The Carrot & the Stick vs. Socialization


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The Lottery And The Fine Tuning Argument

To be clear, we are not certain the physical constants of the universe can vary and if they can, by how much. It is the assumption of those who use the fine tuning argument for God that they can vary by a great degree. Let�s assume they're right and, for the sake of argument, nail it down to five constants. The following compares winning the universal lottery to winning the actual lottery. To win a State lottery, one needs to match five specific numbers. For humans to live in this universe, it needs five physical constants to have specific values. If I alone play the only draw of the lottery ever allowed and I guess the five numbers at random, the odds of me winning the lottery are 1 in 100,000. If the only universe to ever exist forms randomly , the odds of that universe having the variables that support human life are 1 in 100,000. Can either scenario happen by chance? Yes, but I�ll grant that it�s enough of a long-shot to be suspicious that the lotto was fixed or the universe wa...
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#notworthfollowing

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It used to be that wearing a shirt with the headline �Atheist� was considered to be the gold standard in testing public reception of the label. Most of us never wore such shirts and assumed that non-atheists would be confrontational or, at the least, expect the shirt-wearer to be confrontational. Living in the bible belt, I get it. Don�t expect to see me wearing such a shirt to a job interview. Still, Americans came close to having our first non-Christian candidate for President this year with Bernie Sanders. This suggests that at least half the population of the US is more receptive than ever. So I made shirts. They aren�t as explicit as a shirt with the big block letters A-T-H-E-I-S-T. Think of them as part of a campaign. Each shirt displays a passage of the bible, not unlike a Christian wearing John 3:16 across their chest. The primary difference is that the passages available here are the parts of the bible Christians don�t advertise. They are about God commanding the murder of kid...
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The Evolution of Nothing

�Nothing� is a concept that has meant different things at different points of humanity�s understanding of the universe. When our planet was effectively understood as the universe, empty air space was reasonably defined as �nothing.� Upon discovery that space exists beyond our atmosphere, the meaning shifted to exclude air as now the vacuum of space was a valid option. The march of scientific discovery theorized magnetic, gravitational and other fields were �something� that may even correspond to particles that clearly aren�t applicable to the concept of �nothing.� And finally it was realized that space and time itself were dimensions that could conceivably not exist, which they wouldn�t in the case of a hypothetical �nothing.� One might think this speculative absence of everything would be the purest nothing to which both atheists and theists could agree, but of course it�s not. Modern physics has shown that quantum fluctuations can spawn temporary virtual particles out of even this �...
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