Do I understand correctly that they haven't actually fused anything yet, just verified that the stellarator can power up without immediately exploding?
What's special about the Wendelstein 7-X? I know stellarators as a concept aren't new. Is this a significant result, or is it just a handy opportunity for a media event?
Cliffnote version is: stellarators are hard/expensive to build. The test run shows this one seems to be built correctly.
Simplifying a ton one could compare the two competing designs as follows:
stellerator: harder to build, easier to run (and more efficient)
tokamak: easier to build, harder to run (and less efficient)
Due to the first property, there are more tokamaks around and showing basic functionality for any stellerator is a good/important step.
Edit (relevant quote from the article):
"""Although there are about a dozen stellarator experiments around the world, including in the U.S., Japan, Australia and Europe, scientists say the Greifswald device is the first to match the performance of tokamaks."""
The number of functional stellarators is rather limited, so getting it built is a success in itself. W7-X will be the largest of the bunch and is supposed to sustain plasma for up to 30min (for comparison, the record for tokamaks is 6.5min, and ITER will only add a minute or two to that).
I don't think they generated any fusion reactions, I believe they used just natural Hydrogen rather than Deuterium and Tritium (which would normally be used for fusion fuel). Also, magnetic confinement fusion reactors don't explode, they are like pencils balanced on their points, when something goes wrong or they "lose containment" the pencil falls over, the fusion conditions dissipate and reactions stop. This test was just one step along the way of verifying the plasma dynamics and heating capabilities of the system, it'll be a while before they do fusion reactions, and it will never produce energy from fusion. But be aware that making fusion reactions happen is easy, it's the matter of creating a self-sustaining fusion reaction that's hard.
In magnetic confinement fusion there is a big problem of confinement stability. You are trying to confine a plasma, which is electrically charged and thus an electrical conductor. Electric current generates a magnetic field. This is actually made use of in tokamak designs, which are the most straightforward magnetic confinement systems. However, tokamaks suffer from a fundamental flaw, that plasma current produces a feedback instability loop making it very challenging to attain plasma confinement longer than a few seconds or minutes. That's problematic because the shorter lived the fusion plasma is the more the initial (externally produced) heat as a proportion of the total cumulative heat of the plasma over its lifetime adds up. Short lived plasmas don't spend very long producing fusion heat to "pay back" the energy used to heat up the plasma to fusion conditions to start with.
A stellarator is basically a way to twist the magnetic fields around the fusion plasma tube in such a way so that the trajectories of ions in the plasma will stay inside the confinement volume, without requiring any current in the plasma. This makes the system potentially much more stable but at the cost of a very much more complex arrangement of magnets. The longer the plasma can be confined the longer fusion reactions can be sustained, making it easier to generate more power than was put in to raise the plasma to fusion suitable conditions (high density, high temperature).
> This is actually made use of in tokamak designs, which are the most straightforward magnetic confinement systems.
Wrong! The most straightforward magnetic confinement systems are :
- Simple toroid design -> Have some flaws that make useless and Stellerator is a evolution of the idea, fixing it with twisted magnetic fields.
- Magnetic mirrors -> Two simple coils separated, so the combination of the shape and the more dense magnetic field on the center of the coils, works like a mirror for charged particles.
Also, at nearly the same time (around 1955) that the Russinas was begin to experiment with the Tokamak design, the British was experimenting wit the "ZETA", where the contaiment magnetic field comes ONLY from a current on the plasma.
Huh, that last part sounds kinda interesting. Pardon my scientific ignorance, but is that 'self-containing plasma' phenomena the reason why our Sun hasn't exploded yet?
It's a few grams of plasma, and it's inside of a huge metal contraption. If you "lose containment" the plasma just expands, contacts the walls of the reactor, and cools off. It's kinda bad for the reactor because high temperature plasmas tend to chew through materials, but fusion reactions stop, it's a non-event outside the reactor. In fact, losing containment is typical, modern fusion reactors can't contain plasmas very long, only a few seconds. The normal operation of a reactor is magnetic containment for a few seconds, then loss of containment, followed by later "shots" of fusion plasma being contained and heated for another few seconds, and so on.
> What's special about the Wendelstein 7-X? I know stellarators as a concept aren't new. Is this a significant result, or is it just a handy opportunity for a media event?
The concept is not new, they're just hideously complicated to build. It's a relatively new development that it's possible to model the shape of the magnetic fields and magnets required to keep the plasma. So it's a significant achievement to build one and prove that you can run it while containing the plasma. Yesterdays event is one step on that path.
W7X is special as it is more performant than previous stellarators. For fusion devices, you hope to produce more energy than the energy you have to inject to heat the plasma for fusion to happen.
Yesterday's event was not much about science, but rather about engineering. Building that machine was a gigantic work.
> For fusion devices, you hope to produce more energy than the energy you have to inject to heat the plasma for fusion to happen.
Which Wendelstein can't do – for that, you'll need much more radioactive reactions (involving tritium), and Wendelstein isn't (and can't be) sufficiently shielded for those.
Wendelstein is a research reactor: It's covered in sensors in and out, and it can be easily disassembled or opened up for repairs and modifications, which you generally don't want to do if everything's covered in radiation activated materials.
If Wendelstein holds up to its plans, derivative designs can be used to build net-positive reactors involving tritium (and lots of shielding).
> Yesterday's event was not much about science, but rather about engineering. Building that machine was a gigantic work.
Indeed. Most of its design was finalized in the 80s and the project took 25 years to just get the funding, build the (first of a kind) components and build a working reactor out of them.
In programmer speak, you're essentially asking for how long will it take to implement some new feature (let's say collaborative text editor) in language unknown to you :P
This humorous answer for fusion is 50 years. Always another 50 years.
Realistically, there has been much more progress recently including several SV style startups with massive funding trying to get things to work. It probably is within 50 years this time with the amount of real money and research going into it.
The article says that the 7X won't ever produce energy. Over the course of the following years they will try to leave it on for longer and longer period of time.
SO yes, they kept it on for less then a second, nothing exploded and future looks quite brigth i would say
Don't let movie physics fool you. Fusion reactors don't have a tendency to explode. (Well, at least not any more than any other industrial device connected to megawatts of power...)
The problem with fusion is that they are notoriously hard to achieve, so basically they are always in the brink of fizzling out.
They've been doing test fires with helium to clean the inside of the stellarator for the past few months. This news is because yesterday, with hydrogen, they ran a plasma at 80million degrees for 0.25 seconds. Still a few years away from the goal of 100 million degrees for 30 minutes, but it's a huge achievement. When that's working they'll start putting deuterium in and the fusion fun will begin, but not at a level that actually has a net energy output. That will only happen with tritium, but that won't ever be done in this particular stellerator (at least there aren't any plans to do it).
Maybe it is a dumb question but does fusion really matter that much? I mean that nuclear reactors are ridiculously expensive to build and maintain and fusion only removes the cost of fuel acquiring and disposal. It might be 20%, 30% or even 40% cheaper but still not a revolution, no "Free energy for everyone". Are people over-hyped?
Yes. The reason more humans can live on the planet than the planet could "naturally" sustain, is that they employ outside energy to produce food, shelter, and raw materials.
So more energy, we can support more humans, or existing humans with a higher standard of living.
Three things that you might worry about "go away" with practical fusion energy:
1) Hunger
2) Anthropogenic Global Warming
3) Fresh water supplies
They go away because high energy farming techniques become much more cost effective, fusion power contributes no CO2 and can actually extract CO2 from the atomosphere for commerial use, and the water in the oceans can be desalinated on demand.
It also eliminates many things that cause human suffering, coal mining, oil drilling, fuel transport (oil and coal and gas), smog (electric cars are more cost effective, no more coal fired power plants), and warmth/cooling (if your electricity is cheap enough, everyone can have air conditioning or heat to counteract outside temperatures).
So yes, a practical fusion system will change every aspect of the world.
To clarify: maybe in a more rational, informed society, where we could actually keep building and rebuilding newer generations of fission reactors, then maybe it wouldn't matter as much. We'd have safe reactors and a very small amount of waste products, at a lower residual radiation level.
We don't have any of these things though. In this scenario, then it matters a whole lot. Fusion (I refuse to use the word 'nuclear' here) reactors do not meltdown(nor do the newest fission designs). They generate very little radiation, if any. They have no waste products.
Basically, they remove the "NOT IN MY BACKYARD" variable from the equation. And weaponizing concerns for some countries. And, if they ever work, should generate outstanding amounts of power for their size. Using small amounts of fuel that we don't expect to run out at any non-geologic time scale.
It's easier to sell to the public. "look, it's clean, it's natural, it's just a tiny sun".
The fuel is also much more environmentally friendly to extract. Tritium is hard to purify, but you don't need much of it, so it is probably more difficult to extract the steel for the reactor's structure than the fuel during its lifetime.
Instead of answering your question, I'm going to ask one; does your lack of vision more reasonably conclude with "people are overhyped" or something less opinionated? Consider that your opinion is admittedly based in ignorance rather than information.
Quote: "The precise value of the abandoned cities, towns, agricultural lands, businesses, homes and property located within the roughly 310 sq miles (800 sq km) of the exclusion zones has not been established. Estimates of the total economic loss range from $250-$500 billion US."
> German Chancellor Angela Merkel [..] who holds
> a doctorate in physics, personally pressed the button
> at Wednesday's launch of an experiment they hope
> will advance the quest for nuclear fusion, considered
> a clean and safe form of nuclear power.
This throwaway bit of arson (or at minimum, criminal negligence) set off a ridiculous religious flamewar. That means you did serious damage to this site. Please never do that again.
Calling this arson or criminal negligence is a bit of a stretch, don't you think?
I just stated a fact here. :\
"She's physicist" ... "She is head of the CDU" ... the end.
Yes I saw what it brought here and after a few posts, I was like "Oh wait, this is an Internet Argument... better don't look at it anymore" but it was already too late.
> Calling this arson or criminal negligence is a bit of a stretch, don't you think?
Oh yes. I didn't mean it literally. It's just that starting a flamewar on purpose is one thing, and accidentally setting one off is another, but both are bad.
I'm sorry I came down on you that hard. Such flamewars are awful but they're also very much a community creation, which is why they're hard to prevent.
The name came out the the desire to unite catholic and protestant groups after WWII in a centre party. They've been open to non-christians since inception, and they decided to keep the "Christian" in the name to emphasize their concern over the Christian image of man, from which they derive their view that human dignity is worthy of protection as it is given by God.
They do seem conservative by comparison to their main opponent party, the SPD, which has Marxist roots, but compared to say US politics, they would be considered moderates. In that sense, it's disingenuous to take them out of the German political spectrum (which is much more moderate than the US), and judge them by name alone.
She's certainly not a bible thumping Christian denying global warming. [0]
Where does your conclusion stem from? I haven't been aware of the German government discriminating against these groups, nor of the CDU proposing laws to do so.
One issue I can think of is same-sex marriage, but there's laws enabling same-sex couples to get into a "Lebenspartnerschaft", which is functionally equivalent to a marriage. There is some areas where things differ, like certain clauses in the explosive ordinance regulations, criminal rehabilitation law and census regulations. Granted, it doesn't say marriage, but it's close.
Regarding the legal treatment of Muslims in Germany, there seems to be two issues. One being head-scarves, the other circumcision. On the former, the German constitutional court ruled in January 2015 that a general ban in schools is unconstitutional. The latter, the state court in Cologne ruled as grievous harm, but this was later overturned by a law passed by the Bundestag.
Really, the spirit of the formulation the CDU used does not specify which God. Even taking it in bad faith, one has to remember that Islam and Christianity are both abrahamic religions, so they share the same god, which makes it doubly moot.
There are legitimate issues to be talked about in this context, from integration of immigrants to a growing anti-islamic sentiment in Germany and the rest of Europe.
Christians outside of the US are rarely that conservative or judgemental of others' choices. On the contrary, being able to accept those differences is one of the core beliefs.
After we got engaged, my wife was told by Swiss missionaries living in France that it would be wrong marry me because I'm Roman Catholic. Furthermore they assumed that she would have to become a practicing Catholic as, after all, the husband is the head of the household and it would be immoral for the wife to persist in different beliefs and practices.
Granted, the percentage of people in the US that would agree with all of the above is much higher than in Europe, but it's not like conservative Protestantism (or Roman Catholicism for that matter) doesn't exist there.
Not that I feel a distinct need to defend stereotyping statements towards large disparate groups of people, but I think the original statement was meant to imply the general Christian populations of other countries. People that visit other countries specifically to spread their religion may have somewhat more extreme views than people of the same the general population of their originating countries.
Do you have actual experience with Christians all over the world? I've certainly met a few that put the lie to your assertion, from a variety of places, and I suspect you're making the classic mistake of calling the place you live "the rest of the world" in comparison to the US.
Well, her opinion on gay marriage (not compatible with her opinions about the traditional definition of marriage) shows that she is definitely quite conservative.
> they derive their view that human dignity is worthy of protection as it is given by God
q.e.d.
> compared to say US politics, they would be considered moderates
compared to the US politics, probably all german parties are considered moderates
Till the AfD showed up, CDU/CSU were the most conservative parties (besides some really small ones that never got over 5% of the votes) in Germany.
> She's certainly not a bible thumping Christian denying global warming
That's true, but there don't seem to be much countries in the world, besides the US, where you could get voters which such comments...
My point was just, that the parent poster quoted this text, that made the impression Germany is so advanced that we even have a physicist as Chancellor, while Merkel in fact is a member of a christian party.
She is a physicist though, which reminds me of one "controversial" statement she made in an interview.
Essentially, the interviewer asked her what she liked most about her job as Chancellor, to which she replied "I like that there's interesting new problems every day", which her critics jumped on almost immediately.
Now the thing is, she almost certainly meant that in the way a scientist talks about "problems", but it wasn't interpreted that way by political commentators.
I'm honestly not too concerned about there being a CDU instead of there being just a DU, as long as they're not pushing the Christian angle too strongly. As long as their policy is sound, they could be the Pastafari Democratic Union for all I care. Maybe the Pirate Party will step up to that role, becoming the PPP, which would net them my vote.
> > they derive their view that human dignity is worthy of protection as it is given by God
> q.e.d.
Why would you use q.e.d. with out a reference. I know I am strange in that I studied Greek and know a decent amount of Latin but how were you using q.e.d.?
Also can we please not lump ALL Christians into the same boat it feels kind of like calling all Muslims terrorist. For Global warming the Bible is very clear that we are to protect the Earth which many Bible Global Warming protesters claim to upheld.
> Why would you use q.e.d. with out a reference. I know I am strange in that I studied Greek and know a decent amount of Latin but how were you using q.e.d.?
The claim was that the CDU is somehow christian. The argument against that was that they aren't actually christian, but that they rather get inspiration for their politics from christian theology.
Now, if your opponent presents an argument for your position as if it were for their own, there isn't really any need to restate that argument, you can simply point out that your position has been demonstrated.
> Also can we please not lump ALL Christians into the same boat it feels kind of like calling all Muslims terrorist. For Global warming the Bible is very clear that we are to protect the Earth which many Bible Global Warming protesters claim to upheld.
The problem with christianity (or any religion, for that matter) is that it tends to encourage people to believe things for bad reasons. Now, there might be christians who don't, but that doesn't change that a vast majority of them do. Therefore, it's perfectly reasonable to lump them all together, at least in this regard, when making general statements. The problem is not whether some christians believe that the bible clearly tells them to protect the earth (while other christians ironically equally fervently believe that the bible clearly tells them that they don't need to do anything because god will take care of it), it's that they think that the bible telling them something is a good reason to act accordingly. That is an irresponsible method for trying to obtain knowledge, and it's outright dangerous when other people are affected by the results.
If I feed a starving child because my horoscope told me that I should, then the fact that feeding a starving child is good does not change the fact that the reason why I do it is still bad, and that acting according to astrological advice is not a reliable way to do good, and might well lead to bad consequences in other cases.
q.e.d. means in Latin quod erat demonstrandum, meaning "which is what had to be proven". q.e.d. is used at the end of Philosophy (I was a Theology Student) arguments and in science. It seemed strange to see that used here on Hacker News and I have no idea what you were trying to say. I am asking what did you mean by q.e.d.?
>The problem with christianity (or any religion, for that matter) is that it tends to encourage people to believe things for bad reasons.
You have a strong bias against religion without data. To me it just seems that you really don't care about religion and your reflecting your negative feelings on a subject and building a straw-man out of it. The vast majority of the world and almost every person of historical significance were religious. This idea that religious people are lesser and clearly not enlightened isn't very different then racism.
> bible clearly tells them that they don't need to do anything because god will take care of it.
There is no reference in the Bible for that and it isn't the basis of people's belief why they are against Global Warming (It is based on Conservative Pro-Business politics and not religion (In the US that is they identify as Republicans as they believe all good God Fearing Christians belong :( ) http://www.ibtimes.com/what-do-christians-have-against-clima...
I didn't mean anything by it, that comment wasn't mine. But the comment used it exactly as you defined it: 50CNT tried to show that the CDU is not christian by mentioning that they follow christian doctrine. Given that that is actually an argument for the position that the CDU is in fact christian, there is no need to provide any further arguments, k__ simply concluded: QED.
> You have a strong bias against religion without data.
How do you know what data I have?
> To me it just seems that you really don't care about religion and your reflecting your negative feelings on a subject and building a straw-man out of it.
Well, I can assure you that you are mistaken.
> The vast majority of the world and almost every person of historical significance were religious.
Your point being?
> This idea that religious people are lesser and clearly not enlightened isn't very different then racism.
Could you please show where I made any such claim? Or was that an attempt to build a strawman argument?
> There is no reference in the Bible for that and it isn't the basis of people's belief why they are against Global Warming (It is based on Conservative Pro-Business politics and not religion (In the US that is they identify as Republicans as they believe all good God Fearing Christians belong :( ) http://www.ibtimes.com/what-do-christians-have-against-clima....
You missed the point: I don't care what the bible says on the topic (nor what specifically you think it says), but I notice that others care and try to justify their actions on that basis, which is irresponsible, as nobody has demonstrated that that is a way to obtain reliable knowledge about the world (plus there are plenty of examples to the contrary). That people claim equally loudly completely contradictory conclusions from their respective reading of the bible just is further evidence that it might not be that reliable a source of information.
I am not trying to be mean or arguing as much as I want to have a dialog about what you communicated and what you mean which isn't the same thing normally.
> How do you know what data I have?
The old academic in me is you don't have any unless you show some.
> I don't care what the bible says on the topic (nor what specifically you think it says), but I notice that ...
You are claiming purposeful ignorance and insight on the same subject. If you don't care and then go one to make an argument which you have claimed no real knowledge about. Just don't get involved in discussions when you don't care about the data.
> That people claim equally loudly completely contradictory conclusions from their respective reading of the bible just is further evidence that it might not be that reliable a source of information.
Because people DON'T read the data and refuse to look at it. Just as frustrating is to see Excel spreadsheets of data from an original data set with no idea how they got to their conclusion. You are in one sentence just dismissed 90%+ of knowledge. Statistics, Science, all soft sciences etc.... And in fact this all comes back to data. Look at the data or walk away but don't argue from a point of ignorance and base it on personal experiences, belief systems, and emotions.
Hope you have a good day and know I am not trying to get you to believe what I do but I am trying to encourage you to look at the way you are presenting yourself. I do believe you are trying to communicate A but you are being perceived to hold to B.
> You are claiming purposeful ignorance and insight on the same subject. If you don't care and then go one to make an argument which you have claimed no real knowledge about. Just don't get involved in discussions when you don't care about the data.
First: "not caring" in this context means that I don't consider the content of the bible to be relevant to this argument, which is not to be confused with lack of knowledge, aka ignorance.
Second: I very much care about the data. Now, do you have any data for me to look at?
Now, to avoid any confusion, let me re-state my claim: The bible has not been demonstrated to be a reliable source of knowledge about the world. Therefore, it's irresponsible to make decisions about your or other people's lives based on information from the bible.
This is certainly different then being respectful of religion. I am more then able to go into details and such but I don't think this is the place for it. If you want you can email me at mtelesha at the big G company email account.
If you want information on historical facts and academic inaccurate information and myths by lazy academics dipping their toes in a discipline they don't know about I would love to. I have a ton of those stories. The academic discipline of a Biblical Scholar (I am more of Theology trained aka more history facts and figures and philosophy based) I can lay out a decent academic data.
Just so we are clear this would be non-proselytizing and more of an fact finding from academia. It really is an awesome study and many academics and PhD of the Bible are not even Christians but are fascinated by the historical data and the academic discipline.
> This is certainly different then being respectful of religion.
Do you think that there is anything wrong with that?
> Just so we are clear this would be non-proselytizing and more of an fact finding from academia. It really is an awesome study and many academics and PhD of the Bible are not even Christians but are fascinated by the historical data and the academic discipline.
Now, if you actually could demonstrate the reliability of the bible as a source for knowledge about the world, I certainly would be extremely interested.
The problem is that you are exhibiting many of the common signs that usually indicate someone lacks understanding of the philosophy of science and more generally of epistemology, so it's extremely likely that you are going to trot out the same old arguments that I have heard endless times, and that have been refuted over and over. So, my suggestion would be: Go, get yourself a few books that explain that stuff, and learn what the arguments of the "other side" actually are, that should make for a far more productive conversation. If you like watching videos, this might also be a good place to start: https://www.youtube.com/user/SansDeity/videos - in particular: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAQFYgyEACI , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwG7LJTTZFc , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNIfzlzmJ8Y
Also: Yes, the bible certainly is an important book to study due to its influence on society, and it (or rather, the many versions of it) certainly has/have a history that can give many interesting insights. All I am disagreeing with is that it provides reliable knowledge about the world that is in any way fundamentally different from any other (ancient) book. And just as one can study the iliad without believing that Zeus actually existed, it's perfectly reasonable to study the bible without being a christian, of course.
> The problem with christianity (or any religion, for that matter) is that it tends to encourage people to believe things for bad reasons.
>...acting according to astrological advice is not a reliable way to do good, and might well lead to bad consequences in other cases.
Something needs to inform your knowledge of what is 'good' and what is 'bad'. Why do you take feeding a starving child as a good? It's likely that you've internalized a morality and ethics from your culture that tells you so. So what makes the externalized (religion) more wrong than the internalized (culture)?
Culture is as useless as an authoritative basis for ethics as is religion (plus, I would tend to consider religion a form of culture). That is to say: Yes, my ethics certainly are influenced by culture (and probably even by religion, even though I am not religious, simply due to religion's influence on culture in general), but if someone were to challenge the ethics of some action of mine, "because my culture says so!" is as bad a defense of my position as "because my holy book says so!"
Culture, if anything, is a shortcut for learning about ethical behaviour from others, just as school is a shortcut for learning about, I dunno, the mechanics of rigid bodies from others, but whether what we learn from either of those sources is (tentatively) correct can be determined only by observation of reality/by experiment.
If you think that ethics is something that needs to somehow be provided by someone rather than a property of reality that is to be discovered, that is already a religious presupposition. Sensible ethics are utilitarian/consequentialist: You look at what causes harm and what avoids harm to build an understanding of ethical behaviour. It's not much different from what we do to figure out what is healthy: There is no source of health rules with a book that is not to be questioned, but you look at what causes harm and what avoids harm, and that then is what we label as "healthy" or "unhealthy".
A majority of Americans believe that aliens have visited earth and that the government is hiding evidence of UFOs. By your logic I should conclude that all Americans are stupid, which wouldn't be that extreme, given the popularity of Donald Trump. I then could come up with a rhetoric that it's irresponsible to let americans go to vote. But all of that wouldn't be fair now, would it?
> If I feed a starving child because my horoscope told me ...
In our times astrology is nothing more than a fun conversation piece. I do wonder what your definition for "good" and "bad" is.
> A majority of Americans believe that aliens have visited earth and that the government is hiding evidence of UFOs. By your logic I should conclude that all Americans are stupid, which wouldn't be that extreme, given the popularity of Donald Trump. I then could come up with a rhetoric that it's irresponsible to let americans go to vote. But all of that wouldn't be fair now, would it?
What's your point?
You have straw-manned my argument quite a bit, but let's ignore that for the moment ...
If, say, electing Donald Trump for president were to lead to world-wide nuclear war, and people were to vote for him, how would it not be irresponsible to let americans vote on that if you had any chance to prevent it? Also, how does fairness get into this? How does the fairness of a decision-making process change anything about the consequences of any given decision and that it is irresponsible to not prevent harm that you easily could prevent.
> In our times astrology is nothing more than a fun conversation piece.
For one, that's not actually true. But more importantly: Why is the same not at least mostly true for christianity, islam, judaism, hinduism, ... ?
> I do wonder what your definition for "good" and "bad" is.
The short version: Good is what reduces harm, bad is what increases harm.
Now, I wonder what your definition is if it doesn't agree with mine, at least roughly.
Well, that's just the problem, isn't it? The Bible is always very clear that I'm right and you're wrong.
The traditionalist horror at postmodernism and poststructuralism is that they give the game away: They admit outright what the religious have always done sub rosa, that the meaning of a text is determined by its interpretive context and therefore all religious interpretations, like all artistic interpretations in general, are equally valid.
> The Bible is always very clear that I'm right and you're wrong.
I have studied the Bible and other world religions for over a decade in higher education. Have multiple years of Greek and Hebrew education, and includes Aramaic, and Latin. I can tell you MOST people don't really care what the Bible says and most just care of how thy feel and/or think. Most things in history of Christianity have very little to do with what the Bible says. (I was working on a PhD in Historical Theology which is the nerdiest of focuses when it comes to Theology.
If people ever want to have a discussion and are Christians it is hysterical to me to talk scripture with them and realize they will just twist something out of the air and consider themselves proven. In the exact terms of "Global Warming" which I was speaking about there are zero scriptures that supports the idea that it doesn't matter what people do or don't do with global warming but for those working to protect the earth it is in the Bible. So the funny thing is that these Christians are so strongly opposed to the science of Global Warming against the Bible they claim they are fighting scientist for.
"...quod erat demonstrandum, meaning "which is what had to be proven". The phrase is traditionally placed in its abbreviated form at the end of a mathematical proof or philosophical argument when what was specified in the enunciation—and in the setting-out—has been exactly restated as the conclusion of the demonstration." from Wikipedia[0].
I've seen this kind of answer between computer engineering/sciences people as some sort of "you haven't explained anything" response, though in a more thorough reading of OP and response, I can't really say what was the intention. The downvotes on the response would seem to support that interpretation.
Being religious or part of a party with religious affiliation is entirely different in pretty much anywhere in Europe than it is in the US. Non-secular views on any major subject are effectively unheard of here; there's nothing conflicting about being religious and secular here.
This right here. Religion is more like a hobby (if you are not a politican with a clear agenda and in need of propaganda material and no solid evidence to back it up) not something you need to tout everytime you go on camera.
As a religious person I would say you are seeing these values as extrinsic, but MOST religious people see religion as intrinsic (AKA essential to who they are). If you reject religion of people you devalue who they are and not some "Hobby." I would warn you that that statement was more hurtful then you meant it to be.
There aren't many people in countries like Germany that see religion as an intrinsic part of them. I don't speak German, but I do know English, which should be similar enough :)
I think my mum (in England) would tell people she's Christian, although only if asked — she'd never mention it in conversation, but if someone on the street is "doing a survey" she'll say Christian. But apart from other peoples' weddings and funerals, she hasn't been to a church service for 20 years. I think she'd be much more offended if someone criticized her hobbies — they're things she chose, religion was chosen for her.
Average Church of England attendance is around 1.5% of the population [1]. Football clubs have higher attendance figures [2] (the lowest on that page is 3% of Manchester's population apparently attends Manchester United games, and Manchester has several major football clubs).
That comment might be in the context of Germany, where people generally don't seem to get wrapped up in religious identity to the extent that they do in the US.
From what I saw living there, many Germans don't set foot in a church outside of Christmas and Easter. I sure would like to have federal holidays for all those Catholic saint's days like they do in Bavaria, though...
People don't need to be religious for religion to be part of their identity. Many german atheists still identify with one of the two main churches even when they don't have the smallest trace of belief in them. After centuries of highly formalized coexistence, the lutheran and catholic churches have become subtle but deeply rooted parts of regional identities.
The vast majority of people are not particularly religious. This includes most members of the major religions.
Sure, they know the correct song and dance, but outside of specific settings it has little influence on behavior.
Granted, they may self identify very strongly as X, but how many people view say speeding in religious terms? Your actively harming the world though increased pollution and directly risking others lives, but meh.
I would counter that outside of Western Europe people are MORE religious. Religious with a default negative cogitations and belittle of religion really is a bias.
> The vast majority of people are not particularly religious. This includes most members of the major religions.
You just belittled all major religions in two sentences without any data. I can tell that is not your intent and you are expressing an opinion but it is still belittling something without any evidence of your simple conclusion.
First the impact of religion on behavior has been studied for a long time. Perhaps the most famous being the increased economic growth of Protestant areas over Catholic areas.
Anyway, you misunderstand what I am saying. Cheating, Murder, Stealing, are often directly referenced in religious terms and so they are influenced by religion. It's behaviors that are not described in religious terms (aka speeding) that have minimal impact.
In other words, religion is generally a 'narrow' change in thought and behavior rather than influencing all actions.
PS: Now, if some religious leader takes up the cause that speeding is meaningful then that's going to have an impact. But, again only because of the direct focus.
But I am not talking impact (Which there is conflicting data) but data that shows a upward trend of religion around the world. You keep pushing down religion like its a bad thing and individual people are lesser because of it. There are millions that would say their own lives were changed and you should just say glad for you. :) Don't have a First World bias :)
The least religious nations, according to the poll, are China (14 percent saying they are religious), Japan (16 percent), Czech Republic (20 percent), Turkey (23 percent), Sweden (29 percent), Vietnam (30 percent), Australia (37 percent),
So, the EU is still fairly religious compared to much of the world.
Though the most religious countries are not really a list you want to join:
Ghana (96 percent of the participants that they are religious), Nigeria (93 percent), Armenia (92 percent), Fiji (92 percent), Macedonia (90 percent), Romania (89 percent), Iraq (88 percent), Kenya (88 percent), Peru (86 percent), and Brazil (85 percent).
And what does this information tell anyone? Not liking her in any way, but that information is not adding anything to this.
She was there as Head of State, starting an important experiment funded by the state and lending importance to this scientific endeavor in this way. Or at least hoping to garner some positiv press for herself, that she is in dire need of.
But being Head of a (by the way just so called) christian party does not tell anything in a very secularized country like German.
Not to mention our Queen is also the head of an entire religion and on paper has powers to suspend parliament, her assent is required on legislation passed (a power that hasn't been used for 300 years btw), she can remove Ministers (of the crown) and just for kicks she can declare war and is beyond prosecution.
Of course the second she used these powers they'd be removed but yeah, it's an interesting framework.
Edit: oops, forgot - she is also the Command in Chief of all armed forces and in theory has complete control of the disposition of forces.
As it's pedantic Wednesday I'd does like to point out that the Queen uses these powers regularly.In fact we can't pass legislation in the UK without her assent, she suspends Parliament all the time, she removes Ministers etc.
What hasn't happened in a long time is for her to act contrary to Ministers' advice.
It's probably fair to say that there is close to negligible chance that that state of affairs (or Affairs of State if you prefer) will change in the present Queen's lifetime. Charles, however, may make things a little more constitutionally interesting as he has far more activist tendencies.
Don't forget that she lords over Canada (Queen, Head of State) and laws require her royal assent.
Not a fan, and do not like that in the Canadian oath you have to pledge to her (a human) instead of something non-human that symbolizes Canada (like the Canadian flag). It is unfortunate that in the oath you have to be subservient to another person - so much for all people created equally.
No one in the UK pledges allegiance to anyone or anything, certainly not on a regular basis. What is this Canadian oath? I don't think a Brit would have to be a republican to find pledging allegiance to the monarch a rather odd thing to do. And as for pledging allegiance to the flag, well which one? Union flag, the Saltire, the Red Dragon? I might give a little respect to Saint Piran's banner but I'm not about to swear allegiance to it even though half my ancestors are Cornish. Or should I choose the Wessex Wyvern because that is the region where I was born and lived for the first 25 years of my life?
Sorry for drifting off topic, got carried away. :-)
It feels like an arrangement that's just waiting to be abused/made use of at some weird and critical juncture in history. Maybe it's useful as an "escape clause" should the nominally representative government go astray?
Well, it mattered in WWII. "The Man Called Intrepid" tells about the secret services swearing loyalty to the king. In the event that the Nazis conquered England, they could oppose the newly-formed government without feeling disloyal, because their loyalty wasn't to the government of England, it was to the king.
What's special about the Wendelstein 7-X? I know stellarators as a concept aren't new. Is this a significant result, or is it just a handy opportunity for a media event?