Sandbagging Steve

I said the first lines you quoted were a mistake. I wrote that at work on a mobile device while having to stop several times. It was done on the fly. Frankly, so were the other posts from yesterday. I didn't realize I was making that strong an argument. The other stuff, sure, I lean toward it being a design. I believe too much of our world and the big physics works too well for there not to be a chance for a designed system. But I'm open-minded. I don't believe one way or another. I can lean one way and still be agnostic. Neil deGrasse Tyson leans toward there being no God but remains agnostic. He's not an atheist. I'm certainly not religious. If there is a God, I don't believe it's anything like the Bible. I'm completely open to there being no design and no God. Even with quantum indeterminism, there's way too much incomplete data to draw a line in the sand. I'm waiting for more breakthroughs. This isn't evolution, where we have overwhelming evidence of natural selection.

I will say that I never quoted you because I agree with you here. I wrote this on mobile while doing other things over a period of time, with many distractions. I didn't realize I went that far with it. I was quoting a religious poster and wanted to approach it from an angle that would grab their attention. Anyway to get someone into science works for me. I do believe it is possible that it is all designed, despite theories suggesting otherwise at the present. We don't have enough information right now to truly state one way or another. There is no infallible theory in this field like in evolution, IMO. It's still too complicated and there are still way too many unknowns, even with some experiments running true randomness. There's also the possibility of a design having a certain level of randomness. That's also not to say it isn't all random. Today, everything points to quantum indeterminism. My post was never meant to make it seem like a fact that the universe is designed. I don't believe that. I just fucking hate having to deal with a faction of religious zealots who just keep coming like the energizer bunny. It's like a gnat that can't be stopped. (Not all religious people are that way). I do feel it is a possibility and it is a good way to approach it at the beginning when encountering religious people. But I didn't intend to make that strong an argument. I feel we have to make changes to the way we learn in the world. All the wars in the world are fought because you don't have to explain yourself. Just have faith. When you are that close-minded, you now have an excuse to interpret something however you wish and do anything you want.

This makes literally no sense at all. You quoted me 3 times to basically call it bullshit, with no explanation why, and then make persona attacks. I negged those posts. That is not going on a negging spree. Make a point and have some respect or you will get negged. It happens. Also, don't make personal attacks. You come across as very childish. You then went back in time and negged every post I've made on here, after the fact. I believe that's actually against the rules? That's a negging spree. But I'm not running to cry to mommy like you. I only mentioned it because you accused me of a negging spree. Holy fucking shit, look in the mirror. Your post is the only thing that resembles trolling. I don't need you to be my mother. You're not very important. You think you are, but you aren't. The design thing, why don't you read the post that you just quoted instead of playing police. The answer is there. I know it's hard for you. And we also have no idea if the universe is designed or random. We probably never will. That's a fact. But I was responding to someone who is religious, not you. I don't have time for immaturity. You can keep telling everyone how much you know about me, big boy. I'm not getting crowdsourced. You're the only asshole here. No one else is crowdsourcing me or making this a personal thing instead of keeping the thread on subject. Just stop. Grow up. Oooh, you read science papers! And?

Treat others with respect? Didn't you just attack me on a personal level for just stating my opinion on a topic? That wasn't even directed at you? You didn't challenge anything until this post here; you basically just said "fuck you", which is why you got negged. And then you went on a negging spree ..going back and negging all my posts that were neither rude nor pointing at you. You're only getting negged for this post because you went on a negging spree. I actually like this post. Why didn't post it instead of being an asshole? Oh, the irony. You even negged a post where I quoted one of my own posts to say disregard my previous post because I can't edit. You negged it. If you would have made this post from the beginning, I wouldn't have negged any of your posts. There are people in this thread who disagreed with me and didn't get negged. Instead, you were an asshole and didn't even make a point. You've also drawn your own personal conclusions about my personal life that you have no fucking idea about. I don't go to church. I read science articles everyday. You don't know me. My original post was a reply to a religious person. I try to understand another person's view and not be an asshole. I see religious people who deep down inside question their faith because the Bible doesn't make sense to them. But they feel the need to believe. I'm simply saying they may find more hope in science. We can't prove one way or another, but one can find some evidence of a complex system that works together. Regarding our planet: Sit down and figure out the mathematical probability for that many various moving parts working in unison by mere chance. I bet the number is astronomical. Doesn't prove anything. But if someone feels they need to believe, I'd much rather them find it there and other places in science than scream and yell at me about how I need to convert to some religious cult for no other reason than faith. Because I deal with the latter all the fucking time. Yes, you can introduce 3 years old to math and science. It's highly important. And there you go again telling me how much you know about me. You have no idea if I have children, had children or what my so-called faith is https://eyeonearlyeducation.org/2016/11/01/the-joy-of-teaching-math-to-3-year-olds/#:~:text=“Early math is surprisingly important,predicts their later school success. I agree with you on the power of religion. It needs to be taxed. And they shouldn't be able to keep knocking on my door and harassing me. I want biblical archaeology in the school system because it will make people ask questions. It will challenge things. It's a problem when you can just believe. It's cost us every war in the history of world. When you can be so close minded that all you need is faith, no questions asked. Education also needs a wakeup call, if they are going to continue to inflate tuition costs out of the stratosphere and bloat the administrations. If they are going to continue to stretch out a bachelor's degree with fluff classes in order to collect more money. If they are going to hoard billions of dollars in donations, continue to pester for more donations and make very little effort to assist in student tuition. Religion and higher education have a lot in common. They both use a network to create an environment in which greed has no limit. Education didn't used to be that way. Cheers. My issue with you was your approach, not your beliefs.

Unable to edit, but I was going to talk about the multiverse and string theory. Just disregard the first paragraph. Tired of typing on my phone and not being able to edit. Cheers.

BTW, there's many scientists open to the fact we could possibly be in a simulation. There's no current way to really study that (unless string theory advances or something) so it isn't something talked about a lot but there are plenty of scientists open to the possibility. Half the science field believes there's a God (just not any religions). From pew research: "just over half of scientists (51%) believe in some form of deity or higher power; specifically, 33% of scientists say they believe in God, while 18% believe in a universal spirit or higher power. "

Nowhere did I say God must be real. Fucking atheists are as bad as religious people; both are brainwashed. There's no one who can answer this question either way (not talking about religion but God). No one fucking knows if there is or isn't a God. I'm agnostic. If everything works together it would definitely support it being designed. Doesn't make it a fact. It certainly doesn't have to work together. Why would some alternative universe have to all work together? Quantum physics, as I stated in my original post, doesn't all work together. There's your proof of what some alternative universe could look like without it all working together. Big physics could work like small physics. Heck, if there's no design, there's no certainty for any rules or laws of that universe. In our universe, big physics does all work together (and evolution fits in there as well)..

What I wrote has absolutely nothing to do Jesus or any religion. I'm agnostic. I lean toward there being a design/designer..somewhat like the way of the pantheistic God of Baruch Spinoza. I'm simply stating that our world and the universe all works together. You change one thing, you disrupt everything. Why couldn't there be a God in such a scenario? Einstein believed it. You're smarter than Einstein?

We will see. tOSU is not that way IMO and never has been. Neither is USC. Those are two of the most power hungry schools in America. They would leave eventually. That gives ND and Michigan very little leverage. Don't forget that the pay4play has to be fixed and the current format is not sustainable. It's hard to get anything done in the NCAA. This is more about having enforceable rules and paying players their fair share before they get rightfully sued again. The examples you posted did not include the SEC basically separating from the rest of the field. That changes everything. Like I said, USC and tOSU have their eyes on money and power as much as anyone. And the big issue is the legal ramifications and wild west show that is going on right now. Right now, tOSU is in a good spot. They won't be if the SEC separates. USC is in a tough spot and still not sure how to react. Right now, because of geography, they don't have a lot of options. If the money gap widens, the geography will no longer matter. Do you not agree college football is broken? There are no rules and it is the Wild Wild West. In fact, it hasn't been competitive in years. Big schools need to play big schools and there needs to be rules to make sure everyone is competitive in recruiting and that kids get their fair share of the pie. I can see it ending up with 30-45 schools in the end. If the other schools would workout something like I mentioned earlier, it would be a better format for them as well. Even better than the current format. They would actually have a seat in the big playoff. Games would be way more interesting and more competitive across the board. The big winners are the fan, who gets way more competitive matchups; and the players, who finally get paid their worth.

So we actually believe tOSU, Michigan, USC are all going to turn down massive amounts of money to keep playing glorified high schools in the BIG and PAC? When they can increase the competition and get way more money? And also deal with ESPN saying the real champion is the SEC champion? Because those other schools play too many cupcakes? Yeah, that's not happening for more than a few years.

You can believe in God and still be skeptical of organized religion. God doesn't have to come down to Earth and tell us anything. The bible could be man-made (or not) and there could still be a God. If you want real understanding, science can help. I believe there's a high probability our world, and the universe, was designed. Most of science actually points in that direction. Look how everything works together in such a uniformed and complex way (at least in every way but quantum, which is the "magic", the brains behind it all). Even evolution, life evolves to keep up with the changes in nature. If our world was designed, there would probably need to be a Designer. It could be a force or intelligent beings on another planet or in the multiverse or whatever and we are in a simulation or something else. There are a million possibilities. When we play video games, our characters get more than one life. There's very little difference in the material of AI and us. We are all made of the same thing; just cooked a little differently. Robots will reach the singularity at some point soon. And when a robot dies, we have the ability to bring it back to life. Who says the same can't be done with human beings? By our possible maker? We've somehow been brainwashed, over ten thousand years, to think God must be in a book and that's nonsense. God can exist and has never shown "itself" to our kind. If more people were educated this way, and learned science, we wouldn't be having the issues of religion overtaking our government. Human beings believe in organized religion for two reasons: they are brainwashed from an early age. And they fear death and need hope. Well, guess what? You can have hope and question organized religion. Comfort and hope can be found in science. In nature.Our founding fathers were such people. It's how they wrote one of the finest documents of all time. They were open-minded and unbiased. We must teach math and science at an early age (3 years old) and provide a free college education to all poor kids (in STEMs) who otherwise don't have a chance in life. It would actually boost the economy into the stratosphere and pay for itself two-fold. We should also study all organized religion in school as history and discuss what we know and what we don't know, just like in college. Biblical/Historical archaeology should be a requirement. We should be teaching our kids how to build their own homes, etc. Parents should have online classes on how to raise kids and prepare them for society. Every parent should have to take it. The culture in America is broken. We must educate. To be honest, academia is broken as well. It needs a complete overhaul. Until we take care of those two issues, we will fight. Democrats vs Republicans; city vs country; religion vs academia. It all ties together and it is destroying our country. Our world. We have to make sure the poor get a fair chance growing up in this country. We must weaken the lobbyists hold on American politics (and that includes religious lobbyists). This very topic is a core issue dividing America today. To fix it, we must educate. But we first must fix our education system.

An SEC playoff is just a way to end the NCAA and force BIG, ACC and PAC to stop holding onto hope of some amateurism remaining in a billion dollar sport. The Bluebloods need better schedules, enforceable rules and a pay scale. Right now, college football is broken. I grew up the biggest fan of the sport and I haven't watched a full game in nearly a decade. It's not competitive. The integrity of the sport (recruiting) has gone from really bad to undescribable. A threat of an SEC playoff can also force concessions within the NCAA (like the playoff expansion, rules, etc). SEC has a lot of options. If the SEC leaves, the best of the rest will eventually join them.

The point is: if the SEC leaves, the best teams from the BIG, ACC and PAC are following them at some point. There won't be a rest of college football. All the big dogs will play each other at some point. I think it is best for competition. The ratings will be there hru the roof. They can actually enforce rules for once. I also feel the best of the rest should form a league, minus the bread, and have a championship with a 16 team playoff at the end. Play only 9-10 regular season games and then a playoff format. You can have other games going on as well to make sure everyone gets to play more than 9. The winner of the championshion should get a spot in the National Championship Playoff as the last seed. Not well thought out, but they can come up with something that works. It would be a win-win for everyone IMO.

If the SEC leaves, it's the end of the NCAA.

The Frommster has a, ahem, hard on and an arm around his own mother? That gives new meaning to old South slogan of "Gimme Some Sugar." Only in the backwoods of the American Southeast; and a sliver down the East side of Texas.

Outside of the Mack Brown era, right after the SWC probations instigated by Texas, this program has not recruited anywhere close to Blueblood status since the mid-80s. Mack's success coincided with sanctions in the state, which only lasted to the mid-2000s, when a new, legal way to pay "families" started to take over college football. Texas over the past ten years, and even many of the recruits in the later Mack Brown classes, are nothing more than the recruiting services fighting to keep the largest fan base in college football engaged in their product. Our classes have too much bread ranked in the 150-400 range, selected after all the other top schools pay for the elite talent. There's many that get the Texas bump as well. Get back to me when we're landing a fair share of top 100 players with speed, measurements, production and the tape to back it up. Our players are slow on the track and on the field. Sark upgraded that on the offensive side this year. He's switched up some positions with some young guys in the defensive backfield but there's still very little depth and a talent gap on defense. Still a long way to go. Or find a QB to cover up a bunch of weaknesses. I don't believe Sark got what he truly needed but this class is an improvement. Most of the coaches winning championships aren't any better than our coaches (outside of Charlie). They just pay more to land the best players. We may have chimpanzee coaches but so does pretty much everyone else.

A chimpanzee can do better than 5-7 with a paid roster. College schedules are soft, especially for Bluebloods who aggressively recruit and pay players. Too many teams schedule cupcakes and there's only about 20 teams who can keep up. A chimpanzee would win no less than 8 to 9 in the absolute worst of years with paid top 100 talent up and down the roster. A fucking gorilla just won a title at L$U. A gorilla lacking the communication skills of Koko the Gorilla. And Lester the Baboon, who literally couldn't talk, won a title before him. A baboon that eats grass. And had two strokes. Yes, you heard that correct. Last year's title winner is fucking awful. The guy isn't a good head football coach. The NFL laughs at that joker. This is college football. If you are a Blueblood and you are paying the going rate, you win in nearly every case. Coaching takes a back seat.

Jimbo is such a lying scumbag. People have called out Saban for his dirty laundry in the past. You know how he handled it? He didn't even respond to most of them. Jimbo gets up there and starts ranting like a crazy man (and lying). Jimbo's closet runs way deeper than just paying players. His programs are known to hold up crimes and a number of other things. Here's just one article on the guy: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.newsobserver.com/sports/college/article10092839.html

I was scrolling from the bottom of the page when I read this and immediately considered an argument. I then noticed the poster's name.

He sounds like just what a guy needs to function in the NCAA.

I think Addison would also seal the deal for Arch Manning. It's tangible evidence that Texas is serious about turning this around. One year ago, there was very little offensive talent on this team. Suddenly, Texas will be inexperienced but talented at QB and OL. The skill positions would be one of the two or three most talented in the country. The commitment to land elite players would be enough to convince Manning IMO.