court of sorts, and Jepp was his buffoon. Jepp was a person who stood up and looked Tycho squarely in the knees - a dwarf whom Tycho treated more as a pet than as a person. During dinners at Uraniborg, Jepp would sit under the table at the feet of the astronomer king begging for food, and occasionally Tycho would toss a scrap of food under the table for his buffoon."

292. A flea we missed?

Comment #231850 by Oystein Elgaroy on August 17, 2008 at 7:35 am

Comment #231847 by Apathy personified

Newton was such a character, definately on the 'crazy side' of genius though.

To paraphrase, he was arguably the most unpleasant character in all science.

293. A flea we missed?

Comment #231839 by Oystein Elgaroy on August 17, 2008 at 7:19 am

Comment #231833 by Apathy personified

Didn't Newton have to keep hold on the principia because he was in an isolated village during the plague?

Newton made many of his most important discoveries (calculus, the universal law of gravity, etc.) during the plague in 1664-65 when the universities were closed and he was staying with his mother in Lincolnshire. The main reason for the long delay in publication was probably that Newton was no big fan of having his ideas criticized.

294. A flea we missed?

Comment #231825 by Oystein Elgaroy on August 17, 2008 at 6:49 am

Comment #231816 by Corylus

The way some people take note of Newton's genius and christianity (but keep very quiet concerning his other interests) you would be forgiven for thinking that his works on astrology had been found under his bed along with a half-eaten sandwich and a copy of Spanking Nuns Monthly.

They also neglect to mention that Newton did not believe in the trinity (despite being a fellow at Trinity College). And he might very well have preferred Spanking Monks Monthly.

295. A flea we missed?

Comment #231822 by Oystein Elgaroy on August 17, 2008 at 6:42 am

Comment #231811 by Cartomancer

Actually, by the time he was in his thirties (he'd published the Principia when he was my age, as if I needed to feel any more inadequate than I already do!)

The Principia was published when Newton was 45, in 1687 if I remember correctly.

296. A flea we missed?

Comment #231567 by Oystein Elgaroy on August 16, 2008 at 2:51 pm

Comment #231554 by decius

Finally king Harald shows some good sense. I have never been a fan of the monarchy, but now I will have to think again.

297. A flea we missed?

Comment #231551 by Oystein Elgaroy on August 16, 2008 at 2:25 pm

Comment #231540 by mordacious1

That is a wonderful title. You should write that book.

298. A flea we missed?

Comment #231531 by Oystein Elgaroy on August 16, 2008 at 1:51 pm

Does anyone know why it is that Richard and Sam each have lots of flea books, but Christopher Hitchens doesn't?

Maybe because it is hard to come up with "creative" titles? What can you do with "God is not great"? "God is so great", "God: great after all"? Or the moderate version "God is great to some extent if not taken too literally, and is not necessarily poisonous in moderate doses"?

299. Enemies of Reason: Available now on DVD!

Comment #230995 by Oystein Elgaroy on August 15, 2008 at 2:06 pm

Durant -

There are no logical arguments that Professor Bigot has offered for atheism

I think the general idea is that the burden of proof is on the supernaturalists. And what about the
"Ultimate Boeng 747" argument in TGD? It goes a long way towards demonstrating the improbability of a cosmic designer.

300. We need to stop being such cowards about Islam

Comment #230138 by Oystein Elgaroy on August 14, 2008 at 10:42 am

Comment #230116 by PJG

Christians I have met say that the meaning of that passage from Matthew is that Jesus was the fulfillment of the law in the OT, and that they are therefore no longer bound by it.