'He' is all around

[inline_online]

Hi all,

I thought this was pretty amusing. Hopefully it doesn't go against the site TOS (though I suspect it might).

Cheers,
Dan

[LewisM]

:) ;)

It's a shame it doesn't work for H too.... but H is around here at least :)

[Octane]

I'm here.

H

[strongmanmike]

Ah H, He He He :P

[LewisM]

I was waiting for that...

[Peter Ward]

eH ?

Don't get it at all

(perhaps my dyslexia doesn't help....) :D

[bloodhound31]

Peter, you are the wittiest.

[bigjoe]

I thought you were offline_inline.

Sacrilegious!!!!

BLASP HE MY!!!!!!!!!!!

Haw.
BIGJOE.:P

[RB]

I've been a member of IIS for 8 years and I consider you all my friends so I would like to ask you to take the time to watch this video.
It's what I believe HE did for me and I trust you won't hold it against me for sharing.

Thanks everyone
:)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoQJI5HTSss

[Lee]

Why would it? looks like some simple statements of scientific fact to me. :)

[joe_smith]

Thanks RB just watched it. I cant put in words how it made me feel, its pretty emotional.

[phobos]

Is this a remake of the story of an omnipotent being, sacrificing himself to himself, to save mankind from himself because he got pissed off that a talking snake told a rib woman to eat some fruit? In that story the son doesn't even really die but instead comes back 3 days later, more powerful than before (sort of like obi wan kenobi). Does this crap belong on an astronomy forum?

[Rodstar]

Thanks for posting the video RB.

I think it is a great metaphor that expresses what billions of people in the world today believe. It also seems to me, in the context of the original post on this thread, to be an entirely reasonable response.

phobos, I certainly would not have thought that your dismissive comment, and the apparent hatred underlying it, had any place on our forum.

[rcheshire]

Thank you RB... Echo...

Inevitably, astronomy is about origins. Origins is a religious discussion - that is, if you understand the origins argument. The original post clearly makes the point.

[BPO]

He makes your voice high and squeaky.

What exactly is He doing to you?

Sounds pretty dodgy to me.

[inline_online]

Agreed Rod. No matter what our beliefs are I was hoping to avoid that sort of talk when I made the initial post. For what it's worth, i have no problem with RB's post.

[rmuhlack]

Thanks RB. Wesley was right - Amazing love indeed.



I agree. For me this is what makes astronomy so interesting , humbling and inspiring.

[AstralTraveller]

He is important to science. He is flowing through a GC and EA in my lab right now. He is needed for NMR spectrometers. He is not naturally found on the surface of the Earth. He is only obtained from deep petrolium wells. He is a finite resource. Yet He is wasted in party balloons. :tasdevil:

BTW I'm reminded of the Van Der Graaf Generator album - H to He Who Am The Only One.

[sjastro]

How ironic.
An atheist behaving in a way which is symptomatic of fundamentalism, intolerance to the belief systems of others.

Regards

Steven

[Miaplacidus]

Chill out, dudes. You need to just Be.

Beryllium.

[avandonk]

Never mind here is a bit of Li to ease your disturbed mind. If that does not work we have something heavier!

Bert

[phobos]

There is no hatred Rodstar. Everyone is entitled to their beliefs no matter how irrational they are. Religious proselytizing has no place on a site like IIS where impressionable minds inspired by science and the mind blowing nature of reality visit regularly. Keep the video for church and keep IIS a place where freethought and critical thinking skills are encouraged and promoted.

[bigjoe]

Caffeine addict.

After all this, I need a Schott of Boron. Umm. I mean Bourbon.:P.

[Steffen]

We could make more He from H, but what to do with all the excess energy freed up in the process? ;)

Cheers
Steffen.

[Steffen]

I hear you. The best shot glasses are made from Schott glass :D

Cheers
Steffen.

[bigjoe]

Xe actly!
Salute Steffen.

[Octane]

Hey, leave me alone!

H

[tonewalk]

As a fan of the band I'm thrilled by the coincidence of a post with reference to them followed immediately by a post with containing part of the chorus to one of their songs - e to the power of i times pi plus one is zero. ['Mathematics', from the album 'A Grounding in Numbers'.]

[LewisM]

U Ar Al Lu Na Ti C S :)

Uuu, Th At W As Si Li :) ;)

[rally]

Noble sibling family rivalry

I Ar must protest on behalf of the family
It is not He but me
. . .
What !
Ar ?
Not you but me - Ne
. . .
No, No, No not Ne its I, Xe
. . .
Kr may hide, but I protect the largest kingdom of noble subj e- cts tightly - so it is I who Rn s the place !

Shoot me for posting this

[LewisM]

Consider yourself shot, like myself ;)

[avandonk]

I am quite disturbed at the way this thread is going. Why not just say all organised religions are a human construct. They have no more validity than the tooth fairy or the easter bunny!

The only thing that really works is Science! Science has the property of not being absolute such as religious dogma written by ignorant primitive goat herders or any other group of nitwits.


There is no point just alluding to this conundrum. It has to be faced head on.

Humanity should put it's very primitive superstitions where they belong in the graves of our ignorant ancestors.

I find it most perplexing that anyone can be so ignorant of history that they cannot work out that the enlightenment started three hundred years ago.

Please catch up!

If anyone needs to believe in a higher force of whatever complexion then I feel you have not understood.

The real Universe is even more strange than we can imagine. We do not need fairy tales made up by people with very limited minds.

This also includes my opinion! So I am most probably completely wrong! Stuck in a paradigm of my own delusions.

Bert

[bigjoe]

Avandonk, All.

A lot of people just do not want to offend others religious beliefs openly.

And some of us, have to conceal or disguise our thoughts.

Look at Copernicus. Making sure his works were not published till after his death, for

fear of the church. Galileo also had to make an argument about the absurdities of

accepted dogma (Simplicio) etc, about the Sun, Moon, Earth and so on.

Galileo was finally pardoned for this and we ALL know he was correct, but he was a heretic.

Beliefs invented perhaps to keep people happy and law abiding? For if there is no

afterlife to look forward to, then some will think that they can commit crimes

etc, without fear of punishment or wrath in an afterlife or the present.

Just my 2 cents.

[sjastro]

I'm intrigued that people with religious beliefs are perceived by some as being intellectually inferior. Perhaps this is a result of equating faith exclusively with fundamentalism, but as has been demonstrated fundamentalism can be seen in both sides of the argument.

It doesn't seem to address the obvious issue about scientists that were also deeply religious.
How can dumb people make profound advancements in Science?
While Issac Newton was theorizing about gravity he was also investigating the Bible to find the date of creation.
Georges Lemaitre a Jesuit priest formulated the Big Bang Theory.
Then there was Gregor Mendel, an Augustinian monk who was the father of modern Genetics.

The list is by no means exhaustive.

Then there is this article that not all scientists are like Richard Dawkins.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/occams-corner/2013/mar/04/myth-scientists-religion-hating-atheists

Regards

Steven

[Steffen]

I don't think this has anything to do with fundamentalism.

Until not so long ago virtually all scientists were religious, because everybody was religious by default, through upbringing and indoctrination from early childhood. Many scientists probably lost their superstitious beliefs (which are central to the religious dogma) throughout their years of scientific work, but kept hanging on to the "spiritual" side, whatever that means. I suppose it means token-religiousness for the sake of keeping the peace.

Scientists like Kepler died frustrated because they never managed to shake the superstition. Kepler in particular tried till the end of his life to explain the motion of celestial bodies through some set of geometric bodies suspended in an intricate nesting. The work he is famous for these days was his mathematical analysis of Tycho Brahe's observations, not something he thought of very highly himself.

Einstein failed to appreciate the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics, because it didn't gel with this view of the creation ("Gott würfelt nicht!").

It doesn't mean that any of these people were stupid (obviously), but it means that superstitious indoctrination and failure to grow out of it can affect one's work as a scientist.

Materialist-dialectic epistemology (the practice of which is also known as "the scientific method") appears to be the only way to iterate towards the truth. Religious scientists apply that method, too, even though they visit their temple of choice with the rest of the parish and reverently listen to their preacher telling obvious untruths.

Cheers
Steffen.

[sjastro]

This has nothing to with the scientists themselves but rather the fundamentalist attitudes adopted by both camps of the atheism versus religion debate.

A symptom of a fundamentalist attitude is claiming some form of superiority over the other side even if there is no evidence to support it.
For example the "religious right" claim that since morality is a preserve of religion, atheists have no morals. This is clearly a fallacious argument.

Similarly some atheists claim that religious belief is a lack of critical thinking, hence religious belief and the ability to think are some how mutually exclusive.
This line of thinking obviously fails as there has been religious practitioners who have also turned out to being scientists of the highest calibre.

This formed the basis of my argument.

Regards

Steven

[Shark Bait]

42 ;)

[phobos]

It can be argued that they failed to apply their critical thinking skills and skeptism to their religious beliefs.

[joe_smith]

Thomas Nagel, sums it up for me in his book "Mind and Cosmos" he maintains the real threat to science is not religion but the "Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature" its a good read if you are interested in the debate.

We are all stuck in a paradigm of our own self delusions. Its what makes us human, its what makes me, me and its why we can have debates like this. Other wise we would be lost souls swimming in the fish bowl.

[Zaps]

Why is it that those who insist we respect their beliefs and opinions invariably refuse to respect our own?

[sjastro]

That would only be true if atheists can prove or show evidence that God doesn't exist, in which case your statement is perfectly valid.
The reality is atheists can't do either. Believers are in the same boat for the converse case.

The existence or non existence of God isn't a mathematical problem that can be proved using logic or rational thinking and is unfalsifiable (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability) as there is no evidence that can disprove either position.

Hence critical thinking cannot play a significant role as a conclusion cannot be reached and both sides use opinion or faith based arguments to support their positions.

Regards

Steven

[Zaps]

Not falsifiable = not interesting. At least, not to scientists. Philosophers maybe.

Science and scientists have no time for junk like UFOs, ghosts, gods, sea monsters, invisible fairy princesses and any other silly nonsense that can only be defended by claiming, "Oh, it's real, you just can't see it and refuse to believe!"

[Zaps]

You have no understanding of what true science really is.

But in response to your last comment, remember that there are a lot of people who live their lives as virtuously as any religious cult adherent and in most cases more virtuously, with far less hypocrisy; they don't live that way due to a mortal fear of "divine retribution." They live that way because they are decent and honest people.

[rally]

This is a thread about about Helium isn't it ?

[phobos]

Atheists have nothing to prove, the burden of proof lies with those making the claim that gods exist. Take Russell's teapot for example, if I tell you there is a teapot in orbit around the sun and you can't prove me wrong should you believe my claim?

Critical thinking can easily be applied to religious claims. Many believers compartmentalize their irrational beliefs and don't apply their skeptical tools to them.

[sjastro]

A teapot in orbit is in fact falsifiable, it can be proved or disproved through observation.
The existence or non existence of God is however unfalsifiable. Whether I choose to believe one way or another is based on faith.

Shifting the burden of proof is symptomatic of faith based arguments. Creationists do it all the time in evolution debates.
Expecting believers to prove the existence of God is doomed to failure and at the same time doesn't strengthen the Atheist position as absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Atheism vs Religion debates seem to get bogged down in false dichotomies, namely "You're wrong automatically proves me right" type arguments.



Then it wouldn't be critical thinking.

Regards

Steven

[LAW]

I think He would be disappointed by the ignoble nature of this debate. It's frankly Boron.

[Camelopardalis]

Athiests might be pretty skeptical of other people's faith, but they tend not to start religious wars, go suicide bombing or anything in between.

Helium is a lot more fun :)

[rcheshire]

Thank you Steven. I have deleted my posts to keep within the protocols, but I am glad that you have pointed out the fallacy.

[Zaps]

What if it's a magic invisible teapot? What if it can jump between orbits whenever anyone attempts to observe it? What if only True Believers can see it?

[multiweb]

:nerd: Too much Helium sniffing around here.

[Shark Bait]

I have to quote Douglas Adams from The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, so . . . .......

'The argument goes something like this: "I refuse to prove that I exist," says He, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."

"But," says Man, "the Bable fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED."

"Oh dear," says He, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.

"Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.

'Most leading theologians claim that this argument is a load of dingo's kidneys ..... . . . .

CH 6:V21-V24 :P

The world is a poorer place without Douglas Adams.

[Lee]

+1
We also don't go door knocking to spread the joy of atheism.... :)

[sjastro]

You obviously don't know that Schrödinger addressed this very issue by gassing teapots with He.

Regards

Steven

[phobos]

I wasn't clear and you have misunderstood the teapot analogy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot

[sjastro]

I'm aware of the teapot analogy and its counterarguments.

From the Wiki article.



Regards

Steven

[Zaps]

This is why people can claim to believe in the existence of absolutely anything. And frequently do.

[Zaps]

I'm pretty sure that would contravene the Geneva Conventions.

[rat156]

Whilst I like the OPs first post, I find it strange that he should have had to add the bit about the TOS, it's a simple set of scientific facts.

However, the post by a moderator of the site, which is little more than religious dogma, is offensive. Not for the content, as you don't have to watch it (I only got halfway through before the religiousness became overpowering and I stopped it), but for the fact that a moderator of the site can post something which so flagrantly contravenes the site's TOS.

Enough said, close the thread.

Cheers
Stuart

[sjastro]

I suppose you are going to tell me Geneva is the capital of Denmark.;)

Regards

Steven

[RB]

Time to close the thread, everyone's had a fair say and I thank everyone for keeping it civil.
The original post was intended as a bit of fun but it has demonstrated that people do have varying views and topics like these are always difficult to handle and give equal time to all views.

The moderators have allowed all views and none of the posts were edited or deleted by us.

Thanks once again everyone.

Andrew

:)