@K9Kohle789 'A' is the same as 'B' only if 'A' signfies the same quantity and quality as 'B'.

Wrong

do you have evidence to support your argument?

@MsDemeanourall gods were all created by humans, plain observation of history, go as far back as you want, all the way back to the paleolithic about 200,000 years BCE, who had bear idols, fertility idols, go through the neanderthals about 100,000 years BCE with more figurines of deities, the sumerians, the egyptians, the greek, all created their own versions of gods, which were many the basis for the creation of the jewish god, and so on and so on, until the more modern religious crap invented by men, like the mormons, the scientologists, etcetera, all man made, all of them without exception. That is my incontrovertible evidence. Do you have evidence to prove me wrong?

@TaylorWalston -- True enough when employing the narrow definition of religious, but other connotations of the word suggest holding to ideas in spite of evidence, being rigid in one's stance, unyielding, intransigent, rigid adherence to schedules/habits. Holding absolute ideas.

@evidentialist That's why I emphasize provisional certainty. Rigidly holding to one's stance in the face of a terrific onslaught of bad evidence, should be admired. The problem is when you get labeled with all the baggage you are mentioning while attempting to demonstrate why the evidence is bad, overstated, and often misleading. So we have to be careful about accepting this as valid criticism, when the desired goal is to get you to accept that same bad evidence because.. well... maybe.

it isnt Unknown God for nothing either, i am fairly convinced

I am not even convinced that absolutes exist there either.

@Archeus_Lore You have a point: someone says 2+2=4 and I say what do you mean by 2? What do you mean by +? What do you mean by =? What do you mean by 4? These are not trivial questions when you look into it. You can spend an entire lecture defining zero (my lecturer did, and even then he may have simplified it a bit).

@K9Kohle789 Yes, it is semantics. It doesn't matter in everyday life. But it's important if you want a deeper understanding of mathematics.

Okay, so in your opinion "absolutes do NOT exist outside mathematics" correct?
Then what about Physics for example?
How about Newton's Laws of Motion for example?
And, how about the forces and actions of Gravity for yet another example?
Lets us, for a moment consider Gravity, that force that keeps everything on this planet from merely drifting off through the atmosphere and into space.
I drop a 5 kilogram Lead ball from a height of 30 feet above the ground, there are no obstructions to hinder what ever progress it makes BUT it falls directly towards the ground below, i.e. the Absolute reaction of one smaller body being attracted by the Gravitation force exerted by a larger body upon the smaller one.
Yes, chances are that the Lead ball will REBOUND upon impact BUT only to a certain and small degree simply because, and here comes yet another ABSOLUTE btw, the Inertial energy stored within the Lead ball is converted to Kinetic energy at impact thus producing the recoil/rebound effect.

@Triphid I do not agree that any of those things are absolute. They are all subject to revision (and in many cases have been).

@Coffeo So, am I right in assuming that even Gravity has been 'reviewed' and found wanting then?
And how about the Laws of Motion, have they also been' reviewed and found wanting as well?
Has anyone bothered to tell Gravity that it has been wrong for billions of years?

@Triphid Gravity, yes. Laws of motion, not as far as I know.

@Coffeo ha i just saw a lecture on "nothing," which is apparently a virtually impossible state to manifest, ya

@Triphid gravity has undergone a revision in understanding in the last fifty years--we no longer believe in some "mysterious force that attracts," but rather "spacetime gets warped," and we are struggling right now with the "laws" of motion, which do not work at very small scales

@Coffeo

@bbyrd009 Yeah right?

@bbyrd009 The gravitation effects of an object are greater in a kind of equilibrium with the size, weight and dimensions of the object that exerts its gravitational pull, etc.
Ergo gravity does cause time and space to 'wrap' just as would the surface of a cup of water be 'warped' when an object, a stone for example, is held, suspended, and just slightly touching the surface of the water.
But that does NOT mean that gravity/gravitational attraction does NOT exist between objects, for example, the moon exerts its much weaker gravitational pull on the water covering the seas and oceans thus influencing the tides, the gravitational pull of Earth tries to keep the moon from flying off into space BUT the moon's gravitational force also tries to negate the pull of Earth's gravity hence every so often the moon moves just a few centimetres further away from the Earth and has been doings so for millennia and will continue to do so.

@bbyrd009 Al-Khalili is an excellent presenter.

@Triphid "But that does NOT mean that gravity/gravitational attraction does NOT exist between objects, for example, the moon exerts..." hmm, you think? those can't all be accounted for by a gravity well scenario iyo?

@Triphid Also, your explanation of the increasing distance between the Earth and the moon is incorrect. It is a tidal effect, nothing to do with 'trying to negate the pull'.

@Coffeo Firstly, do a wee bit of checking because,
A) The Moon is slowly moving away from the Earth as PROVEN by the N.A.S.A. via the usage of a Laser and a reflective surface placed on the moon by the Apollo missions.
E.g. the Laser is fired from an independent Observatory, timed and the resultant return ( reflection) time is recorded and then the distance is calculated. This HAS been going on since the late 70's btw.
And YES, the Moon, just like the Earth, varies in its relative distance/s from the sun as with the Earth and the Moon with the Earth in its orbit around the Earth.
B) The Moon affects tides as does the Sun and also the juxta-positioning of both the Sun and Moon creates tidal effects on the oceans and seas.
C) As we humans discover more and more about the nature of the Universe from we evolved, Yes we are discovering newer and interesting things in regards to gravity, which is great news btw, BUT the very basics of Gravity will always remain the same in that it is a force of attraction between objects, be the huge and massive or as small as grains of dust.

@bbyrd009 You do realize that it IS a fallacy that Ostriches hide their head in the sand when confronted or afraid don't you?
Having said that, I often wonder when some people will actually evolve enough to realize the same as the Ostriches did.

@Triphid Yes, the moon is moving away from the earth. I never said that it wasn't. Your explanation for it was wrong, though.

@Coffeo Er, excuse me but did you not state that " also, your explanation of the increasing distance between the Earth and the Moon is INCORRECT"

@Triphid Yes. Please read more carefully what I said. The moon is moving away from the Earth. The reason you gave for it was wrong.

@Coffeo Oh please feel most free to expound your theory/s to me and perhaps the Scientific communities as welll.

@Triphid These are not my theories. Look them up for yourself.

@Coffeo Oh I have btw.
I'm wondering what will be next to come up.
Will it be the old one of the Flat Earth resting upon the back of a giant Cosmic Turtle as orbits an equally flat Sun perhaps?

@indirect76 -- If holding such an idea can be shown with adequate rigor to be irrational, the judgment of its irrationality is one thing. Once having determined an idea is irrational, the judgment whether it is bad or good is quite another and adequate evidence of its qualities related to the culture must again be presented. Since such an idea is completely personal, it is not my position to judge its qualities. Whether valid is left to science to discover. So far, it appears you might be right in your assessment.

@Triphid -- I understand what you're saying, but that's not what is meant in the post.

"...ranks of the religious is incorrect since religions cannot an[y] will not change..." is what is meant by absolutes. Anyone who holds any ideas in their head as absolute has indeed joined the ranks, because absolutes are not subject to change. I'll state it another way: If one holds an idea with great confidence but amends that idea with the arrival of new evidence, then that idea that was held in great confidence was not an absolute. It was subject to change.

One of the questions I like to ask believers when they want to engage with me is, "Is it remotely possible that what you believe is wrong?" Their response sets the tone for the encounter. If they say no, the conversation is over. If they say yes, we have room for discussion.

@evidentialist Well now, try to see it from my side if you can.
After the best part of a Decade of studying Theology and Comparative Modern Religions, I gained my ThD.
I started studying as a Life-long Atheist, remained an Atheist all the way through and am still an Atheist.
Why, you may ask?
Well,

1. because I wanted to know as much or more than the Believers do or think they do,
2. I wanted to seek out, understand, IF at all possible, any tangible, irrefutable evidence/s that prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that this Omnipotent, etc, etc, God they talk of exists/existed,
3. to be more able to debate with the Believers both on their own terms and my terms as well and instead of having THEM try to dazzle me with bullshit, have me befuddle them with proven, conclusive facts and evidence from their own book.
   Now, 7+ years of Studies, 10 more years of reading, studying, etc, etc, and STILL NO evidence/s can be produced to support even 1 single word of their assumptions and beliefs no matter how hard their vaunted 'Biblical Scholars' and "Biblical Archeologists scrabble through the accumulated dust of centuries passed there is still NO evidence, ergo their assumptions, etc, are totally unfounded, unprovable and their God is 100% Non-existent and has NEVER been existent.

@Triphid -- I have no trouble understanding your position. Mine is similar, but with a nuance to keep it honest. You see, lack of evidence says nothing specific. Though through my studies and experiences over my life I have failed to find anyone or anything that provided real evidence regarding the deity the believers rale about, I must also realize that I do not know all there is to know, that I could be wrong. Now, in spite of the fact that I think the odds of my being wrong about this are infinitesimal, there must remain that element of doubt. Not the kind of doubt that upsets my dinner, curdles my milk, or even gives me reason for pause, but that sliver of doubt that makes my position rational and not rigidly religious.

@gater -- You, sir, belong to a large group. That group, of course, quite likely has as many different ideas about the true nature of time and space as there are electrons in the Universe. I, unfortunately, do not have sufficient knowledge to be certain of the true nature of time and space -- or much of anything else, for that matter. My quest is to attain such a stature, but I have not yet arrived.

@Alienbeing -- Sorry, but the colors of roses are subject to change. Not that they will change in your lifetime, but change they will. You may see them as absolute for your time and space, but they are not absolute. As witness to that, many of the colors we see in roses have been introduced through breeding. Anything subject to change is not absolute. There are indeed some constants in science, but they are few.

@evidentialist Try to read with comprehension. I never said or implied colors don't change I SAID all colors exist. That is the absolute.

@Alienbeing -- lol ... What you said had nothing to do with colors exist. You have also misconstrued with what is said both in the meme and its introduction. The absolutes referred to are ideas, not things. For example, in dealing with things it can be said with accuracy that we are absolutely all essentially empty-headed. It cannot be said with accuracy that we are all stupid, which deals the thought and function. When it comes to ideas, the statement, "There are ghosts," begs the person making such declaration provide evidence. That is the nature of skepticism. On the other hand, holding to the idea that there are ghosts in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary is an absolute of the type to which I refer. If one cannot allow the possibility that this idea may not be true, than that person holds the idea religiously as an absolute.

@evidentialist lol all you want to, I proved my point, your inability to understand or your stubbornness is irrelevant.

Fade away to stop illustrating your ability to be strange.

Bit of a stretch to pull those two ideas into the same barn, but yeah.

ha you might be surprised how surprised you might be, dp
see yourself speaking in absolutes yes? no?
i don't know

@t1nick -- If something can be amended, it is not an absolute. For example, I would very much like to see our species spread through the galaxy. If I set out to do that tomorrow, I am doomed to fail, but that in no way says that if someone sets out to do that a couple of hundred years into the future is doomed to the same failure. Not an absolute.

I know the definition of absolute. A few physics standards are thought to be absolutes. But as I posited above, some of those phydics absolutes are conditionally absolute. Lol