Things you believe in but cannot prove

[chacoguy]

@olivesmarch4th

I believe that I have understood the True Ultimate Meaning of Life with perfect certainty and clinical conviction twice in my lifetime, and both times the meaning was this: love is all that matters or ever mattered or ever will matter in this world. I don’t mean romantic love that makes you high, I mean the love that is often hard work, the kind where you commit acts that are loving regardless of what you feel inside in that moment, the kind where you see someone else suffering and you help. This sort of love is the only thing that matters. I don’t mean I discovered this as emotional truth, I mean I discovered it as objective reality, like gravity. Love will be here, always, long after everything else has faded away. I know it.

Here! Here!

If any of you doubt that this is not factually true, allow yourself for one dark second to imagine a world where it was not true.

::Shudder::

[Bobotheoptimist]

I believe there is something out there besides overactive imaginations that account for stories of ghost, spirits, etc. Don’t know that I believe in ghosts and spirits, however.

[Hazle_Weatherfield]

I still believe in true, everlasting love, even thought I’ve never experienced it.

[dark2phoenix]

I believe that people can be matched soul mates, but how to you PROVE it?

I believe that there is life on other planets, but there is no way to prove that right now.

I believe the random number generator hates me, and someday I will prove it!

I believe the weighted companion cube would have loved me if I hadn’t killed it.

[gonzomax]

@FallenAngel

There’s no eternal reward for people, but all dogs do, indeed, go to heaven.

Not pit bulls.

[Beware_of_Doug]

@olivesmarch4th

I believe that I have understood the True Ultimate Meaning of Life with perfect certainty and clinical conviction twice in my lifetime, and both times the meaning was this: love is all that matters or ever mattered or ever will matter in this world. I don’t mean romantic love that makes you high, I mean the love that is often hard work, the kind where you commit acts that are loving regardless of what you feel inside in that moment, the kind where you see someone else suffering and you help. This sort of love is the only thing that matters. I don’t mean I discovered this as emotional truth, I mean I discovered it as objective reality, like gravity. Love will be here, always, long after everything else has faded away. I know it.

I believe in a somewhat reduced version of your philosophy: that all that matters in this world is what you do when you don’t feel like doing it. This belief has made me tired, bitter, and lazy, but somehow it persists.

[brujaja]

@matt_mcl

I believe that good, well-prepared, home-cooked or classy restaurant food, no matter how sinful, is less fattening than crappy fast food/depanneur junk food. This is because pleasure burns calories.

Seconded. Less fattening and less unhealthy, particularly when I make it myself. Remember when butter was evil, & margarine was the healthy alternative? Until they found out about hydrogenated fat. Anyway, moderation. But pleasure definitely burns calories. I know because since I’ve been single again, I’ve put on weight. ;)

[CutterJohn]

@Crown_Prince_of_Irony

I also believe other life exists elsewhere in the universe, possibly even in our galaxy.

But I also believe that manned interstellar travel cannot be practically developed, so we’ll never find conclusive proof. Bummer.

I believe that life exists within the galaxy, but no other intelligent life than us.

I also believe that manned interstellar travel will one day be licked by good old fashioned human ingenuity and a trip to other stars not only within ones lifetime, but within days, will be possible.

Thus, I believe that man will spread across the galaxy and make it his home, drink many beers, have many wars, and generally have a good old time of it until the heat death of the universe. Though by then we’ll have found a new universe to play in, or be able to make our own.
I also believe dogs are at least 10 times better as pets than cats.

[BigBertha]

I believe that as soon as you change lines in a supermarket, the cashier deliberately goes slower, just to mess with you.

I believe they don’t let you become an elected politician unless you are crooked.

I believe there is a conspiracy so secret and vast, no one will ever discover it.

[Stan_Shmenge]

@Creaky

Yeah, but once you’re cured, that’s it. No more money to be made from medications and treatment and hospital stays. See, a cure is a one-time deal, no matter how much it costs, but the other stuff can go on forever!

You have absolutely no idea how cancer is cured, do you? Hint: Chemotherapy and radiation are NOT like insulin. They don’t “keep you alive on it” (a quack claim), they damn near kill you with it, and if you survive and the cancer doesn’t, then you beat the odds. Please stop repeating this nonsense.

[Stan_Shmenge]

Oh, and we already DO have cures for many cancers, and the cure rates are improving all the time.

[Martini_Enfield]

I believe (but cannot prove) Democracy doesn’t work.

Unfortunately, as Sir Winston once said, it’s the worst form of Government, except for all the others that have been tried.

But that still doesn’t mean it works, IMHO.

[Kicks]

@sundog66

I believe that it’s impossible to prove anything. Trying to prove this runs into obvious problems.

okay Mr. Empirical

[jali]

I believe in Karma.

[ralph124c]

-I believe that LBJ profited immensely from the Vietnam War.
-I believe that the Kennedy family was deeply involved with the Mafia.
-I believe that Lee Harvey Oswal had some very strange relationship with the CIA.
-And finally, I believe the CIA has been run by borderline psychopaths for much of its existance.

[treis]

@ultrafilter

Every even integer greater than two can be expressed as the sum of two primes.

1+16=17
2+15=17
3+14=17
4+13=17
5+12=17
6+11=17
7+10=17
8+9=17

What am I missing here?

[ultrafilter]

@treis

1+16=17
2+15=17
3+14=17
4+13=17
5+12=17
6+11=17
7+10=17
8+9=17

What am I missing here?

The definitions of “prime” and “even”, as far as I can tell.

[Snarky_Kong]

@ultrafilter

The definitions of “prime” and “even”, as far as I can tell.

I think just even.

[Snarky_Kong]

@gonzomax

Not pit bulls.

http://www.kwtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=9494086

That pit bull got shot in the head defending his family. I’m pretty sure it’d go.

[Hostile_Dialect]

I believe, but cannot prove, that there is no such thing as ghosts, possession, afterlife, etc. With my father’s recent passing, I’ve found that any implications that he’s milling about the house “communicating” with me by making the refrigerator moan and locking doors feel offensive and creepy. Ick.

I believe, but cannot prove, that faster-than-light travel is possible and will be achieved during this century or the next.

I believe, but cannot prove, that humankind has subtle powers of telepathy/intermental clairvoyance that it isn’t often given credit for, which can be accounted for through a complex system of body and facial activity without invoking the supernatural whatsoever.

@Beware of Doug

Jazz, long considered “America’s music,” is retreating to a regional taste centered on New York.

Surely you mean Tokyo?

@Creaky

I belive that they have found a cure for cancer but they won’t release it because there’s too much money that will be lost.

Yes, I know, I’m a crackpot. Come up with all of the reasons ya want to refute this but I still believe it.

I don’t mean to convert you, but I want to run this past you and see what you think of it: since “cancer” refers not to a single disease but to a wide and incredibly diverse range of illnesses with a few common characteristics, do you think it is actually possible to develop a single unified cure for it? Wouldn’t that be like treating, say, negative emotion in general, instead of something specific and targetable like “dysthymic disorder”?

@Creaky

Yeah, but once you’re cured, that’s it. No more money to be made from medications and treatment and hospital stays. See, a cure is a one-time deal, no matter how much it costs, but the other stuff can go on forever!

You’re assuming that such a cure would necessarily be totally effective, and that it would completely prevent all possibility of future cancers, which makes no sense at all if you know the first thing about cancer. To the contrary, my father died from complications of a theoretically successful lymphoma cure, which, even if he had lived through it, could very well have done nothing to prevent the development of new lymphoma and/or other cancers down the road. I’ve heard of people having the same procedure and having a clean bill of health for 5 years, then all of a sudden having lymphoma again.

If you define “cure” as meaning a miraculous one-shot treatment which inherently wipes out all possibility of contracting the illness again in the future, well, you’re defining the word out of existence. According to Merriam-Webster, that meaning of “cure” means simply “recovery or relief from a disease” or “a course or period of treatment”. Permanence is only even briefly hinted at in definition 3, which refers to social ills rather than medical illnesses: “a complete or permanent solution or remedy <seeking a cure for unemployment>”. Cite.

IOW, you’re starting from a position of medical ignorance. That’s fine–I was totally ignorant about cancer until my father’s life began to hang in the balance–but it might be worth it to make sure you know what you’re talking about before you go about setting beliefs in stone.

@Askance

I believe that dark matter, dark energy, string theory, multiple universes, and all such unprovable and unfalsifiable theses will be rendered trivially silly in retrospect when someone comes up with a more sensible explanation for what’s really going on.

Seconded. I’ve always thought that these sorts of things were shoddy post-hoc mindfuck exercises at best. I appreciate the process and the knowledge that these theories have brought to the table, but I look forward to the day when dark matter is filed in the same folder as the universal aether.

@FallenAngel

I’ve said before, and will say again, dogs ask of us only what we can spare and give in return all that they have. It’s the best bargain humanity ever made.

Yeah, except for the disgusting smell/dirt/bacteria/poop-everywhere thing. But that’s not their fault, it’s just something we shouldn’t have been so quick to sign away IMHO.