6.9 recurring is the same as 7 in any real sense as you can't place a number between them on a number line.

Cosmological joke doing the rounds at the moment:
What's so unique about our universe? ... It's the only one string theory can't explain.

Subtract 6.9 recurring from 7 and you'll get the likelihood of god the creator.

Nice joke.

Here's half a joke for others to provide a punchline:

What did one creation scientist say to the other?

Q:What did one creation scientist say to the other?

A:Isn't it stupid how the evolutionists always change their interpretations when new evidence comes along?

I know it isn't funny, but it isn't funny on so many levels.

G’day Grim,

Thanks for the link. The article is obviously a popularisation of some experimental results confirming some conclusions of some new theory/model of the Big Bang. Since they speak about “time before the Big Bang” it looks like Roger Penrose’s recent model:

The word singularity is borrowed from mathematics and means a place in physical reality where (and beyond which) the accepted mathematical model offers no information; Penrose was apparently suggesting a different model, where this singularity could be avoided, and hence extend the meaning of our time beyond that what used to be just a singularity. This is how I understood his lectures of 2005 (http://www.cosmolearning.com/courses/roger-penrose-lecture-before-the-big-bang/) . See also http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2010/nov/19/penrose-claims-to-have-glimpsed-universe-before-big-bang.

Whatever the implications of Penrose’s model are, I think they can concern only our knowledge of the material world, which, of course, cannot stop - it did not in the past - some people make “spiritual” or other esoteric speculations based on new scientific theories and findings.

There will always be room for a God of the gaps, for those who wish to have a naive attitude to religion (either to embrace it or to disparage it), however for serious theologians, and I think also educated contemporary Christians, the God of the gaps argument is not something they like to subscribe to any more.

Hi Luciferase,

Sorry to have to repeat myself: I have not objected to what Krauss wrote (since I have not read the book) only to the claim that Leibniz (and those who referred to him) redefined Krauss. Of course, had you instead stated from the beginning that
>> Krauss … has been circumspect in his book about the meaning of “nothing”<<
I would not have seen a reason to object.

There are religious people who see “proof” of the existence of a Creator in various things - e.g. the laws of physics or explanatory gaps in contemporary science - where a contemporary professional philosopher/theologian would not use this word (only perhaps the highly subjective term “argument”), as there are people who see “energy” in various psychedelic situations where a professional physicist would not use the term.

Loudmoth,
You are certainly entitled to your beliefs, although the apologetic listing of a number of positive attributes of one’s world-view, followed by a list of negative attributes of the other world-view, reflects a rigid (even intolerant) attitude, irrespective of whether one starts from embracing some religion (runner?) or from rejecting some or all religions.

david f,
Sorry but I could not resist thinking of a person to whom all the talk about Hilbert spaces doesn’t make any sense because by “space” he could understand only the thing he was looking for when trying to park his car.

Dear George,

Of course stating positive attributes of one's beliefs and negative attributes of the other person's beliefs is a common way of arguing that I have been guilty of.

However, I really cannot argue against your relgious beliefs as they appear to be derived from mature reflection and do not deny the flaws of your side. It would be good if others on both sides of the divide were as rational.

We are not going to agree, but I appreciate our disagreements.

In a half an hour I shall be leaving for the Global Atheist Convention and will enjoy some of the company of the other attendees.