Yeah, but that's only because the elderly bugs have gone there to retire.

I think the problem is partly shyness, but also that you can see a profile pic in the forums but don't learn anything about the person without going to his/her profile.

So, when someone visits your profile, they see that you're 40 (which for someone 23 might seem ancient), they see that you're from PA (which is quite a distance from CA, for example), they see that you're looking for a man for friendship (and maybe they want to date or are looking for a relationship), they see that you're divorced with kids living at home (might be a deal-breaker for some), they see that you're an occasional smoker (I'm somewhat allergic to cigarette smoke, and others probably are too or just don't like to be with a smoker), etc.

Also, you say in your profile that the person viewing should understand the list of phrases related to "the business." But I imagine there are lots of people who have no idea what those things mean -- me being one of them, unfortunately (though I have a guess, but can't make sense of all the phrases). You tell people that if they aren't in the business, they're likely wasting their time and yours; that may be a reason for not contacting you as well.

So, while some people are just looking for online friends, a lot of people are probably looking for a date or a serious relationship and are looking for someone in their general area, someone close to their age, someone with similar habits, etc. I think that's probably all there is to it for most who view your profile but never make contact.

Moondark:

There are a lot of men near your age who look younger — suffering from similar good genetics as you have — so you should be able to find someone who is outwardly compatible. The other direction to go is to find a younger guy who has done a lot with his life and has a more mature outlook for his age.

Ultimately, you are looking for a person, not an age. Good luck in your search.

raise : raze

sanction : sanction

Thanks everyone. She removed her mail settings, so the immediate problem is solved now. I wasn't sure if anyone else was having this problem or not, but it looks like it's already documented and the fix is planned for a future update. Many thanks!

Mike, Van, et al:

I have someone in my friends list (jUdEoUs_mAxiMoUs) who is accepting mail only from people who live within 50 miles of her and, consequently, I am unable to send mail to her. However, I thought people who were listed as friends were not restricted by those settings. Is there a delay between the time when a friend is added and when the restriction no longer applies? I requested the friend add yesterday, and she added me today. Can you help?

Thanks!

I don't want to get into a flame war about marriage — though it's not for me — but I don't agree that marriage:

1. increases sexual pleasure (as with all relationships, after awhile sex becomes stagnant and couples actively seek ways to "spice up" their love lives; peak sexual excitement generally comes early in any relationship and necessarily cools over time),

2. protects against feelings of loneliness (a bad marriage can actually heighten feelings of loneliness and isolation, and adds the additional discomfort of feeling trapped in that despair),

3. protects women from domestic violence (there are lots of abusive husbands, and abusive wives for that matter; a man who would abuse a woman before marriage won't suddenly change just because he's married),

4. enhances a parent's ability to parent (that makes a lot of assumptions about the partnership that have nothing directly to do with marriage, though I will agree that two _good_ parents in the same household helps with division of parenting tasks, scheduling, etc.)

5. helps create better or more reliable employees (this can really go either way, and it can make an employee less reliable especially if the marriage ends in a messy divorce; also, people tend to "check out" of their jobs for a month or two before the wedding, making them less productive; a good marriage can enhance productivity and reliability somewhat, at least early on, but a bad marriage can destroy a worker's ability to function effectively), or

6. increase individual earnings and savings (while some people become more driven to make money and spend wisely when they get married — to pay for a bigger home, to start a family, etc — the reasons for making more money tend to eat up the extra funds; household income certainly increases in most cases, but individual earnings and savings rarely increase due to marriage).

There are good marriages — I'm not arguing against that, and I am very happy for those who are happily joined in matrimony — but I contend that those same people would have good relationships whether they were married or not. Half of all marriages end in divorce, and that figure has been rather constant over the last several decades (though it's dropping somewhat recently, as is the marriage rate). Of the half of marriages that survive, a lot are unhappy (I don't have any statistics, but observation of married couples would indicate that the percentage is relatively high) and stay married for familial or financial reasons.

I think it is better to build a relationship with the right person than it is to have the supposedly "right kind" of relationship (i.e., marriage).

I have other objections to marriage that are more philosophical than pragmatic, but I'm quite certain nobody wants me to continue rambling about this topic.

I understand everyone's frustration, but imagine how frustrating it would be if there were no verification and spam-bots (automated software that scours the internet looking for places to post annoying promotions and links, often obscene web sites) were allowed to post without any obstacles. Such spam-bots are very sophisticated, to the point of having graphic recognition algorithms (which is why the letters and numbers are often so difficult for people to read, since the goal is to obscure the details from spam-bots). Without captchas (the name of those verification code programs), most of the sites that require signup would be overwhelmed with fake accounts, and public submission sites would become completely useless. It's certainly unfortunate, but it's the reality.

The real problem presents itself in accessibility issues. Vision-impaired individuals often rely upon text-to-audio programs to interact with the web, and these captchas cannot be read — preventing the vision-impaired from effectively using many web sites. Section 508 of the Disabilities Act protects the vision-impaired when it comes to accessibility to U.S. governmental and not-for-profit web sites, but does not apply to commercial web sites. (Some countries have enacted similar legislation that extends to commercial sites.) So, web site owners are faced with the difficult task of making accessible web sites while preventing spam software from overrunning them. Most site owners opt for spam prevention and forego the issue of accessibility entirely. There are audio captchas (but not in widespread use) that might provide an acceptable alternative — a barrier to spam-bots, but accessible if given audio and graphical captcha options.

I'm not sure this is a bug so much as an oversight, but logging out of the site doesn't automatically toggle one's online status. I didn't notice this before because I had the chat feature disabled and my online status was hidden, but since the change was made to enable the online status regardless of whether chat is enabled I've noticed that I can log out but my profile says I'm still online. It is still bound by the inactivity timeout (which appears to be about 30 minutes), but it would be better if logging out would immediately toggle one's status to "offline."

Thanks for your consideration.

I think what Mike and Van have done so far, with various aspects of the site, is great — and I had always wondered why the online status was tied exclusively to the chat feature — but I think adding a little further functionality would be helpful to many of us.

Having a separate option to hide one's online status would be very nice. I log in several times each day for only a minute to check messages, and it's very misleading if people think I'm actually online.

However, the real problem I've noticed is that I can actually log out — using the logout link at the top of the page — and it doesn't change my status. (I checked from another computer where I wasn't logged on.) I don't know exactly what the timeout period is, but it's at least 15 to 20 minutes of inactivity.

If adding a feature to hide one's online status is considered inadvisable or trivial by the owners (and I can see both sides of that argument), I would like to see at least a routine added to the logout process to kill the "online now" status immediately (so a one-minute message check doesn't make anyone appear to be online for an additional 15 or 20 minutes).

Thanks guys!

I taste what people write with my ears, and smell what they say with my sixth sense. Intuition gets _really_ tricky.

Going on a first date is like going to a job interview; your date, just as your potential employer, expects that you are doing your best to make a great first impression and that you are presenting yourself in a better light than you truly are. There is a subconscious adjustment that your date makes, knowing (or at least suspecting) that you put extra time into looking your best, that you probably have some canned topics for witty discussion, and that you will be more congenial on this date than you likely are at any other time in your daily life. If, however, you are entirely up-front about who you are (e.g., you show up looking like you would any other day after a hard day of work, you're a bit irritable, you swear impotently at the car that cut you off, etc.), your date is likely to figure that this is you at your best and that you will only get worse later (if that date were to actually develop into a relationship).

Basically, a first date shows us at our absolute best — whatever that might be — and that's what's being judged. It's sort of like going into an appliance store and seeing the oven display model that's never been used; it looks shiny and clean and would look great in our kitchen. If we had instead seen an oven that had been used for a year and had rarely been cleaned or maintained, we wouldn't consider that model for our kitchen.

My advice is for everyone to strive to be that display model; show your date that you clean up nicely, and that you can appear shiny and new. Your date knows that it's not going to be like that always and forever, but they want to know that it's possible.

That said, putting one's best foot forward isn't the same as lying. You don't want a relationship in which none of your perceived positive attributes exists. You're still yourself on that first date, only a better version of yourself.

That sums it up? Really? Do you believe that anything that's debated is useless? I didn't say that the entire issue is up for debate, mind you, merely that it is debated. Further, I didn't regurgitate Stephen Hawking's explanations, but discussed the nature of his work in such a way as to provide a response. To suggest that an explanation that includes information from outside oneself is somehow illicit is simply ludicrous. None of us truly has an original, unprovoked thought, and our knowledge as a race has significantly depended upon effectively using the knowledge of others from which to build.

The actual answer I offered is in the process — in the very fact that there is uncertainty and the leeway for debate — and that is the answer I provided to you. It is in the uncertainty that some theists believe they are justified in belief. That was my answer, which you continue to ignore.

You claim that I wish to engage in an endless debate about millions of unproven scientific theories. First, it's not millions of theories; it's only one question of singularity with two general options that speak directly to the question of first cause and have very specific conclusions depending on which is the case. I stated earlier, however, that neither option excludes anything in regard to an antecedent cause. You've ignored everything I've offered to help in understanding why or how theists might feel justified — using very real possibilities based on current data about the nature of causation (which is the question you're asking) — and then you accuse me of wishing to engage in an endless debate. And, regarding the "endless debate," following is what I said in my initial post:



I am not looking to debate you or anyone here. I truly thought you were seeking understanding and I hoped to help in that way. I was wrong, clearly. You need not waste any further time in responding to me, because I honestly don't care what you have to say anymore. I was willing to help when I thought that was what you wanted, but I won't continue to fuel your hostility toward theists or provide you with fodder to promote your own myopic world view.

--



Of all the things you've written in this thread, this is the only one that offends me. I haven't taken anything I've written in this thread from any other source except what I've learned over the last several years about the work of physicists and mathematicians, and nothing I've mentioned about that could be considered any sort of intellectual theft. Otherwise the thoughts are mine, and I have not plagiarized from any source or lifted my words from any other web site. As some here can attest, I try to provide sources if I'm using someone else's argument or when quoting a passage; and when I cannot because I no longer have access to my reference materials, I disclose that information as well.

I am explaining the _real_ argument, not the limited way in which you understand "believers' logic." You insist on refusing anyone's explanation and demand a "simple answer" to your "simple question." You don't want an answer, because the one I've provided is also the one that theistic and atheistic scholars are currently debating, yet you reject it as somehow being outside the parameters of your question.

When you assert that believers claim that "nothing can pop out of nothingness and had to be created," you are alluding to the law of causation — whether you acknowledge it or not. Even your wording — "pop out of nothingness" — suggests existence with beginning, exactly the subject with which the law of causation deals. However, each time I elaborate on the law of causation and explain why it doesn't apply to a concept of a God that has no beginning, you insist that the law of causation isn't relevant.

It has become clear to me that you are not interested in an explanation of belief or how people feel justified in their belief. You merely wish to argue. Most of what I have stated in my previous posts is directly relevant to your question and answers how believers can feel justified in their belief, and I've phrased the points three different ways because your responses led me to believe that I wasn't being clear enough in my explanation. Your refusal to accept any of what I've written, however, plainly indicates that you are uninterested in having a deeper understanding of theistic thought or how it applies to your question of first cause.

I am an atheist (or agnostic with atheistic components), as I stated before, and I tend to consider most theistic thought to be misguided, but not on this point. Many theists acknowledge the uncertainties, but feel justified in their beliefs because what they believe to be so is _possible_ or, in some cases, they believe it to be _probable_. That was the point I made in my last post, that many people feel justified for reasons of possibility, but are they even justified in such rationalization?

I now realize that you have no interest in engaging in a deep discussion, so I won't trouble you further. I do hope, however, that my words weren't entirely wasted and that someone here found my posts helpful and relevant in their own pursuit of understanding the concepts and problems associated with first cause.

(A friend of mine has/had a book on this subject, and it dealt pretty deeply [in part] with the philosophical concepts without getting deep into the mathematics. It was a bit biased toward theistic justification, but I found it interesting nonetheless. If anyone is interested in reading the book, I may be able to get the title and author's name from my friend and pass it along.)

Please, reread my post. I never said that everything was created. Further, the complicated concepts used in my reply discuss directly whether it is justifiable to believe in the possibility of a creator God. To reiterate the point that directly addresses your original question:

The concept you are indirectly referencing is one of first cause. The law of causation says that all things that begin to exist must have a cause. The law is worded this way because it deals with only those concepts of which we have empirical knowledge. We know nothing of the possibility or the nature of entities that have no beginning, and thus the law does not apply to such situations. Theists believe that there is at least one God, and that such God (or gods) exists outside of space and time in the ways we perceive them and has no beginning. If God exists and has no beginning, then the law of causation does not apply. The law of causation cannot be applied to something that has no beginning because we have no reference for such existence. The relevance of my original post is that it describes how scientists and theoretical mathematicians are attempting to illustrate whether our universe might have no beginning — which would be a remarkable discovery — essentially opening up the possibility that our universe has no cause.

If you want it in simpler terms, basically it comes down to whether anything with no beginning is possible. If yes, then an uncaused God is possible — just as an uncaused universe is possible. If no, then the universe needs a cause, but so does whatever caused it. I can't reduce the concepts any further than that.

Your question has been answered, but the logical inquisitive progression is, "is it justifiable to believe in something for which there is no evidence if it is merely possible?" That question works both ways, of course, because all the theories I've mentioned that result from the law of causation are nothing more than possibilities. We cannot even determine what the probability of these theories might be until we have considerably more knowledge — which may lie in the work of Stephen Hawking or his contemporaries.

funches: Please read the rest of my post again. (I know — it was very long and a pain in the ass to read the first time, but it covers most of the big concepts of first causation.) The question is neither a matter of simple logic, nor does a brief explanation cover the topic. I attempted to cover the basics in my response, but it is cursory at best. The gist of what I wrote is this: If our universe has a singularity (apex of creation), according to the law of causation there must be a cause. While that proves nothing further, many people hold to faith that God is the "uncaused cause." We cannot apply any knowledge of entities that have a beginning to potential entities that do not — we have no basis, no reference point. A singularity hasn't been proven or disproved, and what either discovery would mean is not entirely clear.

Most people believe something similar to what they were taught as children; many others rebel entirely and believe something vastly different. Very few people put a great deal of thought into what they believe, though many do put a great deal of thought into justifying their beliefs. The uncaused cause problem isn't really a problem in simplest terms. Some scientists theorize that the universe is a closed system with no beginning and no end, and they believe that to be a valid model (but with uncertain veracity). If they are right about the validity and wrong about the veracity, then it would be fully justifiable to believe in a God with the properties they are seeking within the universe itself. Therefore, believers maybe be justified in having hope that God exists, even if they are ignorant of what that justification entails.

I guess I'm concerned that the faith of others seems to bother you so much, to the point that you press hard for an answer from believers when there can be none. It's an approach that will encourage people to push back with similar force, but without really exploring the issues at hand. If you truly wish to enlighten the masses then hostile confrontation (while fun) is not as effective as leading by example. Being too aggressive will drive people away and turn them off to your ideas, but being open and helpful in your approach will lead to people asking questions of you and seeking your advice. You'll catch more flies with honey, my friend.

I'm sorry if I've missed any responses that cover the following, but I didn't see anything from my preliminary glance through the posts in this thread.

First, I don't think anyone is afraid to comment on this topic. Not everyone is well-versed in philosophy or capable of such thought. That's not a criticism, but merely a fact. Few people will be able to respond to your question in any meaningful way because the concept requires a deep understanding of philosophy and mathematics/physics.

Second, the argument is often erroneously stated as "everything that exists must have a cause." The actual concept is, "everything that _begins_ to exist must have a cause." The distinction may seem trite, but it's actually rather important.

The importance of this law of causation is thus: If the universe has no beginning, then there is no absolute requirement that there were a creator. If, however, the universe has a apex of origin (or a singularity, as it is known), then there must be an external source. The significance is twofold, of course, in that a created universe can have a creator (e.g., God) that has no beginning — and the law of causation does not state that an entity with no beginning necessitates a cause.

Stephen Hawking has worked out a theoretical mathematical model that describes our universe as having no singularity — in essence (and overly simplified), a closed loop. However, his equations are entirely theoretical and have not yet been proven with real data. Some claim that this disproves his theory, but what it truly proves is that our understanding of the universe is considerably deficient and that the very nature of existence eludes us. This topic is really the tip of the iceberg, and our knowledge of the universe hinges largely on the question of origin (or lack thereof).

The argument is flawed, however, when people take a rather large leap from the fact of our ignorance to assertions of fact. In particular, if there is a singularity, many people assume that God has been vindicated and that such is proof of God's existence. That's a premature conclusion, however. Other possibilities exist, including a death of one universe giving life to ours. I'm not suggesting that such a scenario is the reality, and to jump to that conclusion would be irresponsible, just as jumping to the conclusion of God as the source would be irresponsible. There simply is no evidence to support any particular theory without considerably greater knowledge.

Another flaw exists, however, in that people assume that the law of causation implies that an entity with no beginning is possible. That isn't what it says. In fact, it doesn't actually deal with any such topic. The statement is limited to what we know — items that began to exist — and what we can conclude from that knowledge. We do not have knowledge, directly or indirectly, of anything that never began to exist, so we don't know if such is even possible.

I am in no way qualified to discuss the mathematical theories behind what I've put forth. There are frustratingly few people in the world who understand that level of mathematics, and I'm certainly not among them. I understand the overarching theory, but even 20 years of intense mathematical study wouldn't bring me anywhere close to the level of understanding of which Hawking and his colleagues are capable. For any of us here to claim that we "know" much of anything beyond the details of our day-to-day lives is ridiculous.

Many will say that I'm being hypocritical because I label myself as an atheist, a view that clearly deals in absolutes. My atheism, however, deals with a very specific contradiction, as I see it, that precludes the existence of a man-conceived God (or gods), and I believe that there is nothing in any realm of existence that is without a rational, scientific answer. These topics get into a much longer conversation (or series of conversations) than I'm willing to begin here, but my point is this: I don't know what secrets the universe holds, or how many other universes exist or what foreign form they may take. To my insignificant mind, the wonders of all existence — no matter how scientifically logical and reasonable — would seem so magnificent that I'd be incapable of seeing them in any way except as metaphysical. Intellectually, I would understand that it's my own limitations that make it seem like a metaphysical, other-worldly existence. I would be tremendously arrogant to think that just because I don't understand how something is possible or how it works that it necessarily involves a metaphysical explanation.

I guess the actual point of my rant is to bring about a certain amount of tolerance in regard to these religious topics. Discourse is good and healthy and can bring us to deeper understanding, but many people don't discuss issues so much as debate with the goal of convincing others that they are right and others are wrong. None of us knows that what we believe is true, though the devoutness of faith of each person should not be questioned. Why do we continue to ask hostile questions, or present topics that state there are "questions that believers are afraid to answer?"

If any among us has every answer on ever topic, please stand up; I'm sure your knowledge will be in great demand. However, I'll be taking a seat.

Thank you DKW!



Well, not exactly, but I thought I'd poke my head out of the cave before returning to the never-ending project at work.

Wasn't it God who said, "I yam what I yam and that's all that I yam?"

A fellow, new to the neighborhood, is tending his lawn. In a matter of a few weeks, he's cleared out the dead undergrowth, seeded, fertilized, and watered the lawn, and planted some beautiful flowers. His neighbor sees him working his yard one day and remarks, "Golly! It's just amazing what you and the Lord have accomplished with this yard." "Yeah," the man replies, "you should have seen it when God was taking care of it all by himself."