Thin skin

Sometimes in Skypeland, one meets a "know it all". I entered a cast with the following description:

God, UFO's and AstroPhysics

This show is for people who believe in God. We will rejoice in God through Science and His creation. We may discuss topics such as string theory, quantum mechanics, astrophysics, black holes, white holes, worm holes but no a-holes!

I thought it sounded promising and I listened to a long confused description of String Theory and Quantum Chromodynamics and Dark Energy and Dark Matter and Zero Point energy. I listened politely and then decided I would correct the host's misconceptions a bit. This did not go over very well.

I tried to tell him that String Theory had been replaced by M-Brane Theory. He dismissed this and said that String Theory is incorporated inside M-Brane theory. He did not understand why M-Brane Theory had been created, or who had created String Theory. At this point the host jumped down my throat and demanded to know my background. He said he had a degree in "applied mathematics" and a masters in "Business Management" so he was clearly more of an expert in theoretical physics than someone who did research in physics, since he lived in the "real world". He demanded that I tell him what schools I had obtained my degrees in, and sneered that I was not an expert in M-Brane Theory. I tried to ask him about renormalization and explain it, but he was not interested.

I started to try to tell him the difference between Dark Energy, Dark Matter and Zero Point energy, since he said he wanted to know, but every time I started he interrupted. I tried again, and he interrupted again, being clearly very sensitive about this. The host said he wanted to learn, but when I tried to tell them what my understanding was, he said I was being arrogant. I apologized and offered to be quiet, but this made him angry.

He claimed that all hydrogen atoms vibrate at 1.1 Gigahertz, and even if you slow a hydrogen atom down to 0.5 Gigahertz, it will automatically speed up to 1.1 Gigahertz, and the energy for this comes from dark energy, drawn in from a higher 4th spatial dimension. He felt that energy from quarks also can leak out to electrons, as another bond between them besides electromagnetic energy. He felt that water must grab energy from a higher dimension to maintain its natural form. The host believed that inflation is the correct version of astrophysics because of this sucking of energy from a higher dimension. He claimed that the electron spinning around the proton is thought to be a perpetual motion machine, but there is friction and it needs to get its energy from a higher dimension. He equated this higher dimension with heaven. He said there was insufficient energy in the vaccuum energy between an electron and a proton to power the spinning of the electron, since it would run out of gas in a few days. Therefore, it has to get its energy from another dimension. The zero point energy is inside the quarks, he said. He said there will be a coming Big Rip where the universe will tear apart, associated with the electrons and protons tearing apart from each other. He said the red shift shows that the universe is going away from itself. Newtonian physics would say that the universe would keep expanding at the same rate. He said that if one included gravity the universe would have to collapse in on itself, but the universe is expanding at an exponential rate, proving his theory. He said that this extra energy is coming from God. He said that neutrinos were Dark Matter. He felt that the universe was like a balloon with water in it, and the water was the Dark Energy, and the balloon was the matter that we can see. He stated that he believed in the Holy Trinity and that his theories prove it. It was an incredible stream of consciousness spew of nonsense.

Eventually I became irritated and I left. I have better things to do with my time.

Some Islamic Preaching

In Skypeland, one often meets assorted characters who want to preach and promote their own particular views. The most common religious views that are celebrated are varieties of Christianity and Islam.

Today I ran into some great examples of Muslims who wanted to preach at great length about how their beliefs (and only their beliefs) are correct. The first was a young man from Algeria who claimed that all science and mathematics and languages originated with the Arabs. I asked him about Al Ghazali and his book, The Incoherence of the Philosophers , and he became enraged. He was positive that the Western accounts of what is in this book are wrong. He also said that the word "mason" was not of Germanic origin as the dictionaries claim, but was instead of Arabic origin (he said it came from the Arabic word "bannaa" which means "builder"). When I asked him why he thought he was correct and the dictionaries were incorrect, he shut off my microphone. And then proceeded to rant and rave and curse me for many minutes afterword.

I then ran into a Sunni from Egypt in a room entitled "they do not Cursing mohammed they Cursing us" who recounted his own idiosyncratic religious philosophy. He told me that Mohammed had predicted huge numbers of events that had come true, such as the oil wealth of the Arabs and the backwardness of Islamic countries. He claimed that Mohammed predicted the Tsunami in Indonesia over 1000 years ago. He felt that there would be a tsanumi in California because California now allows gay marriage. He told me that the Bible stated that God would never do anything like destroying Sodom and Gomorrah as God had done previously, but this Sunni did not believe it. This Sunni was certain God was prepared to destroy societies to punish them.

He said that politicians, particularly Western politicians and American politicians studied the predictions of Mohammed in the Koran. He felt that American politicians secretly know the Koran much better than any Muslim. He said that the Protestants and the Catholics, including Americans, are all Romans, and that Mohammed had predicted a huge war with the Romans. He said that at the end of time, there will be a huge battle signalling the end of the world with horses and bows and arrows, with no guns or missiles, as predicted by Mohammed.

He gave me an example, to try to enlighten me, in text:

zakariah bin ahmed said to hamad said to mahdy and mahdy said to jezo that he heared mohammed pbuh "pray in your choses becouse the jews dont pray on shoes"

To be honest, I have no idea what that is supposed to mean.

He said there are no contradictions between the Koran and the bible, but then proceeded to give me many examples of contradictions. He is convinced that the Koran is the absolute truth. When I asked him about the similarity between the Gilgamesh story and the story of Noah, he dismissed the Gilgamesh account since Gilgamesh does not appear in the Koran. He said he only believes what is in the Koran.

He told me that the Shiites were not Muslims, and were secretly Jewish. He said that the Sufis were not Muslims either, and were organized by the Shiites as spies against the Sunnis in Egypt. He said that the Sufis were in hiding because they are afraid. He told me that there was no such thing as Salafis or Wahabis, or any difference between different types of Sunnis who are the only true Muslims. Interestingly, he told me that he believed in the Mahdi and his imminent return, which is not a mainstream Sunni belief, but it is a prominent Shiite belief.

I asked him about the philosopher Al Ghazali, and he told me that Al Ghazali had renounced all his books and writings before he died. Al Ghazali at that time supposedly wanted to go back to being a simple Muslim, instead of a philosopher. He told me that philosophy was evil since it was a science of the Greeks and did not come from Muslims.

He told me that the name Jesus was a false name, and so is Jehovah. He told me that knives cannot cut wood because that is the property of knives. He told me that Abraham was not ordered to kill Isaac, but Ishmael instead, which is a common Muslim belief. He said that the Last Supper was not associated with Passover. He said that Mohammed is a prominent figure in the Christian bible.

I asked him about artwork showing pictures of Mohammed. He said that Muslims never drew pictures of Mohammed in previous ages, but have done so recently because there are now many bad Arabs and bad Muslims. He said that most Muslims are bad, but eventually all Muslims will be good. He said that the Danish newspaper comics showed Mohammed kicking his women, which Mohammed never did and never would do.

He told me that many of the Catholics in Columbia are converting to Islam, and as "proof" gave me a youtube video supposedly showing a young Finnish man who had converted to Islam. He said that the bible had been changed a lot over the years, particularly after Mohammed appeared and showed Jews and Christians the errors of their ways. He said that the reason there are two separate words for "fornication" and "adultery" in English is because that the English invented the new word "fornication" to allow them to engage in this act without consequences, because the original Hebrew does not have separate words for "fornication" and "adultery".

He said there was a huge advantage to Islam over Judaism and Christianity, because Islam has a huge database of "people with footprints"; a large blacklist since the time of Mohammed. They knew who slept too much, and did other bad things, so they knew who to trust. He said that Jews do not have a long history compared to the Moslems. He said this is because there is a big 300 year gap between when the bible was written and Jesus died. He said clearly no one can trust such a book with such a gap. When he was asked if he thought Judaism was not a valid religion, he disagreed and said he believed in Judaism. He said he also believed in Christianity.

He said that Jesus was preaching from the first day he was born, since it is written this way in the Koran, but Jesus is not God in spite of this. He said that Constantinople was taken peacefully without any deaths, with only one word: "Allah". He said that while the Muslims had control of the Holy Land for 1400 years, that Jews and Christians were free to visit it whenever they wanted. I guess he does not understand why the Crusades were mounted.

He also said that in colloquial Arabic, the word "73" was equivalent to infinity.


Wow. Just wow.