Baughn wrote:It isn't quite true that we've run out of unexplored EM phenomena.
Unexplored pure-EM phenomena, yes, but there are a few interesting combinations that have yet to be fully understood. For example, it appears that superconductors can act to couple EM and the gravitational field, by [magic]nonlocal entangled electrons not reacting the same way towards gravitational waves as the conductor itself[/magic]. No, I don't really understand it.
I'm sorry. I spoke carelessly. To restate my position more clearly:
Pure EM is completely understood. It's only when you introduce subtle atomic-scale quantum mechanical effects and such that we
might not understand what's going on. It's not that there are no unexplored EM phenomena, and I shouldn't have said that. It's that there are no areas where we look at an EM phenomenon and find it telling us that our basic-level idea of how electromagnetism works is wrong. If we fail to explain something in modern physics, it is always for reasons other than "we don't understand EM fields well enough yet."
There are other things we don't understand, certainly; classical EM just isn't one of them. But demonic tridents are large enough and made of materials 'conventional' enough that by all rights, they should fall firmly into the realm of classical electromagnetism. There's nothing about a big electrically charged hunk of metal that can't be tackled using nineteenth century physics that has been very thoroughly checked.
So if the tridents work at all, it's because they're violating what someone like Maxwell or Faraday would call the laws of physics. Which is
weird.
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EdBecerra wrote:Peptuck wrote:While the demons in Hell followed Satan out of fear, the angels seem to follow Yaweh out of honest devotion and belief.
Translation: "Durr... boy, we iz stupid angel-peoples. We'ze believe wif'out no proof."
Of course, they haven't had much chance to learn differently, have they?
I know that sneering at religious devotion is a popular pastime in certain circles, but I have to point something out. There really is a major difference, not just in degree but in
kind, between faith and stupidity. It's possible and even easy to superimpose the two so that they overlap and reinforce each other, but it's also possible to have one without the other.
On the one hand, there are some very stupid people who trust no one and nothing. In my admittedly limited experience, it's practically impossible to explain anything to them because they won't take your word for it and they won't understand the evidence even when you wave it under their nose. Lacking both faith
and intelligence can make someone incredibly annoying.
On the other, there are some intelligent people who build their entire lives around axiomatic assumptions about reality that can only be described as "faith." Consider Isaac Newton and his extensive research into esoteric theology and alchemy. He was routinely operating in realms we would call rank superstition, realms where no proof was available or even possible. But if Sir Isaac Newton was thinking "Durr... I is stupid alchemist-person," then I doubt if there has ever been an intelligent man walking the face of the Earth.
And people like Abu Hamid al-Ghazali would not have been such dangerous foes of scientific rationalism were they not
very clever people capable of making equally clever arguments, and putting them in persuasive forms that convince even the most literate and educated members of society.
It may be comforting for the skeptic to tell himself that all the faithful are idiots. It's certainly comforting to think that anyone with a competent mind will support the skeptic's cause, the historical record doesn't offer much support for that belief.
(Strangely enough, I forgot the rule about "proof" and thought that it was 100%, not 100 proof. 
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