By Yaweh!

[Calum]

Dudes.

Here's the answer, seriously: http://www.polytheism.org.uk

why can't everybody be right? (that's rhetorical, i have heard the usual answers to this question and they are all too narrow for my liking)

on the other hand, i *am* open to hearing anything people have to say about god(s)!

[Calum]

free will...
the free will is the natural *next step* in evolution
there is nothing supernatural to it...

gracious! there's been a lot of discussion since i posted above (which was really a reply to the first few posts in this thread)

anyway, re: freewill, i coincidentally posted something about this in this thread, basically i just posted to an interesting link about freewill within christianity (amongst other things) but we've started a little discussion about it too.

and basically i think freewill depends on your point of view.

[Aloone_Jonez]

Umm, NO.  Radio/light wave propagation is something completely different than what I was talking about, and the statement that a steady-state E or H-field never changes is just plain wrong.  It changes with the velocity of the frame of reference.

A steady state E-Field looks like a combination of an E-Field and an H-Field from another velocity.  Likewise a steady state H-Field at one velocity looks like a combination of a steady state E-Field and H-Field at another velocity.  This is because E and H fields are not really separate entities, but are physical manefestations of one tensor quantity:  the electromagnetic field tensor.  The parts of the field tensor you "see" depend on your frame of reference.  

So your statically charged balloon?  It looks like it is emitting a magnetic field as well as an electric field if you are looking at it while travelling at relativistic speeds with respect to the balloon.  Likewise, your magnet has a static electric field under the same conditions.  It's wierd.  That's relativity.

Look at the nutshell version from Wikipedia.  It really doesn't go into enough information about relativisitic tensor transformations, but it's a start.

That makes perfect sense, it's how induction works, when a conductor is moved through an H-field a potential differance is induced in it causing an E-field to develop and the reverse is true with a static electric field. If you're standing still then the steady state H or E field will be constant but if you move nearer or further away from it, it varies as far as you're concerned anyway.

[mobrien_12]

That makes perfect sense, it's how induction works, when a conductor is moved through an H-field a potential differance is induced in it causing an E-field to develop and the reverse is true with a static electric field. If you're standing still then the steady state H or E field will be constant but if you move nearer or further away from it, it varies as far as you're concerned anyway.

You are confusing a time varying H field with a relativisticly transformed H field.  Induction, A.K.A. Faraday's law, is Maxwell's third equation.  The equations of relativity are what keeps all Maxwell's equations invariant under any velocity frame of reference.  

This example should illustrate the difference.

Induction:  You move a wire ring around a magnet.  This causes the magnetic flux through the wire ring to change with time, in turn causing a "curled" E-Field in the wire ring, generating an electric current.  The wire ring is moving, so it is experiencing the field at differerent distances from the magnet as it moves causing a time varying H field from the perspective of the wire ring.  

Relativity:  The wire ring is held stationary three inches away from the magnet.  The magnetic flux does not change.  

Billy is standing next to the magnet and "sees" only a constant, static magnetic field in the center of the ring.  

Mary is moving at half the speed of light, flying by the magnet and ring.  She looks at the center of the ring, and "sees" a constant, static, non-time varying magnetic and electric field.  This electric field is not curled (because relativistic transforms are linear) and does not induce a current in the ring.  Mary is not looking at the magnetic field at her position (which would definitely be changing because her position is changing, just as the ring's position is changing in the Induction example).  We are talking about the static fields at a fixed distance away from the magnet.  

Joe is moving at 3/4 the speed of light, and sees a different combination of static, non-time varying magnetic and electric fields at the center of the ring than Mary or Billy, because his frame of reference has a different velocity.

[Calum]

in the last page (this isn't directly related to the posts we've just had, i'm still backreading, in this thread, there's a lot to think about), somebody said that they thought the existence of a soul was scientifically impossible. I just wanted to say that to properly rule out the existence of something, you first need to define it. i am not convinced there's a scientific definition of soul which will enable science to completely rule it out. And if there is, then the definition is too narrow to encompass all the things a soul could be.

Basically, we have no idea really what a soul is (material/immaterial? physical/electromagnetic/extrasensory? etc etc) so how can we specify natural laws which completely rule out its existence? i think there are a lot of other things that are much more foregone that science is still keeping an open mind about, and i would like to think that the existence of a soul could be one of them.

I understand that the social connotations of the concept of a soul (or karma for that matter) might not appeal to somebody who is researching modern science, but this does not mean there's not some other branches of science, or other things we've yet to (or will never) discover which explains these things and more within a scientific context.

just a thought.

[Orethrius]

Absence of evidence need not necessarily be evidence of absence.  

[H_TeXMeX_H]

First ... sorry for ressurecting this thread ... in fact I hate this thread, but I just wanted to say that the theory I put in here was wrong ! It's paradoxical ... therefore incomplete or wrong.

Thus, there is only 1 other possible opiton ... that we cannot know what happens after death ... does this make me an agnostic ?

Sorry if this seems unimportant, but it's been bothering me all day, so I just had to say it

[piratePenguin]

First ... sorry for ressurecting this thread ...

I never saw what was wrong with ressurecting threads...

Thus, there is only 1 other possible opiton ... that we cannot know what happens after death ... does this make me an agnostic ?

Yep. Welcome.

[Pathos]

agnostics are people too scared to make up their own opinion

of course we can never know what happens after death only make a guess (and I left out 'educated' for a reason ).

And then fight over who has the best guess, and try convert people to our guess with pretty unconvincing data and agressive passionate baseless debate.

[H_TeXMeX_H]

How about there really is no way of knowing what comes after death, so we should STOP FIGHTING LIKE A BUNCH OF FUCKING RETARTED CHILDREN !!! No, I'm wrong, go ahead and kill each other and rid this cursed planet of the plague called man.