Divine Intervention In Gambling?

Quote: Ayecarumba

Was there anything before "the loop"?

Possibly not, and I suspect science won't ever have a solid answer to this question in my life time.

Quote: Ayecarumba

MKL.. Wizard... What do you think is on the "other side"?

I don't disagree with what MKL just wrote. However, he evidently understands it better than I do. The best I can explain it is the universe is like a Felix the Cat cartoon, where when you reach the end, you start back at the beginning. Of course, I don't really know, but prefer the company in that camp, than say the camp that believes the universe is 6,000 years old and was created in six days.

God is going to alter your dice roll while he lets some starving baby die?

Quote: Ayecarumba

Was there anything before "the loop"?

Sure, there was the "Twister", the "Mad Mouse", and the "Plunge". Oh wait, we aren't talking about roller coasters.

If time forms a continuous loop, then there wasn't any "before" and there won't be any "after", at least as we understand them. And that means the Cubs will win another World Series after all, when 1908 comes around again.

Quote: mkl654321

The "space is curved" hypothesis is like the Mobius strip.

Oh, see here

Quote: Wizard

I don't disagree with what MKL just wrote. However, he evidently understands it better than I do. The best I can explain it is the universe is like a Felix the Cat cartoon, where when you reach the end, you start back at the beginning. Of course, I don't really know, but prefer the company in that camp, than say the camp that believes the universe is 6,000 years old and was created in six days.

It just strikes me as odd that one who puts faith in a theory because of its, "elegance", could not entertain the notion of a creator as the most elegant solution to the, "where did it first come from?" question.

Even Felix had Otto Messmer and Joe Oriolo.

If God knows what you'll be doing later, he can punish you before you even do it. This is why people are confused about justice and evil. God may burn down your house this year, for what you were going to do next year. It all works out in the long run though.

The best defense God came up with, is the thing about not testing him. What are you gonna do then? (well the Christian god, don't know about the others)

I'm going to get smited, any minute now.

Quote: JerryLogan

If you were to take off in a ship and go straight up and out assuming no personal or mechanical limitations, where would you be forced to stop....where does it all end? Is there a wall and if so, what's BEHIND that wall, and how far does that go on, then what's after that etc. etc. etc.? And no, those escape explanations saying you'd somehow end up going around in a circle means zero here because you couldn't explain what's on the other outer side of that "circle" and (same question) how far all that goes on for. Black holes lose out too because they have a beginning and an end, and what's behnd their end?

Not everything necessarily has a beginning and an end. That's just our inability to think clearly about the issues, which I admit is difficult because we are 3-dimensional beings and the Universe may not be. Did you ever read Flatland? Start here: WikiPedia article on Flatland

Consider a 2-dimensional being that can only perceive and operate in two dimensions. It can move forward, backward, left or right, but it has no concept of up or down. Now put it on a very large sphere. From its perspective, the sphere is an infinite universe. From our 3-D perspective it's clearly not, but we're not the one observing the sphere in two dimensions. Step up one dimension and you have us. And here's the rub: humanity operates in 3-D, and we didn't even acknowledge that the Earth wasn't flat until about 2500 years ago. And as recently as 400 years ago you had major religious movements opposing the publication of books on heliocentricity.

Point is, most of us don't even know what we don't know. It takes a bold mind to step back and admit it, and an even bolder one to go looking for new answers. If you want to believe in a particular religion, that's fine, but that's an entirely different issue that whether you understand science or whether science can yet explain the universe. It can't right now, but here's the problem with that science/religion dichotomy. At some point in the future, human science may indeed be able to explain the universe. If that happens, and that lack of explanation was your only "reason" for believing in the divine, what will you have left? Don't make your faith contingent on lack of human knowledge to date.

Also, a black hole doesn't have a beginning and an end. A black hold isn't a hole that you pass through. It's just a clump of matter so dense that no light is reflected from it.

I think we need some Insane Clown Posse (not work safe...) :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-agl0pOQfs

"F***ing Magnets? How do they work?"