Thank you for these very nice and insightful posts Steph

These kind of discussions are always on a rough territory, I think. On one hand it is wonderful to debate these questions that I think are very fundamental to being a human. To think about how the world works and come up with these new ways to explain things can certainly be thrilling. Even more so when another party can inspire you to whole new levels of thoughts about the question.

On the other hand, there is a lot of information already out there. As loads of people have been thinking about this stuff. And unfortunately we don't all have a basic concept on what the scientific world has revealed so far. (I partially blame school systems for this) And I don't expect people to. Hell I don't think I know enough to really debate about this either.

So we are on a rough territory. On the one hand thinking and debating about this stuff is fun and definately a good thing to do. I firmly believe that one should always question reality. On the other hand we most likely won't come to any new idea's. And by the off chance we do, then we most likely won't go ahead and back it up with the mathematics needed for that. So even though it can feel very profound and ground breaking, chances are our thoughts are wrong. Though let me state again: I do believe that it is very healthy and good to have these kinds of debates. I just like to keep this in the back of my mind.

Now the real problem arises when 2 parties with a different level of understanding come to debate. Especially when one knows the other is wrong, but cannot seem to show the other that he in fact is. Which is totally understandable, explaining something is a skill. That's why teachers have to learn how to teach (and even then there are a lot who still can't really do it).

This is just one of the things that can lead to conflict instead of a healthy debate. We can't ask anyone to educate themselfelves on the matter before posting. And we can't ask educated people to learn how to properly convey their thoughts, so that people with a lesser understanding of the matter can understand them. We can only hope that people share their point of view. And that they try and understand what others are saying.

So to get to my point (finally). I think it's great to see you (StephL) go to such lengths to make an educational post. Simply to give people a little bit of scientific understanding of the matter. I think that is a very good approach to the matter and it makes for a very healthy debate. If more people did it like that, we would all be a whole lot smarter after reading/participating in this thread, so thank you for that