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[Nadaka]

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/nearly-one-third-middle-class-102300614.html

nearly one third of Americans raised in the middle class suffer downward mobility.

[Truean]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/supreme_court_dispatches/2012/01/supreme_court_and_fcc_s_fleeting_expletives_policy_what_exactly_counts_as_indecent_on_tv_.html

Hypocritcal American Supreme Court Justices get shown for what they are in open court:
"Waxman patiently explains to the rapt justices that ABC was never sanctioned for over a dozen NYPD Blue episodes over nine seasons that included bare buttocks. Not until the last one. Arbitrary, bad FCC. Then, he raises his arms, Moses-like, to the glorious friezes that surround the interior of the ceremonial courtroom. And then Waxman points to one sculpted classical stone lawgiver after another as he guides the justices through the fleeting bottoms that pervade their lofty spaces: “There's a bare buttock there, and there's a bare buttock here,” he marvels. “And there may be more that I hadn't seen. But frankly, I had never focused on it before.” To which Justice Antonin Scalia grits out, “Me neither,” while all of the justices gape up at the walls above them, like bemused Muppets on Veterinarian Hospital."

In summation: " You wanna censor asses on TV? You're surrounded by them!"

[kaijyuu]

Whee censorship. Ain't it lovely.

[ggamer]

I really don't think the Big Bang theory makes any sense whatsoever. I believe that most Atheists i've talked to state that a combination of gases caused the explosion (Yes, gas from nothing, makes sense, right?) While the real theory is much... much more... crazy. I can't remember the specifics, but it has something to due with probability of things spontaneously existing. I'm probably wrong though, so...

@Truean:

You seem to have us confused with Mormons (Who aren't Christians. I mean really.) Our salvation doesn't depend on our works in life, be it teaching people about Christ or giving extra apples in apple pie. Also, i'd like to think that we're a little more subtle than that, but when my Church's youth program thinks that Israel is a third world country, I have to doubt our aptitude a small bit.

[Darvi]

(Yes, gas from nothing, makes sense, right?)

And that's where your understanding of the theory is faulty.

Or rather theirs, as I just realized that you were talking about other people's view of it.

[KaelGotDwarves]

I really don't think the Big Bang theory makes any sense whatsoever.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". The funny part is that people will accept whatever part of science makes sense and is useful for them. Like they will take vaccinations that prevent them from being sick but they will reject the idea of evolution, which allows us to make vaccinations that prevent you from being sick.

[Truean]

@Truean:

You seem to have us confused with Mormons (Who aren't Christians. I mean really.) Our salvation doesn't depend on our works in life, be it teaching people about Christ or giving extra apples in apple pie. Also, i'd like to think that we're a little more subtle than that, but when my Church's youth program thinks that Israel is a third world country, I have to doubt our aptitude a small bit.

They just haven't fully explained the missionary rewards program to you yet. See, if you go all missionary and convert a country or something, then you might get beautified as a saint or whatever. They'll use your bones as relics and you might even get a day on the calendar, which they screwed over Galileo and would've screwed over Copernicus if they could've for making more accurate for them! Or, maybe you'll at least get to be the patron saint of something.

Of course, just like everything else, the real benefits are in the mechan'izing! Its all about the medals, shrines, stained-glass windows, murals, shrines, but especially the medals. Check out those St. Christopher and St. Jude medals, man. They gots people payin' to be all wearin' 'em 'round their necks! I'm sure they have a saints club or something up there, or that they at least get to cut in line at the afterlife salad bar or something. Plus, you know everybody's waitin' for those saints to come marching in!
I can't even get tickets for that and I'm trying to buy them waaaay in advance.

Then again, does it really matter? You've got to be dead to get any of that, assuming you really get it.

[SalmonGod]

(Yes, gas from nothing, makes sense, right?)

Any theory about the origin of the universe runs into this problem, even religion.  Did god come from nothing?  How's that any more plausible than gases coming from nothing?

Any theory can be placed into three categories.

1.  You can believe that there was no ultimate beginning to the universe.  It has existed infinitely.  The big bang was just one event that shaped the universe as we know it now, or is something that happens repeatedly.

2.  You believe in the ability of something to spring from nothing.  Something outside the realm of causality.

3.  You believe that the nature of time is not linear or constant, throwing the relevance of #1 and #2 into question.

Any one becomes basically incomprehensible the more you try to dig to the root of understanding.  Each necessitates a complete breaking with our own experience of reality.

[Andir]

I really don't think the Big Bang theory makes any sense whatsoever. I believe that most Atheists i've talked to state that a combination of gases caused the explosion (Yes, gas from nothing, makes sense, right?) While the real theory is much... much more... crazy. I can't remember the specifics, but it has something to due with probability of things spontaneously existing. I'm probably wrong though, so...

To tell the truth, as an atheist, I see what people are talking about and how the equations fit, but it relies on the notion that the speed of light (something we cannot measure over the vast expanse of space*) is infinitely constant.  That's my only problem with astrophysics today.  Sure, we have to base the theory's off commonly accepted laws and the current set of laws make sense in their context, but I don't believe we are even close to understanding the universe (size, motion, ...) as much as people would like to.  I don't believe that it's under the control of some higher being, but I do believe we cannot possibly know that we live in an expanding "bubble."

It has almost zero impact on my life and how I live, so I couldn't care less if I was right or wrong.  I just think that people want to believe they have an appropriate model that will stand forever.

*(bad analogy?) like measuring the speed of a freight train by measuring how long it takes a grain of dirt on one car to pass the intersection and assuming that that train has always and will always travel at that speed over all types of rail.

[MonkeyHead]

I really don't think the Big Bang theory makes any sense whatsoever. I believe that most Atheists i've talked to state that a combination of gases caused the explosion (Yes, gas from nothing, makes sense, right?) While the real theory is much... much more... crazy. I can't remember the specifics, but it has something to due with probability of things spontaneously existing. I'm probably wrong though, so...

There is quite a lot wrong with this, but it would be pretty rude of me to try and re-educate you on the finer points, just as I wouldnt expect you to correct any of my misunderstandings regarding faith... For me, as a pretty very extreme atheist and Physicist the evidence (produced by the scientific method, refined and confirmed independently over time) that supports the inflationary universe idea (red shift/Hubbles Law and the 3k microwave background) is far more important than how "uncommon sense" the idea at first seems. It doesnt matter how silly the idea of a (or many) universe(s) forming from a singularity seems (which itself doesnt answer many questions and makes many more of its own), as the evidence that such a thing occured is pretty damn strong. By all means feel free to find the idea hard to make sense, but please try and avoid falling into the trap of saying "it cant have occured as it makes no sense", as then you will run into the problem of fighting against pretty unarguable evidence, where "God made it so" wont cut the mustard as an intellectual argument. Besides, its no more crazy than there being nothing, then there being something that some deity made.

[kaijyuu]

You seem to have us confused with Mormons (Who aren't Christians. I mean really.)

Err, yes they are. Unless you think the Book of Mormon's subtitle, "Another Testament of Jesus Christ" is sarcasm.

Call it fanfiction if you want, but it's still a religion centering around Christ. Ergo, Christian.

[KaelGotDwarves]

As a guy who spent a lot of time with Mormons, they do see themselves as Christians. But many other Christian sects don't see them as "real Christians".

[Truean]

You seem to have us confused with Mormons (Who aren't Christians. I mean really.)

Err, yes they are. Unless you think the Book of Mormon's subtitle, "Another Testament of Jesus Christ" is sarcasm.

Call it fanfiction if you want, but it's still a religion centering around Christ. Ergo, Christian.

I get the impression that there's a lot of "[other group] isn't REALLY a bunch of good Christians, LIKE WE ARE," going around in a lot of groups these days. Isn't everyone a special little snowflake.... Er, don't they think they are.

[MonkeyHead]

Those 2 sentences could work for pretty much any Christian denomination though right?

[kaijyuu]

Yeah, no true scotsman and all that. It's quite silly.