Mar 21 2013: Sounds good, but it's talking about fixing problems with a broken system. It won't work. It'll just make the wealthy, more wealthy. The only way to solve this problem is a fundamental culture shift where no one takes more than their fair share on their own volition, making available more liquid cash out there for people to earn themselves. As long as there are people out there like Bill Gates who believe it's ok to hoard all the money as long as you dole it back out to them when they hit the bottom, we will fail at the idea of philanthropy. Historically this type of shift has only come as a result of complete financial collapse or war. I don't know what to do about the problem either, but this is not it. You can not legislate this type of culture shift either. Seems to me we just have to wait for something to level the playing field for us. It's gonna hurt when/if it happens. Depressing...Maybe what he talks about is the best solution until we get "leveled", but that doesn't make me feel any better. It might even bring the collapse even faster...maybe that's a good thing.
Mar 16 2013: belief does not necessarily have anything to do with religion... faith does. I think you are looking for the difference between trust and faith. The difference between faith and trust (in my abbreviated opinion) is that trust can be very flexible based on evidence, whim, experience ,whatever. Faith is not so flexible. (very abbreviated). As far as how belief fits in there, both faith and trust are different ways to arrive at a belief.
Mar 15 2013: Science is just a process that doesn't actually make anything at all. It is a method used in creating testable, objective models to describe the world around us. Human beings using scientific methods and application of technology is what makes weapons. Likewise, I don't even think Dawkins would flat out state that religion "causes" war, and discord. What I get from Dawkins is that religion is just one of the most common excuses used to facilitate war and things like that. Maybe the more excuses we eliminate, the less chance there is for us to make choices like war. Your post is so broad ranging I think you need to ask more specific questions and narrow it down a bit if you want to get any answers that make sense. You tread into most branches of philosophy in one way or the other here.
Mar 15 2013: An objective definition of god that will be accepted by all is not possible I think. Same for "existence". Belief on the other hand is just a very strongly held opinion. I am not equating belief with faith by the way. They are two very different things.
Jul 30 2012: Just have to disagree. Sometimes "how" is the answer to "why" (if you catch my meaning). Understanding the math and the images/graphs/models is the closest you will ever get to "why". Quantum mechanics is counter-intuitive which is short hand for "it doesn't really make sense from our perspective with the senses that we have", so the math/picture is all we have. Douglas Adams touched on this with his answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything (which of course is 42). Of course this is not what Adams was really talking about, but clearly this is not a subject with easy analogies
Jul 20 2012: I think the only legitimate answer to this would be an equation or a set of equations. You have to understand the math to understand the only objective explanation.
Jul 8 2012: It seems to me that this diminishes the area that a god/gods could exist; makes it easier to explain the universe without the input of a creator. One more gap filled so to speak. It's preaching to the choir and will not really bring about a massive switch (or even a small one) to atheist thinking, but it's interesting news all the same. Of course, the higgs we have may not be the higgs we think we have. There is quite a lot more research to do
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