let us review

bob - Lets review...

A few thousand years ago people didn't know a heck of a lot about science so they invented this god thing to explain stuff. The god idea caught on and then a few schizophrenics came forward claiming that this phantasmagorical god thing had spoken to them. They wrote down or preached about what god had said to them, or what they thought god had said to them, or what they thought people would want God to say if, in fact, you could ever get a word out of the old bugger. One guy even went so far as to say that he actually was god, or the son of god, or one corner of a triangle. Does that make any sense to you? Look, its complicated....

Anyway, at the time there was no TV, and writing was more of a chore so people tended to take more notice of such things and in fact whole civilizations, justice systems, architectural styles etc. grew up around the god idea. It inspired some of the most beautiful art the world has ever seen. There was a wonderful book written about all of this too with great stories about virgin births and women talking to snakes and some of it is even more or less verifiable and intended to be interpreted literally. There is a lot of stuff in the book that people have trouble interpreting cause it seems so dream like or like a fairy tale or something. Some of it though is definitely supposed to be interpreted literally, like for instance the part where the triangle guy in a fit of grandiose shame takes it upon himself to die for all of our sins. There was even a movie made about this part. You should see it. They break the triangle guys back and peel off his skin with whips and pull his arms out of his sockets and drive nails through his hands and this teaches us about the magnitude of triangle guy's sacrifice even though most of it isn't true probably.

Such is the power of the human imagination.

Not many people (with a few notable exceptions) today however claim to have had conversations with god and were they to really push the issue they would probably end up under psychiatric supervision. Unless those people happened to be very well connected politically of course. In fact these days we have Iranian politicians claiming to have a God given right to nuclear technology that will allow them to build a nuclear bomb, and a group called "The Taliban" seeking to bring human affairs under the will of God and a little monkey named Bush elected on the God idea and on his conversations with the God idea. Of course all these people are deluded and grandiose enough to believe that they are acting on God's will and in the process they threaten the security of the entire planet, but apparently in private conversations with god this is all part of the big plan or something. It's all covered in the last chapter of the book.

Such also is the power of the human imagination.

The problem with the god idea essentially of course is that it too often allows people who are so wrong to feel so right. There is nothing more dangerous than that, but the triangle guy isn't around anymore and the people who claim to speak for god are all in psychiatric hospitals, or in politics, or employed by oil companies or by weapons manufacturers so we wee people are pretty much left to figure these things out for ourselves. It is quite a strain generally and with time it becomes more and more difficult to always look on the bright side of life.

darwin

"Believing as I do that man in the distant future will be a far more perfect creature than he now is, it is an intolerable thought that he and all other sentient beings are doomed to complete annihilation after such long-continued slow progress" - Charles Darwin

Shari Law

Muslim theology divides the world into two categories: Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb (House of Islam and the House of War). Don't let anyone tell you that Islam means "peace" in the typical English sense of the term. It really means "submission", or "the peace brought about by submission to God". Muslims consider themselves to be living subserviently under God's Law. Either a region of the world is under submission to God, or it isn't and therefore must be subjugated to God's Law by any means necessary. Either through open warfare, voluntary conversion, or a gradual takeover by a growing Muslim population. As long as the end result is total submission of the world to God's Law, otherwise known as the Sharia. Various passages of the Koran support this (8:39, 9:29-30, 8:12-17), and dozens of hadiths recount Muhammad's battles to spread Islam. I read through a UK forum when the poll came out revealing that 40% of British Muslims want to live under total Sharia. The Brits posting on the forum were shocked that 2 in 5 British Muslims want to live under 7th century conditions...I'm shocked the number wasn't much higher. But either way, it puts that "Tiny Minority of Extremists" mantra to rest. To those of you convinced Islam is a peaceful, beautiful religion, better go and read up on dhimmis and see if you'd like to live as on under Sharia rule. Never heard of dhimmis or dhimmitude? Better go and Google it so you can see what kind of life you'll be living if the Muslims do win.

dog

Take a close look into somebody's eyes the next time they tell you that "they believe in god" and see if you don't observe a vaguely puzzled expression, as if they were peering into the great puzzling gramaphone of confounding existence itself and, coming up empty handed, grasped at the only word in their vocabulary, "god". You could switch it around and it would make as much sense, "dog". Like on those old RCA Victor recordings.

vindication

I was waiting for a bus one cold day last week and since I had a nasty bloody cold too I didn't feel like walking around looking for a garbage can and threw my empty zun cu nai cha container in some guys scooter basket. Some frustrated, 40ish, office worker type saw me and told me it wasn't a garbage can. Feeling really quite embarrassed I mumbled an apology of sorts and took the garbage out. That wasn't enough for miss fancy pants though so she continued to yak (in English) at me about what a terrible thing littering is blah blah blah yak yak yak until finally I said "Look lady, I took the garbage back, what do want me to do now, climb up on a cross?" That didn't gel in her pin brain either so I said "Listen, either stop talking to me or I'm going to put the garbage back." That didn't work either and she got started on the yaking again so I put the garbage back in the scooter basket and said "There, you happy?" She said she was tired of foriegners coming here and disrespecting her country so I said I didn't disrespect Taiwan I was just tired and quite ill and getting tired of her bitching already. Then I put my thumb over my left nostril and blew a big gob of snot out of the other. Unfortunately a thick green glob of said snot gob landed on her shoe. It sat glistening there like a tiny phosphorescent oyster for a bit and then the bus came and luckily for me did one of those flick of the back door rolling stops so I jumped on thinking that at long last I could be rid of miss hormone disorder. She had other plans though and tried to jump on the bus behind me so I gave her a sort of back kick to the top of her head. She stumbled backwards and was run over by a cavalcade of motor scooters each with basket fulls of garabage left by inconsiderate foriegners and I felt vindicated.

dunno pg. 7

bob wrote: I guess that's why light particles are so tiny huh?

BFM - They're teeny, they have no mass and no charge, but you can't measure the size because of Heisenberg's uncertainly principle. In other words they say "you want to know where I am ? Ha Ha ! I'm not telling you !"

bob - Sneaky little buggers. I bet there is a lot of them too.

dunno pg. six

Richardm - Ho can one infinity be more than another? I'm not sure there is anyone who understands that.


bob - See. I told you guys, everything is too weird. Think about water. Or music. Or music underwater. What about that?

guangtou - If you are on a train travelling at the speed of light, and the speed of light is as fast as anything can go (according to relativity theory), and you walk from the back of the train to the front, doesn't that mean you're travelling faster than the speed of light?

Something tells me RichardM knows the answer to this one, and bob, who wants to know the answer, will loose sleep over it. As for me, I'm an idiot and don't really understand the question. Even though it's my question. Really confusing all this...

bob - Yes, but not by very much. Say, for example that you were on a really long train like the one that goes from Taipei to Gaoxiung, and when you started out in Taipei you were at the back of the train but walked towards the front on route. I imagine you would only save about five minutes on the trip actually (assuming of course you didn't stop in at Tainan and give TC a hard time - in which case the whole deal would be thrown all out of whack so lets just forget that idea) and since all the doors on the train open at the same time on arrival you'd just have to sit an wait anyway. It would probably be better to just sit a relax the whole trip.

About the music and water thing, I'm wondering if it would be possible to teach fish to dance and if so what steps would you start out with. Richard?

Richardm - Start with a watlz. Fish hate tapping. And then they are at a total loss with what to do with the banana.

Big Fluffy Matthew - guangtou wrote: If you are on a train travelling at the speed of light, and the speed of light is as fast as anything can go (according to relativity theory), and you walk from the back of the train to the front, doesn't that mean you're travelling faster than the speed of light?

No. When you measure your speed, what is it in relation to ? (That's why it's the theory of relativity)You are at walking speed in relation to the the train. When the train is going that fast, time slows down, and you're going faster, so it slows down even more. And speed=distance/time, so your speed is still less than the speed of light.
And don't forget that as your speed aproaches c, your mass approaches infinity, so it takes an infinite about of energy to go faster, which is why you can't go faster.

Richardm - I knew that.

guangtou - Thanks for that BFM. There's one more thing I know now that I didn't before. And so does bob. And this makes the whole thread kind of superfluous, 'cause now he knows something.

That's assuming of course, that BFM isn't lying. Then we'd be back where we started (i.e. with bob not knowing anything).

RichardM knew about the light speed thing without even being told about it. It's just great knowing he knows, you know?

bob - Big Fluffy Matthew wrote: ....as your speed aproaches c, your mass approaches infinity, so it takes an infinite about of energy to go faster, which is why you can't go faster.


I guess that's why light particles are so tiny huh?

dunno anything page five

jdgvflervl wrote - Quit looking for attention. Undertsand

bob - Are you trying to antagonize me?

bob - Corn holio?

chodofu wrote - JOHN MOSS wrote: dear bob,

.... we all came in to the world butt-naked. we all will die someday. ...

john


Isn't it funny how we come into the world butt naked, but leave it in our best suit.

JOHN MOSS - oh bob,

you say you are not anybody??

you are bob

you are good enough, you are smart enough, and doggone it, people like you.

X3M wrote - I see your question, but what is your problem?


bob - In a word, infinity.

Richardm - There is an infinite number of integers, that is whole numbers 1, 2, 3, and so on.
There is an infinite number of real numbers, that is whole numbers plus everything in between.
But there are more real numbers than there are integers. No matter how you try to match them up, there will allways be real numbers left over.
How can one infinity be more than another? I'm not sure there is anyone who understands that.