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LHC Finds HBP? Or at least...they think they did...Awesome if confirmed!

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IainB:
Of course, non-believers' belief (that god-believers' beliefs are metaphors only and not based in a factual God) is simply itself an opinion, because science and philosophy can neither prove nor disprove the existence of a God.

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Spot on.
There seems to be no proof that God exists.
There seems to be no proof that God does not exist - though Thomas Paine's biting criticism of the Bible and religion in "The Age of Reason" (Published in 1794 and 1796) arguably came pretty close.

My 10-year old daughter understands that to believe in God or anything else that you do not know for sure to be true (e.g., ghosts, invisible friends, fairies at the bottom of the garden, the emperor's new clothes) necessitates credulity and the suspension of reason. Despite that, she understands when I tell her that that some people do not believe in the god(s) of religion or myth, but yet have apparently had a direct experience that enabled them to know that there is something (e.g., typically: it felt like pure, unconditional love, and maybe it's "God", and that it has always loved us, is loving us now, and always will, for every moment of our existence).

This kind of direct experience or revelation has been relatively well-documented. Maybe some of these people were hallucinating and "hearing voices", but it seemed real enough to them. For example, Saul's conversion on the road to Damascus (New Testament, Acts 9), where he - a non-believer full of hatred - had a vision of Jesus Christ.

Who is to say that a person's direct experience - which you cannot share directly as he did - is valid/true or not? To say it were either thing (i.e., valid/true or not) would seem to be irrational in itself. How could you possibly know? We are irrational by nature and so we tend to form an "opinion", to which our ego becomes attached and causes us to stick by that opinion and defend it to the death.

This is why I made this post in a separate thread about the Higgs Boson:
Yes, I found this about the theoretical Higgs boson in Wikipedia:
SpoilerThe Higgs boson is a hypothetical massive elementary particle that is predicted to exist by the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics. Its existence is postulated as a means of resolving inconsistencies in the Standard Model. Experiments attempting to find the particle are currently being performed using the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, and were performed at Fermilab's Tevatron until Tevatron's closure in late 2011. Recently the BBC reported that the boson will possibly be considered as "discoverable" in December 2011, although more experimental data is still needed to make that final claim.

The Higgs boson is the only elementary particle predicted by the Standard Model that has not been observed in particle physics experiments. It is an integral part of the Higgs mechanism, the part of the SM which explains how most of the known elementary particles obtain their mass. For example, the Higgs mechanism would explain why the W and Z bosons, which mediate weak interactions, are massive whereas the related photon, which mediates electromagnetism, is massless. The Higgs boson is expected to be in a class of particles known as scalar bosons. (Bosons are particles with integer spin, and scalar bosons have spin 0.)

Theories that do not need the Higgs boson are described as Higgsless models. Some theories suggest that any mechanism capable of generating the masses of the elementary particles must be visible at energies below 1.4 TeV;[4] therefore, the LHC is expected to be able to provide experimental evidence of the existence or non-existence of the Higgs boson.

Interestingly, there are apparently two groups of scientists:
(a) Higgs: those scientists who are believers in the SM (Standard Model) predictions and who apparently:
... expect the LHC experiment to be able to provide definitive experimental evidence of the existence of the Higgs boson.
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and

(b) Higgsless: those scientists who are non-believers in the SM - and who thus hold instead that the HM (Hiiggsless Model) is the Truth and who apparently:
expect the LHC experiment to be able to provide experimental evidence of the non-existence of the Higgs boson.
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Scientists! They're a funny lot aren't they?     :huh:

I don't know how many of either group might be climate scientists.
-IainB (December 08, 2011, 06:26 PM)
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IainB:
Interesting blog post here from one Luboš Motl, a scientist (physicist) in the Czech Republic:
Why the God particle is an accurate term

kyrathaba:
Love his tongue-in-cheek "translation" of the Bible into HBP-speak  :P

IainB:
Yes, I think that's what they call "Taking the Mickey", isn't it?
The rest of his blog makes for interesting reading too.
He doesn't mince his words.

mahesh2k:
5th Comment explains exactly How I see this research as of now.

This comment was epic   ;D

reader Edstock said... ►6
Seems like God lost His marbles.
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