well said happy

Oh well, from a strictly rational point of view you can't prove that anything exists but your thoughts. Even your body could be, in theory, something that your brain misconstrues based on stimulus it produces itself or receives from external world. You can't rationally prove that the world (if there's such) exists as your brain interprets it. If you can produce realities when you are sleeping (dreams), why wouldn't they be produced when you're "awake"? The only thing that we can be fully certain that exists is our conscience, hence Descartes' "I think therefore I am".

The fact that terrible things are made in name of religion doesn't deny the fact that it can be beneficial and comforting to a lot of people.

Religion also works as a efficient and sofisticated means of social control (in the good and the bad senses), as does politics. It's a rule of nature that societies that create some kind of magical thought are more developed than those that don't. Religion (as much as modern politics -- the role of the modern 'ruler' is an heritage from religious authorities) teaches people to deal with hierarchy and justifies the domination of a minority (tribe chiefs and his 'bureaucracy') over the majority in a centralized organization. This new organization on a previously chiefless tribe enables better planning and resource allocation (it is more difficult to convince people to go to war if you don't have a coercitive power commanding them to direct resources at the effort), which in turn boosts the society's survival chances throughout times.

So yeah, cussing religion and saying it should be banned from society is pretty stupid. But religious ppl may be upset with me when i say that I regard their religion as much of a magical narrative as any other religion or other non-rational systems, like astrology or numerology.

heh, i didnt say you were praying to statues... and sorry about the misstep in saying you pray to saints. i still have issues with asking dead people to pray for you. but thats a minor issue compared to primary theology.

wtf you studied nuclear physics? in undergrad i did 4 years of particle physics research (way over my head mostly). but one of my pet peeves is how people take particle physics shit, like quantum theory, and try to draw metaphysical conclusions from it, and go all spiritual. wtf, its only meant to work on very small ranges and with tiny ass particles, not with your gayass interpretation of how spiritual things work. w/e.

my fave story from particle physics was how einstein had the biggest beef with quantum theory, and said one of his many quotable quotes, that God "doesnt throw dice". quantum theory has basic postulates that there is an inherent random number generator, but einstein strongly disagreed with a universe that operated on randomness.

(tangent: people LOVE to take einstein quotes way out of context. i hate christian scientists (ya, an oxymoron har har har) who misquote him all over the place to say he was a firm believer in God. this would make him turn in his grave, as he was a theist at best... "The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish.")

tangent over, in the end einstein proposed a bunch of gedanken-experiments that would prove that either he was right or quantum was right. they werent performable given the technology of the time, and were finally done after he had died a few years earlier, sadly. results: quantum rngs exist, and einstein crapped out.

well I wasn't studying nuclear physics. It was nuclear engineering, but the 1st three years are pretty close for the 2 programs.

By the way not being good with matlab made it really hard. Like seriously rediculously difficult. So much so that i decided to take a class on matlab this term

Also as far as Christ being an egoist: Assuming that he was everything that he says he was. I think you can't consider him an egoist.

Him saying he was the way to salvation would be fact from a strictly christian point of view. so therefor him saying so would be no more egotistical then him saying "I am the first male son of Marry"

dete dete dete
you should go to confession for misspelling mary. :D

also lol, cus im using matlab right now. just figured out how to convolve a 2d image with a gaussian. took way too long to figure that out, lol.

and philippians 2 basically states that jesus was the furthest from being egotistical as possible. so, i will quote the bible to prove the bible. YESSSSSSSSS

I actually dont adhere to the Confession doctrine of the Catholic faith. Although i do believe that God will absolve you of your sins if you ask and are truly repentent in your heart, I dont think it is required to confess them to a priest. Although I also don't think it hurts at all.

and yeah sometimes I get pretty sloppy with my spelling.