How old is the Grand Canyon

[counterfeitfake]

I DARE you to make sense.

As real is to fake, so are genuine definitions to you -- speaking in orthogonal terms.

 

(My fucking g0d-damn almighty! I said it! I said "orthogonal" just like a real fake!)

 

(Regarding science and religion, please see Stephen Jay Gould for edification.)

 

You have failed. Please see my ball sack for edification.

[counterfeitfake]

Science and religion should be orthogonal to one another. Science is by definition about what we can prove with evidence, and religion is by definition about what we cannot prove and must believe without evidence.

 

 

-Why must we "believe" anything without evidence?

 

I'm only saying that religion requires faith in something you can't prove. Of course you don't have to believe.

[Crux]

 

You have failed. Please see my ball sack for edification.

 

 

Counterfeit balls?

[sexual_chocolate]

I'm only saying that religion requires faith in something you can't prove. Of course you don't have to believe.

 

Maybe your religion requires blind faith. Not all religions do.

 

I could not bring myself to "believe" something simply because everyone else does/my family does/the good book tells me to/i'm afraid/nothing else makes sense/etc etc.

 

[olyclimber]

The Grand Canyon was etched into the earth by a flow of urine from a pissing match between God and Chuck Norris.

[Crux]

There is no proof that God could piss that much.

[JayB]

What in your mind distinguishes garden-variety faith from blind-faith?

 

 

[tvashtarkatena]

Nobody knows anything. People say the earth is round. Right! I'm standing on it right now, and it seems pretty damn flat to me. Some secular humanist teacher in school tried the whole Greek guy and his shadow explanation on me, but that Greek guy is long gone, and I didn't get a very good grade in geometry. Until someone can convince me that the earth is round without resorting to the standard intellectual ploy of using math and Greeks and stuff, just a plain old believable explanation that makes good common sense, I'm not buying it.

[tvashtarkatena]

What in your mind distinguishes garden-variety faith from blind-faith?

 

 

I believe Garden Variety Faith was a folk band.

[counterfeitfake]

I'm only saying that religion requires faith in something you can't prove. Of course you don't have to believe.

 

Maybe your religion requires blind faith. Not all religions do.

 

I'm no theological expert, maybe I'm mistaken. Are there religions that can prove the existence of their god? I'd just think they'd get an awful lot of converts really quickly.

 

At any rate, I'm getting the feeling you're an atheist. No?

[JayB]

Aristarchus was a actually punk band that conjoined the terms "Aristocracy, Anarchy, and the "U.S." into a single name.

[Crux]

[sexual_chocolate]

What in your mind distinguishes garden-variety faith from blind-faith?

 

 

can you explain the difference as you see it?

 

blind faith to me is believing in something with no factual feed-back, nor even the possibility of that feed-back.

 

perhaps by "garden-variety" you mean the kind of faith that is required to move a rubber tree plant? i think that (healthy) kind of faith is based on an understanding that indeed strong effort can and often does produce results?

 

one is a faith that cannot be substantiated, the other is a faith that has the potential for feed-back.

 

as far as my own position goes regarding the object of "blind-faith", i'm very much an agnostic regarding eschatological issues.

[sexual_chocolate]

I'm only saying that religion requires faith in something you can't prove. Of course you don't have to believe.

 

Maybe your religion requires blind faith. Not all religions do.

 

I'm no theological expert, maybe I'm mistaken. Are there religions that can prove the existence of their god? I'd just think they'd get an awful lot of converts really quickly.

 

At any rate, I'm getting the feeling you're an atheist. No?

 

Buddhism i think is a notable exception, the first one that comes to mind. its (orthodox) tenets certainly never prescribe a "faith" or "belief" in some supranatural being, with the Buddha actually dissuading people from believing in such (as far as my exposure and understanding and conversations etc go). many local beliefs and dogmas have graffed onto buddhism their own particular deist beliefs, but i don't think these should be confused with the core teachings.

 

as far as my own beliefs go, i am an agnostic. how can one reasonably adopt a stance other than this when it is simply impossible to know? maybe there is a form of knowing that i haven't experienced yet, so i must leave this door open....

[bstach]

"Geysers of Old Faithful: Nostrils of Satan"

 

"Science is the new religion". Discuss.

 

e.g. "Theory" of evolution taught as fact, despite significant gaps in the fossil record and supporting evidence.

 

 

True that, Evolution is taught as though it were a fact. Sort of like Gravity and all that other theoretical shit.

 

BTW, I nominate bsatch for cretin of the year award. Discuss.

 

You obviously studied very little science in your eductation. Let me explain what science is:

 

Science is man's effort to model the world based on observable events. This typically involves the proving or disproving a hypothesis by repeatable experimentation.

 

While you can apply this scientific method to both, only gravity is really practical for repeatable experiments, unless you have a few million years to run an experiment. Thus, historical evidence (i.e. fossils) must be relied upon. While gravity has been demonstrated countless times by repeatable experimentation, evolution has not. Thus I have a bit more certainty about the theory of gravity than about the theory of evolution.

 

And who knows, maybe current gravitational theory is wrong. Someone may come along and turn gravitational theory on its head, just like relativity and quantum mechanics turned Newton's Laws upside down.

 

ANYWAY...my point was not to try to convince anyone that evolution is BS, just that the science/religion orthagonality blurs where 'followers' place undue faith in theories which are ultimately just that - theories with little or incomplete evidence. Evolution was just the best example I could think of. As always, the debate/spray has been entertaining.

 

PS Cretin? Nice. Grow up.

[bstach]

as far as my own beliefs go, i am an agnostic. how can one reasonably adopt a stance other than this when it is simply impossible to know? maybe there is a form of knowing that i haven't experienced yet, so i must leave this door open....

I once met a guy who told me he was an "agnostic atheist". Which basically means he is an idiot that has no clue what either of those terms mean.

[Seahawks]

is this possible, certainly just look at Mt. Saint Helens mini Grand canyon. Point is no one knows, just guesses. every theory is possible.

 

Over 200 isolated outcrops of horizontally stratified, basaltic lava flows within the inner gorge of western Grand Canyon indicate that several natural "lava dams" blocked the flow of the Colorado River during the Pleistocene, resulting in the formation of several lakes within the canyon. The largest lake was 90 m above the high water level of present-day Lake Powell and backed up a distance of over 480 km to Moab, Utah . Although early studies indicated that three or less dams once blocked the inner gorge, work completed in 1994 indicated that at least 13 distinct lava dams may have blocked the Colorado River. Comparison with modern erosion rates of cliff retreat (Niagara Falls) indicate that the 13 dams would have required a minimum of 250,000 years to erode during the Pleistocene. However, geologic features and relationships not previously considered indicate that the dams formed rapidly (hours, days, or months) and failed catastrophically soon after formation. Excess radiogenic argon is contain within many basalts of Grand Canyon. This initial argon invalidates K-Ar model ages which are assumed by many geologists to require an age of more than one million years for the oldest lava dams. We envision that the entire episode of the lava dams can easily be reconciled within a time-frame of less than two thousand years. Our observations and interpretations reveal serious flaws in the current long-age time-scale of the Pleistocene Epoch.

[tvashtarkatena]

Scientist always think they're so smart, but are they? We've all got a gnome inside us? Come on. And how did they manage to lose most of the matter in the universe? Where'd it go? Did the gnomes take it?

 

Here's some damming scientific proof about the Grand Canyon put forth by scientists who can't get published because the science community doesn't want you to know the truth:

 

what the National Park Service doesn't want you to know

[Seahawks]

Funniest thing about scientists is one of the major laws they have. Something can't come from nothing. Well then what the hell was the big bang theory. Matter just came from nothing??? That makes fucking sense.

[underworld]

SC... some people see everything around them as proof of god (or a god)

 

you believe (without seeing it), i imagine...that there was some big bang or some other scientific explaination for the creation of what is around them.

 

others, while they might believe there is some scientific explainiation for the creation of all that is around them - also believe there is a higher power (god) that had a hand in it all too.

 

it's all a choice in what you consider to be "proof"

[tvashtarkatena]

OMG the Big Bang is such a joke! Excuse me for noticing, Dr. Gamow, that you weren't even BORN YET when the universe began. In fact, NO ONE was! Oops, didn't think of that? I didn't think so.

 

Besides, something can't come from nothing (One of the Major Science Laws), except on Spray, so that means that either something made itself from nothing before it even existed (I call that the Self Eating Watermelon Theory! Ha!), or that something was always here before something else, forever and ever. Is COMMON SENSE so hard?

Edited January 12, 2007 by tvashtarkatena

[sexual_chocolate]

 

You obviously studied very little science in your eductation. Let me explain what science is:

 

Science is man's effort to model the world based on observable events. This typically involves the proving or disproving a hypothesis by repeatable experimentation.

 

 

haughty!

 

i don't think "science" is simply an attempt to "model" the "world", using numerical and conceptual language; it's also the simple act of observation, and noting patterns and such, and noting how one observable event leads to another etc etc, very pre-lingual. i think the capacity for this in its most rudimentary level is an inborn capacity, notable in our animal brethren also. with our ability to abstract through the use of symbols, and develop a conceptual web at times entirely divorced from "observable" verification, i think "science" then can reach dangerously close to the very attributes of "religion" that it at times purports to revile.

 

plus there's always the possibility that one will, in a naive and blind-faith manner, cling to "science" in an infantile manner, simply touting one's faith without a deep understanding of what "science" really is. this prejudice is easily noted in our society, and certainly here on this bb?

 

 

[bstach]

"Geysers of Old Faithful: Nostrils of Satan"

 

"Science is the new religion". Discuss.

 

e.g. "Theory" of evolution taught as fact, despite significant gaps in the fossil record and supporting evidence.

 

 

True that, Evolution is taught as though it were a fact. Sort of like Gravity and all that other theoretical shit.

 

BTW, I nominate bsatch for cretin of the year award. Discuss.

 

You obviously studied very little science in your eductation. Let me explain what science is:

 

Science is man's effort to model the world based on observable events. This typically involves the proving or disproving a hypothesis by repeatable experimentation.

 

While you can apply this scientific method to both, only gravity is really practical for repeatable experiments, unless you have a few million years to run an experiment. Thus, historical evidence (i.e. fossils) must be relied upon. While gravity has been demonstrated countless times by repeatable experimentation, evolution has not. Thus I have a bit more certainty about the theory of gravity than about the theory of evolution.

 

And who knows, maybe current gravitational theory is wrong. Someone may come along and turn gravitational theory on its head, just like relativity and quantum mechanics turned Newton's Laws upside down.

 

ANYWAY...my point was not to try to convince anyone that evolution is BS, just that the science/religion orthagonality blurs where 'followers' place undue faith in theories which are ultimately just that - theories with little or incomplete evidence. Evolution was just the best example I could think of. As always, the debate/spray has been entertaining.

 

PS Cretin? Nice. Grow up.

 

BTW Crux, if you really believe science as produced comparable levels of proof for gravity and evolution, you're a perfect example of what I am talking about. Just keep on uncritically believing whatever the High Priests of the scientific establishment tell you.

[Seahawks]

OMG the Big Bang is such a joke! Excuse me for noticing, Dr. Gamow, that you weren't even BORN YET when the universe began. In fact, NO ONE was! Oops, didn't think of that? I didn't think so.

 

Besides, something can't come from nothing (One of the Major Science Laws), except on Spray, so that means that either something made itself from nothing before it even existed (I call that the Self Eating Watermelon Theory! Ha!), or that something was always here before something else, forever and ever. Is COMMON SENSE so hard?

 

LOL ever read the big bang theory or do you just take parts you want??? Big bang theory doesn't say there was something here before. Since your so smart you tell me where the matter came from??? It magically appeared??? Come on are you that stupid you can't open your eyes. Blinded by your text books. Talk about faith in something that is so stupid.

 

Bottom line is nothing can be proved and for every theory someone has another has one that is just as good. So either way you go Creation or evolution it takes faith for both. So pick a side and let hope your right. But to be as bold to say that one side has no validation is stupid. There is no abosulte proof for either.

[foraker]

Funniest thing about scientists is one of the major laws they have. Something can't come from nothing. Well then what the hell was the big bang theory. Matter just came from nothing??? That makes fucking sense.

 

Your infantile understanding of science, let alone astrophysics, is a an insult to infants. We'll not even get into your understanding of religion and epistemology. JayB has the right tack: ridicule you without getting sucked into a pointless, and ultimately fruitless, 'debate'.