@losttribe04:

Meijing,
I’m not trying to argue with you (you’re a lawyer come on who would win this debate?)  but the way I have always seen it is you need faith to believe in God. You also need faith to believe there is nothing. That’s just gospel according to me but I’m curious as to what you think of that as I have never met an agnostic before. I live in northern NY where our diversity mostly consists of tall white Catholics, short white Catholics, fat white Catholics and thin white Catholics. (No I’m not a Catholic, I’m a Mormon. Although to be politically correct I should say I’m LDS but most people don’t know what that means)

-LT04

You need faith to believe in God, but you need doubt to not believe in God. Not believing God does not mean, to be sure, that he does not exist, but to be not sure, that he does. Giving up religion means embracing doubt. This probably sounds awful for a religious person who was brought up to believe that you need to be absolutely sure about something, but in fact it is not.

@froodster:

In Bible College I grew increasingly unconvinced with the faith, but only 10 years later after lots of struggle did I come out and declare myself agnostic to my family. Fortunately, they still love me. I just worry that they will try to brainwash my kids.

Well, this prompts me to tell the story of another life.

As those who remember me from the time I used to post regularly on this board might now, I’m German. I grew up in a very religious family and there was a time I really believed in God, Jesus and the devil, who scared the hell out of me. My family is catholic, but my mother is active in the charismatic movement. I’ve been to religious gatherings and once I was even made evangelizing people on the street (I despise people misusing their children for such purposes). But the older I got the more I realized, that faith is nothing real, it doesn’t support you. I became more and more depressed, I couldn’t imagine living without some kind of religion. Around 17 I started to drink, a lot. I don’t think I ever was an alcoholic, as today I have no problem with drinking just one glass of wine. But one day at age 20 I woke up in a hospital after passing out the night before. After that I had a huge hangover, not only from alcohol but from religion as well, everything I used to believe in fell apart. I realized, that an omnipotent being couldn’t be at all like the God portrayed by the Bible. How could such a being change its mind after drowning every being but those on the arch. I pretend that I still believed in some kind of God, as I still believed that there is a need for a meaning of live. But finally I realized that this is bullshit. You don’t have to rationalize everything you do. There is no need for a reason to do good things instead of bad. Do you really think, the only reason not to molest a child is because you would be punished in hell? Haven’t you noticed how good it feels to help someone? Anyway, when I let the last remains of my religion go, I felt a burden go away.

Soon afterwards I started studying physics at university. i got a “Vordiplom” in physics (somewhat comparable to bachelor) and shortly after that a “Vordiplom” in mathematics. After that I spent one year in the USA studying math. It was a cake walk. I took the hardest courses which were offered, and they were still easy. I got the impression, that the science education in the USA sucks. There are very few very exceptional universities, but the rest is just crap. I was horrified how little the engineering students knew about math. Just to make it clear, scientific research is rather good in the USA, there is more money than in Germany and many foreign professors move to the USA. But this is threatened by the current cultural climate.

When I came back to Germany, I was a little bit shocked how hard things had become again. It took me longer to finish my studies than I had hoped and expected, in fact my final exam will be this Tuesday.

P.S.: Christian family values? Read Mathew, 10:34ff to learn what Christianity does to families.

@rjclayton:

So Meijing, this is nothing but poor notation?

I decided to elaborate, why x -> -0 is poor notation.

First let’s see what this notation is supposed to mean.

The limit expresses the behavior of a function as its parameter approaches a given value. The function defined by f(x) = (x*x)/x + 1 is not defined for x=0 but f(x) = x + 1 for any other value of x. If x is close to 0, f(x) = x + 1 is close to 1. This behavior is written as f(x) -> 1 for x -> 0 or lim(x -> 0)f(x) = 1.

As an other example we will pick the sign function, which is defined by
sign(x) = -1 if x is negative
sign(x) = +1 if x is positive
sign(0) = 0 (which is just mentioned for completeness, but isn’t relevant in this context)

In this case there is no definite behavior for values close to 0. For any x (not equal to 0), no matter how close it is to 0, sign(x) can be +1 or -1. sign(x) does not approach a definite value.

But if we only consider, such values close to 0, which are smaller than 0. There is a definite behavior. For these values sign(x) = -1. If we consider values close to 0, which are greater than 0, sign(x) = +1. There is some definite behavior of sign around 0, but only if we distinguish between approaching the number from the left and approaching it from the right.

x -> -0 is supposed to mean approach 0 from the left. But this is poor notation, as it not possible to use it for other numbers but 0. x -> -1 doesn’t mean approaching -1 (or 1) from the left, but approaching -1 from any side.

A better notation would be x -> 0-, as this notation can also be used for -1 and +1 (x -> -1- an x -> 1-). There are other notations which are even better but impossible to write using BBCode (I hope this link will continue to work).

@Jennifer:

Of course, Switch’ll probably delete this.  Probably pretend it’s a flame, but it’s not.  It is a sincere thank you to those of you who have decided that my arguements are so strong you have to attack my character, not my arguement.

@Jennifer:

I’m not going to get into a debate about the function of zero with a man who’s highest level of math was maybe Calculus II.  Sorry.  But you just don’t have the ground work to have the debate.  Come back after you take Multilinear Equations and Logic I and II.

Do you call such statements arguments? Come on, I’m calling your bluff. Let’s see how strong your arguments are.

@Jennifer:

Nah, we lost Vietnam because the Democrats, under the advisment of George McGovern I believe, ordered a surrender and an all out retreat to American soil where they proceeded to spit on our soldiers, call them baby killers, and deny them employment forcing them to become one of the largest segment of the homeless in this country.

If we had, instead, pulled Washington DC out of the war and allowed the soldiers to fight the war, we might have won.  He may have still lost, but we would have had a much better chance if our soldiers in the field didn’t have to make contact with the enemy, call DC for permission to shoot at the enemy, wait 48 hours for a response and then move in only to find the enemy left 3 hours ago.

I told you, I find this point of view quite interesting. There was a similar point of view in Germany after the first World War which is now called “Dolchstoßlegende”.

P.S.:
I wonder why you don’t respond in the Real Fuzzy Math thread.

@Jennifer:

Anyone else getting tired of the same people demanding ungodly amounts of proof over and over again instead of just posting their own arguements?  It’s almost like a concerted effort to discredit a person through incessent demands for proof instead of through facts and sources of their own.

Just seems a little redundant lately.  No matter what you post, 3 people (the same three every time) will demand you cough up 30 sources they cannot impeach and then they’ll just say “you’re wrong” without posting a why they THINK you are wrong.

After all, who cares about the truth when all you have to do is say “you’re wrong, I’m right, and if you don’t think so, find a dozen sources to support your claim” then when they do, you tell them the sources are faulty and make them find sources to support their sources as not being faulty.  This can go on forever without a counter statement from the people saying you are wrong.

So is that how you win debates now?  You just keep demanding unreasonable demands until the person - who is correct - just tells you to blow it out your nose?  That how some people feel superior so they can sleep at night?  Does that take away the disgrace of being absolutely, and totally wrong in your ideology so you don’t cringe when you look in the mirror?

You cannot win in an online debate. You might hope to get some insight in how the other person is thinking. But that’s it. When I posted regularly on this board I was surprised, that there are Americans who actually think they won the Vietnam war. I’ve told this story multiple times since then, and the people here in Germany were quite surprised to hear that. And it’s very interesting to see, that even after the last 4 years, there are still some people around who think, Bush is a good president. If the scandal at Walter Reed didn’t convince these people otherwise, nothing I can say will.

@Jennifer:

Hmm, if that’s so, I feel sorry for you.  Anyway, I don’t feel the need to post multiple sources for everything anymore.  I think one source is all I’ll be posting.  Spending way too much time on this with multiple sources being checked in quadruplicate.  I actually got less then a 100% on my last math quiz.  REALLY irked me.  And it was something COMPLETELY stupid too. (I forgot the polarity on a variable. A mistake everyone has made at least once in their life to my knowledge.  And no, I won’t provide a source for that unqualified statement.)

I really wonder what level of math you are talking about. Real math with proofs or just some higher calculus?

Just out of curiosity, I would like which of the following question you can answer.

• What are uncomputable numbers, and how can they be proven to exist?
• Can you name an infinite dimensional vector space and its basis?
• What is the universal property of the tensor product?
• What is the difference between an adjoint operator and a symmetric operator?

@rjclayton:

So Meijing, this is nothing but poor notation?

@Baghdaddy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E2%88%920_(number)

Or are you saying in math there is no such thing as -0?

Let me quote this article:
@Wikipedia:

In mathematical terms there is no concept of a negative (or positive) zero, and −0 is identical to, and represented as, 0.

In math there is no difference between 0 and -0.

There are ways to express infinitesimal numbers below or above 0, with nonstandard analysis or dual numbers. But in either case -0 = 0 = +0. The most common way to express an infinitesimal small number below 0 would be 0 - a·dx, which is not equal to -0.

Floating point numbers can only be used for numerical approximations. The plain outcome of some calculation doesn’t mean anything. You have to check your algorithm to determine the error margin. Check (1.0e100 - 1) - (1.0e100) and look at the sign bit of the result. Does it tell you anything about the sign of the real outcome? The floating point “number” “Negative zero” is nothing but a strange consequence of using a sign bit to differentiate between positive and negative numbers. In the case of 0 there is nothing to differentiate between, but the sign bit wont simply go away.

Jennifer is wrong. 0 does not have a sign.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sign_function
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Sign.html

0 is neither positive nor negative.

x -> -0 is nothing more but a bad notation.

@Jennifer:

I’m not going to get into a debate about the function of zero with a man who’s highest level of math was maybe Calculus II.  Sorry.  But you just don’t have the ground work to have the debate.  Come back after you take Multilinear Equations and Logic I and II.

So how about getting into a debate with someone who has taught Multilinear Equations. May I assume you know about the following mathematical concepts:

• Some basic group theory (uniqueness of the neutral element).
• Polynomial rings and quotients over some ideal, especially R[T]/(T^2), the space of dual numbers.
• Complex analysis including the complex plane and its one point compactification, the Riemann sphere.

I congratulate all US Americans for their new Congress and Senate.

@Wargaming_nut:

Not to derail the thread, but Mejing, there’s no serious controversy among historians that the figure Jesus did exist; whether he was who he said he was, etc., can be debated, but his existence is incontrovertible…

A lie is a lie. Whether its the topic of the threat or not I will point it out. There are no independent Roman sources on Jesus.

It think it is likely that the figure of Jesus is based on a historic person, but that’s pure speculation.